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itsclydebitches · 1 year

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Saw your ask about Curious Cat and it made me think about how some of the new characters we get introduced (Leo, Cordovin, Ace Ops, Curious Cat) or the old characters coming back (Ironwood) are villains.

I know this isn't a huge number and we get introduced with allies as well, but outside of Maria in Vol 6, characters like Pietro, Terra, Saphron and Happy Huntresses (ouside of Robyn) don't that much screentime as the characters who get revealed as villains later on. (Ok, this one isn't a really strong point as characters screentime has to do with their relevence to the plot)

I didn't mind with Leo being a enemy for the main characaters, because it showcased Salem's influance and how through fear she can back you into a corner, until there's nothing left for to do, outside of doing what she wants or dying.

But unlike with Ace Ops, Ironwood & Curious Cat, I don't feel frustration about him being a villain, because by the time we get to Vol 7-9, the main villains are pretty much established and introduced. And with that, I end up wanting to see more of them and how they will impact the plot.

So, why are we shoving characters like Ironwood, Ace Ops & Curious Cat into the villains territory, taking up the screentime, when we already have villains who could use more screentime to get fleshed out or maybe fleshed out a villain who is planned to have a redemption and join the good guys side???

I already got tired from that fight Cordovin had with our main ones and the last thing I needed in the later volumes was yet another interesting, new character be against Team RWBYJNR + Oscar & Qrow.

With the themes of trust and working together and the whole task GoL & GoD left Ozma with, you would assume they would be making allies, while also being careful so that another Leo incident wouldn't happen. But, nope. Nothing like that at all.

And if you think about, Volumes 6-9 follow pretty much the same formula Volume 5 had with it's new characters - character gets introduced and at some point are against our main characters.

I'm not saying it's a bad if it happens in the story, but this trope not only takes away the attention & a chance to get fleshed out from the main villains, but it's been present in this story for so long that it becomes dull and predictable.

If we ever get Volume 10, I might as well assume there will be a new character, who will later on betray the main ones.

Also with Curious Cat, it's kind of weird how Curious Cat is the main villain in this volume, while Neo, a villain since the early days has less than 15 minutes of screentime in Vol 9 and gets lesser punishment than Curious Cat.

Obviously every Volume needs its own selection of antagonists/villains for the heroes to face as they make their way towards Salem. So you're right, the problem is absolutely that RWBY keeps introducing new ones instead of utilizing what they already have, not that we have a large cast of antagonists at all. I know it's been said a million times before, but having the group face off against the Ace Ops and Ironwood while Salem and her henchmen are right there, just waiting around off screen, is really the epitome of this problem.

A sub-issue specific to RWBY is how continually adding in opponents also messes with the supposed importance of the shows allusions. Lionheart is based off a character who realizes he had courage all along. Ironwood is based off a character who realizes he had a heart all along. Curious is based off a character who is often annoying, baffling, and slightly creepy, but ultimately a neutral/benevolent party. Some of the others are a bit more complicated—Robyn becomes an ally even if it was A Choice to start things off with the group against the Robin Hood figure and, frankly, she doesn't do anything for the poor; RWBY at least tried to impart a moral message about friendship with the Ace Ops, similar to an Aesops fable, even if it crashed and burned—but the only allusion I'd say truly works is Cordovin, an antagonist based on a character who, when faced with a difficult situation (how do you feed this many kids?) responds with cruelty and violence ("whip" them and send them to bed without bread).

A story is a series of choices and each choice should have a reason attached, even if—like the early days of RWBY—the reason is just, "It looks awesome." However, more often than not I ask myself, "Why?" of RWBY. Why introduce more villains when you already have a whole collection that needs development? Why take all these good or neutral inspirations and make them Evil™ when so much else rides on playing your allusions straight? Why when you have problems like, "Our main girls aren't getting enough focus" is the response "So we'll toss in Jaune, and Neo, but Neo won't be the biggest threat that's the Jabberwalker, no wait never mind they're already dead, Neo is the threat, except when the Volume's villain is actually the Cat and the group's focus is on the handful of one-episode side-characters instead"?

When talking about the cast bloat I've seen a couple of people say, particularly in regards to Volume 9, that RWBY had to populate this new world, but no. They actually didn't. Not to this extent, anyway. As I've mentioned before, I've been working my way through Demon Slayer, a series that actually knows how to manage its characters. The structure of Protagonist + Two Secondary BFFs + One Hashira is more than enough for each arc, especially when the focus needs to remain on Tanjiro. So the story introduces one or two new characters that serve very specific purposes—usually providing the heroes with information about the latest demon mystery—and they get an equally small number of details that add a spark of personality... but they're left as mostly flat, background characters; providing depth to the new location without detracting from the main cast. The bulk of our time goes towards a) introducing the arc's villain, b) developing the Hashira, and c) developing the trio + Nezuko. At 11-ish episodes (roughly Volume 9's runtime) that's more than enough to juggle. If RWBY were writing it though each arc would have a slew of new characters facing off against the heroes while the main antagonist just kinda hangs around off-screen and the fandom keeps asking, "What happened to those other twenty beloved characters that were just left behind and forgotten?"

I'm not saying anime as a whole doesn't have a problem with character bloat, but at least most of the overwhelmingly large casts I've encountered maintain that structure, deliberately, of moving swiftly through a new collection of characters to show off their unique powers and personalities. RWBY tries to integrate the newcomers too deeply into an already full story, these newcomers frequently fill roles that should be going to established characters, and frankly.... the newcomers aren't very interesting. When I meet New Character #89164 in most anime I can at least look forward to that over-the-top personality and crazy cool ability; their very existence is entertaining. RWBY is like, "Here's a useless talking mouse we're going to kill." :/

#rwde #rwby #mymetas #long post

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inu-jiru · 2 years

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Damn Jazz Back At It Again With The Helluva Boss Rambles

Back on my bullshit again with another post now that I’ve mellowed out from the shock of how shit that episode was lol

I wish mobile made it easier to add the “Keep Reading” tab but it’s fine

I’ve seen so many people go around being like “o it’s ok if Stella’s generic and not given more personality like everyone else because women can be bad didn’t you know that something something Amber Herd” and apparently anyone who thinks otherwise is just a Vivziepop hater who thinks she’s a misogynist (love the strawman shit mmm so juicy). And while evil for evil’s sake can be fun and cool in something like Sleeping Beauty (aka an adaptation of a fairy tale that’s already a story of “good vs evil”), why would you expect me to be chill with that in a show where the demons are, for the most part, more than just evil demons? If Stella was some minor, one-off character like that asshole imp guy at Loo Loo Land, that’d be one thing, but she’s not. She’s one of the main antagonists. This isn’t a “good vs. evil” story where you don’t need to worry about that kind of thing, Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel are supposed to be more than that. I’d be just as confused if Valentino or Vox, for every second of screentime they had, were doing nothing but going “haha rape haha prostitution haha tv is so cool” for 25 minutes and that’s it. But I digress.

I’m writing this because I was suddenly reminded of a character that’s basically what Stella could’ve been: Flowey. Flowey is just as volatile and agressive as Stella is, attacking you, killing you, and possibly having done countless genocide runs in the past with his own ability to RESET. Then, we get his backstory and find out who he used to be and why he’s the way he is. He’s an unfeeling sociopathic child. He was created with absolutely no way of feeling empathy because he has no SOUL. The child that he used to be is angry, longing for his past and his old friend, and was put into this situation for reasons that weren’t even his fault. Flowey is also a victim, but that doesn’t mean he can’t also be evil or do hurtful things. Whether or not you choose to show him pity or mercy is up to the player, but the fact that he’s that complex enough to warrant that choice is just part of Undertale’s writing. Hell, even Toriel is a better Stella than what Stella is in “canon”. I personally don’t like Toriel, but she does have depth to her (until the end where she just waltzes in and takes over the situation and no one does a thing to stop her because it’s Toriel and I guess everyone’s just chill with the traitorous queen coming in and acting like she’s in charge). Toriel comes in acting all sweet and nice, but is very clingy and definitely has issues with guilt and a black-and-white morality to justify her own actions. She’s not simply “ah, my child have some pie and we’ll be a family my child” 24/7. She’s a spiteful bitch, a hypocrite, and runs away from her problems. Again, this is because Undertale’s writing is (for the most part) consistent with giving it’s characters more depth underneath the memes and quotable dialogue.

Now, why am I writing all this about Undertale? Because it and HB/HH are on similar levels of writing. They both try to show more than just what’s at face value. Charlie is nice and sweet but will throw hands and has self-doubts, Alastor is everyone’s nightmare, but according to the comics, he does crave genuine interaction and is much nicer towards women (aside from Vaggie but my theory is that it’s because she’s not as feminine as Charlie or the Sheep Woman and far less easy to charm). So if Alastor, a mass murderer and cannibal who is more than likely going to do everything he can to mess with the Hotel’s success for his own entertainment, can have elements of good in him, then why the fuck can’t Stella? Oh, I know why, because Alastor isn’t interfering with the “romance”. I already didn’t like Stolitz before but Season 2 has nuked any chance of making me change my mind. This whole “romance” is being pushed so hard that it’s tainting the writing with retcons and things that just make no sense. Why would Octavia say “you ruined it” to Stolas in episode 2 if Stella was apparently just mean and nasty the whole time and Stolas was just soooo innocent? Why does the Ozzie’s song frame it like Stella and Octavia are victims of Stolas fucking up if Stella was always secretly the evil one and not Stolas? Why is Stolas ashamed if he was so proudly yelling about his divorce in front of her friends? Why is Goetia divorce a thing if the Goetia family looks down on it and sets up arranged marriages? Why the fuck is Stella just around and eating at the dinner table like they’re married if she can’t stand Stolas? Why is she ranting about Stolas being a cheater on the phone, if they’re separated and if she just doesn’t care about anything but money? And why the dickshit would Stella, someone who everyone is so fucking sure is only in it for her image, just blabbing about how shit her marriage is if that would just make her look like a loser who’s settling for trash? It makes no fucking sense unless it’s all just some poorly done retcon of earlier events. Hell, the pilot is supposedly non-canon, and yet a scene of it pops up in the new episode, so I can’t even be sure what’s true or not.

Sigh, but I guess at the end of the day, I saw this coming. They’re trying so hard to push Stolitz that the writing has to suffer for it. I’m not even sure I want to continue the series, if it’s just gonna become some genetic telenovela where everyone is so evil unless they wanna help Stolas in some way because he’s “such a victim”. I never wanted to have to write something like this and I sure as shit never foresaw myself reblogging critical content, but it is the way it is, I guess. But, that’s what rewrites and AUs are for, and I’ll be working on mine.

Anyway, that’s it for now unless I find something else to ramble about. Later.

#helluva critical #helluva boss #helluva spoilers #undertale mention #just thought i’d tag just in case #jazz rambles #slight rant #wanting consistent writing = being a misogynist is not a take I thought I’d hear this week #Same energy as turning red is bad because there’s no 9/11 reference

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dememetor · 3 years

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hiiii, hope ur having a great day!

i loved the kissing hc, could u do a part 2 with hirugami and oikawa?

of course feel free to ignore this if u dont want to do it, thank uuuuu

hi! thank you so much for the request, hope you're having a wonderful day too anon! (also i hope i did hirugami okay and not ooc since i haven't finished the manga yet and he only has like 2 minutes of screentime shsj)

Kissing headcanons pt 2

kissing headcanons part 1

characters hirugami sachirou, oikawa tooru, kenma kozume, bokuto koutarou

warnings kiSsiNg but you knew that already also mentions of choking? and i swear a little

Hirugami Sachiro

is a really good kisser

his kisses are always smooth, pouring into each other; he sets a nice steady rhythm and lets your lips go with the slightest pop, like we get it you can kiss

tries to seem chill, but is really anxious the first time

obviously wants you to have a good time and wants to impress you which leads to him being a little tense in the beginning - is always hyper-aware of your every movement, trying to reciprocate and figure out what you want him to do

but once he relaxes and realises you just want him to be himself and he gives in,, hnngh

gentle but firm, tangles his fingers into your hair and leads the kiss that way

other hand is resting on your waist (usually) under your shirt

(also he can 100% unhook a bra with only one hand and from behind your back, it is actually fascinating)

(suspicious, but fascinating)

doesn’t really like tongue

but loves nose kisses

also for some reason likes tugging at your lower lip, like gently biting down

usually when you’re done making out he pulls you close and peppers your whole face with light kisses

he is just,, the absolute best best boy

i’m sorry you’ll have to top him

Oikawa Tooru

don’t get me wrong he’s all for switching and teasing and he loves seeing you all flustered and with swollen lips after a makeout session

but you can’t look me in the eye and tell me he doesn't like being topped

i mean he has to be in charge of everything when he's on the court so being able to come home, relax and let you take care of him is a nice change

ok ok i'm getting kind of distracted with this one, these are just kissing headcanons

like hirugami, is an absolutely amazing kisser, like this man knows what he's doing

you could kiss him for an hour straight and you wouldn’t be bored

loves it when you take him by the collar of his shirt and pull him in, that shit gets him SO flustered

like push him onto the bed, pinning one of his arms down, your other hand finding its way from his brown locks to his neck and squeezing gently, making him just enough dizzy, like please he loves it so much

i feel like he’s always horny so a makeout session could happen literally anywhere

no but seriously, you haven’t watched ONE movie together without ending up on top of each other

Kenma Kozume

soft, soft, soft, soft

doesn’t make a big deal out of kissing, but when you kiss him you always feel loved

was never type for longer kisses, i feel like he gets bored pretty easily

kisses! on the! gaming chair!

kisses on the forehead

kisses while he’s gaming - ok but not for long because “babe, not now”, like bAbE nOt nOw stfu and kiss me

but cuddling while he’s gaming? oh yes

lazy making out on his bed, with dim neon lights from his setup illuminating the room, him murmuring something against your lips, not wanting to pull away first

something about him makes you feel safe, you’re never uncomfortable around him, you can be yourself without worrying about doing something embarrassing

missing his lips when you lean in? accidentally crashing your teeth? he simply doesn’t care

the sight of him with red cheeks, half-lidded eyes and lips slightly parted, still tasting your kiss?

beautiful

Bokuto Koutarou

kisses you as if every kiss were your last

does the thing where he lifts you up and spins you around, meeting your lips halfway through

be prepared for him to just grab you under your thighs and lift you up

he likes to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you closer to him, holding you tight against his chest

and by tight, i mean his kisses are bone-crushing

so, so, so excited to kiss you

when he gets ahold of you, he won't let go that easily, like honestly good luck getting out of his embrace

he just wants to show you how much he loves you?? he's doing his best, if you don't marry this man i will

warning: don't try to tease him by pulling away, he will get the biggest pout

you can literally see the light leave his eyes as the betrayed expression forms on his face in slow motion and he realises he's not gonna get the kiss he wants

pretends he's hurt but only lasts 5 minutes (record time 7 minutes 36 seconds) before he's begging you to take him back again

god he's just so,, proud to have you by his side like he just loves showing you off to his friends like see that's MY partner!!

not even a kissing headcanon but I could talk about this man for days like just imagine waking up to him and the first thing you see in the morning is his smile ahsjsiw9cn

ALSO, it's the cutest thing when you can feel his lips curl into a small smile when you lean in for a kiss or like a proud grin when he manages to make you laugh

I love him

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myshyyangel · 4 years

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BLs of 2020 *year in review(>×<?) *

Hi, it's me again. I just wanted to say first, this is my opinion, second, please, do not send me any message to tell me how wrong I am. THIS IS MY OPINION, feel free to comment on the post BUT don't send me messages threatening me. Anyways, as I said yesterday, today I'll do my list of bls that stood out to me and why, I mean the best lol.

7. Gameboys - good.

So gameboys, Woah! It was good. Great script, acting on point and direction. It was different obviously, but it managed to stay on top of "bls based on the pandemic that we are living while the bl was being filmed". The acting is on another level, it's funny in the right places and serious too. There was not much of one side and then nothing from the other. My problem with bls is how they tend to be unbalanced, and even if Gameboys was filmed during dark times, it managed to surprise everybody *I'm sure*. The side characters were not overwhelming, and the acting was good too. Yes. We love to see it. Re-watch value 8.5/10

6.Why r u - good-ish.

Why R U, so I was skeptical with this one, but I wanted to see how Saint (whom character I hated so much in LBC) would turn himself around and prove that he is a good actor. And boy, he did not come here to play. Zee was good too, and Tommy and Jimmy. Now, aside from them, it was a mess. So that's why my grading is good-ish. I skipped half of everybody else's story. These two couples were the saving grace, and like here's my thing... Overload. Wanting to cover a lot but you don't have to. Anyway, I'm glad we got to see the whole story completed now. It was a good series, the writing was a little questionable but the acting was there. The story was cliché, but still. Puuur. Re-watch value 8/10 but like only if it's the main couples. 6/10 if it's the whole series.

5.Mr. Heart - good, cute, aksjaks melt my heart.

Sooo... I just loved this series. The thing is, the actors were so likable and loveable that I didn't even care about how short it was. But I did re-watch it and some things need some work. The script was one of them, it was kinda confusing, but as I said, the actors are so charming that you need to watch it again just to pay attention to the whole thing. Anyways, the direction was good, and the color palette... LOVED IT. The story itself is a little cliché like almost every bl that came out this year. Re-watch value 8/10

Now MY TOP BLS OF THIS YEAR.

4.Where your eyes linger - excellent

First off, LET'S GO KOREAAA YAAASS. second, mmm Viki girl- I had to subscribe just for this series. Third, ugh It was so good. The acting, the script, the direction, the colors, the acting, aksjaksk what else can I say?. The production team did know where to take the series and in such a short time. Both actors shine and their chemistry is palpable. The music was perfect. I mean, best of the best when it comes to bls. I hate to compare but, how come Korea made this bl and it became UNFORGETTABLE and half of the bls that came out were all the same? I think it was bold to separate the main characters, I thought it wouldn't happen cause you know... Cliché. BUT IT DID HAPPEN and the best part is how the end comes fully in circle. Anyways, re-watch value 10/10.

3.Gaya sa Pelikula - unforgettable

This series is everything you wish every bl was in 2020. The lessons that they tried *and succeeded*to teach the audience, how to call an LGBTQ+ person, HOW YOU CAN BE RAISED BY PARENTS WHO ARE CONSERVATIVE and still not act like an AS*HOLE, the script was magic, the direction was on point, the acting. This series would go down in history as one of the best bls. Thank you to the actors, to the crew, and everybody else. Re-watch value 10/10.

2. 2gether - excellent

Polarizing at best. 2gether marked me, yes, it did. From the acting to the story. Yes, I know, "there are hundreds of bls similar..." not to me. And there's just so much I can take from this series, I even wrote a long character analysis on this app, but I'll summarize. Growers, there's character development, there are jokes and seriousness. And the plot is new *to me* so I was surprised. No character falls into the same category as other bl characters, and the energy the actors bring is just amazing. The color palette (yes, I am obsessed with it, it gives me different moods that's why I feel like it is important in a series) was beautiful, the music used was EVERYTHING, my only complaint is the direction, too many cuts (GMMTV girl you better stop). The cast shines. The finale is what was polarizing, no kiss, but I was sooo okay with it. Re-watch value 11/10, yes, I've seen it many times after it ended.

MY NUMBER ONE IS...

1. Cherry Magic. Excellent, unforgettable, chef kisses, best BL IN THE WORLD.

Cherry magic is the perfect example of why you don't need to have 45 minutes to make a good ss series. 20-24 minutes and we still got this much. Character development was there, cute moments... Everywhere to be found, the script is A HUNDRED for me, the director did not get me dizzy *giving actors screentime TOGETHER IN JUST ONE SHOT was just loveable, thanks*, the acting: out of this world. When you watch Cherry Magic, you feel like you are part of Adachi's world, or like you are watching a little kid growing up and you feel proud because of the decisions he takes. The same thing with Kurosawa, I've never seen a bl character like his, the guy is confident but respectful and it just makes you wonder if you'll ever find someone like that. The side characters didn't outshine but were not at the corner. That's what I call BA LAN CE. This is my favorite bl series of all time (which used to be DarkBlueKiss). I hope we get to see more, NO SPECIAL EPS PLEASE DONT RUIN IT. Re-watch value 1000000/10

What you guys think? What are y'all favs bls of this year? Some series I'm still on it like ITSAY and Hello Stranger. While there are some new bls that I'll review when they end.

Credits to the creators of the gifs, I do not own them, therefore if you see yours, message me and I'll add you, thank you.

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liliaeth · 4 years

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Fix it’s for Teen Wolf

I can think of a few things that would have made Teen Wolf better.

1. I wanted more focus on Scott’s emotional response to what happened to him. I don’t mind that Scott isn’t the type who complains about getting hurt. The problem for me was that the show rarely dealt with the consequences of Scott’s pain, and thus to the casual viewer often made it look like he simply didn’t mind, that being hurt didn’t bother him at all. Or worse, that nothing all that bad had happened in the first place.

Doing this undermined many of the hallucination scenes. For example, in Season 2’s Party Guessed, we get hallucinations for Stiles, Jackson, and Allison which give us a view into psychology, letting us know their issues without spelling them out. For Scott, we got Allison making out with kanima Jackson. Compared to the others, it felt shallow and confusing. The writers couldn’t even bother to give us dialog. He received the same treatment in Season 5, when they read the book designed to trigger their memories about the Dread Doctors. Stiles gets yet another scene about his dead mother who has been crucial to his story since Season 1. Lydia sees her grandmother and her connection to both Lydia’s powers and Eichen House, as well as foreshadowing her treatment at the hands of Valack. Malia about her Mom and sister’s death at the hands of the Desert Wolf, which is her entire arc. And Scott? He gets a nightmare about a dog that was never mentioned before and would not be mentioned after.

2. I wanted more focus on Scott’s trauma in general. In Season 1, Scott was repeatedly mentally and physically violated by Peter, terrorized and abused by Derek, and hunted by the Argents, and it was taken as a given. Even the recaps at the beginning episodes in other seasons barely show any of that. For example, Gerard attacking Scott in clear view at the hospital, stabbing him, and threatening his mother, never appeared in any of the recaps, even in episodes where it would have been important to remind the viewers about it.

While the show had no issue showing us over and over again how Stiles or Derek or Isaac or Allison or any white character really was hurt, they did not focus on the pain Scott was put through, and thus let the viewers conclude that those events didn’t matter.

The show literally had Scott try and kill himself, twice in less than two days, first in Frayed, by refusing to let himself heal, and then again in Motel California, yet neither of those suicide attempts are mentioned even once afterwards. And this while it would have been a good call back in s5b, when Scott is once again not letting himself heal after Theo killed him. and yet again, no mention whatsoever.

3. I wanted more consequences for certain characters. I liked that Scott and to a lesser extent Derek were confronted with the consequences of their actions. When they screwed up, they got called out on it. When they did something wrong, it wasn’t excused. Then they made up for it.

In contrast, certain characters, especially Stiles, got to do whatever they wanted and it was either dismissed as funny or used to make them look sympathetic. Stiles got to be mean and cruel, and the narrative still treated him as if he were the best friend ever. He got to assault people, hurt them, and it was treated as if somehow he was the victim.

For example, I would have liked Stiles a lot better, if when he tortured Scott with lacrosse balls, punishing him for who-knows-what, if someone else had called him out on it or if Scott had got to defend himself, instead of just taking it because Stiles was angry. Scott allowing Stiles to hurt him to maintain their friendship was a pattern between them, just as much as Scott taking responsibility for things that aren’t his fault. He keeps on doing it over the course of the show, but it would have been nice if the show at the very least had made it clear that that didn’t make Stiles behavior acceptable.

Just like I wish that Peter had actually faced consequences for his actions – and/or shown some kind of true remorse for his misdeeds--instead of the others just letting him hang around after all the horrible things he’d done or reduce it pettiness.

4. I would have liked more time spent on Melissa and the McCall family in general, especially on Melissa’s initial reaction to Scott being a werewolf. In the show, they barely spent two minutes total on Melissa’s reaction to finding out her son has been turned into a werewolf. By the end of s6b, she was barely even behaving like a mother anymore. Even to the point where we don’t even get a conversation between her and Chris about his attacks on her son before the two of them start dating. Now don’t get me wrong, I liked Chris and Melissa in a relationship, but it was missed opportunity to humanize both her and Scott that they didn’t bother to show her finding out about that and her reaction to it.

Instead we got the whole horror reaction, of her being horrified at seeing her son’s other face, the reaction that any LGBT kid fears when they come out to their parent. Which could have been a great metaphor, especially if they had then made it clear that Scott was bisexual.

5. I would have liked more focus on Boyd. The production time spent on Isaac and Erica, while Boyd’s arc was treated as almost an afterthought. We barely even got any hint on his past, in the episode before they killed him off. They started out with Boyd as the one who wanted to be like Scott, and then never explained it. Why not focus more on that, and their relationship?

(similar complaints go about Mason, and how little we knew about Mason, outside of him being Liam’s friend. Like... what was his relationship like with his parents? What is Mason interested in, what does he want to do with his life... how did he deal with the after effects of the Beast...

6. I would have liked more focus on Alan Deaton. The show had such huge potential with this character’s backstory, not just with the Hales but as an emissary in general. There was this whole mythology about druids that they barely even delved into.

To not even start on how little we knew about his personal life? Why did he and his sister have different last names? What was their relationship like?

Does he have any romantic relationships? Friendships, relationships in general?

Or how about more time spent on his role as a father figure to Scott, we got so few crumbs of their relationship when we should have gotten so much more

7. I would have liked more focus on Scott and Theo’s interaction in Season 6. I get that in 6a, they had Scott primarily focused on getting Stiles back, but I’ll never understand why they then didn’t use 6b, to deal with the fact that Theo had tried to murder Scott and was trying to make it up to him and the pack for what he’d done to Scott and the others.

I don’t mind Theo interacting with Liam. Those scenes were great, but they should have at least one scene with Scott and Theo dealing with the issues between them. For Theo’s sake, as much as Scott’s.

8. I would have liked a complete rework of Season 6A in its entirety. If you’re going to focus a season on an actor who isn’t available, then you have to make it about his impact on the others. Show us what difference this character made, by showing us the effects of his absence, rather than just try and make it about a romantic ship. (I’ve written a post about this already in greater detail, so limiting it to that, but seriously, that season was such a huge wasted opportunity.)

9. Actual character growth for Stiles. For a character who had as much screentime as Stiles did, it’s shocking just how little character growth Stiles had over the course of the entire show. This contrasts in a really bad way, when you look at how much every single other character grew and changed over the course of the show.

Just look at the last four episodes of 5b, to give an example. After almost an entire season of watching Stiles at his worst, focusing on emotional scene after emotional scene with him, he suddenly got relegated to comic relief. Why? Because they didn’t want Stiles to grow, because unless he grew, there was no way for him to go but down. If Stiles had taken responsibility for his actions, then they’d have had to admit that he did wrong in the first place. And they couldn’t have that happen.

10. And last but not least. More moments of the kids being kids. Even if it’s just proms and beach parties. Moments where we see the characters spend time together, when they aren’t trying to stop some bad guy. Where we can see them be friends, hang out with kids their own age. Even just to remind the audience just how young these children are. And where the viewers along with the characters can rest in between the horror, because doing so makes the horror hit far more strongly in contrast to the light.

11. Also, a better lighting budget, pretty please Davies, were a few more light bulbs that much to ask for?

#teen wolf #scott mccall #anti stiles #teen wolf fandom problems #alan deaton #vernon boyd #mason hewitt #theo raeken #melissa mccall #anti peter hale

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blueskyscribe · 3 years

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Beast Machines: Some Observations on Toys

So I think most TF fans have some notion of the usual arguments about BM (the BW characters being out of character, etc), no matter which side of the argument you fall on.

But I would like to point out how weird BM was as a show tied to a toyline.

The Toys for the Leaders

These were the toys for BM Optimus Primal and Megatron:

Optimus' figure was small and not show-accurate and was one of the weakest BM figures for its price point.

Megatron was even worse. He was TINY (but they sold him at the pricepoint of a bigger toy lololol) and just . . . bad. Look at that dragon tail just hanging off his elbow.

Megatron is supposed to be the Big Bad of the show!! If they didn't want to make a new, big mold for him then why not recolor his final Beast Wars toy (the huge dragon) and sell that again? "Oh dear, I hate my organic dragon form. Buuuut look how rad it looks now that it's silver and black."

You might be thinking, "Wait a minute, I've seen a big, cool toy of Primal that looks just like he did on BM. And I've seen a toy of Megatron as a head-spaceship."

Those toys exist, and they are cool. But they're not Beast Machines toys. They were sold in the Robots in Disguise (2001) line, which came after BM.

The point of a show like Beast Machines is "Child sees character on TV, immediately begs parent to buy representative toy". Not "Child sees character on TV, begs parent to buy a representative toy in three years after show is over."

No Size Consistency

Listen, I don't think the toys need to exactly match the show characters. But I think it's very weird that Nightscream, the bat, ONLY had an Ultra size toy. That's huge compared to his size on the show.

My other main issue, Megatron and Optimus having dinky toys, I've already touched on.

They Skipped the Dinosaurs

Did you know there were Beast Machines Dinobots? No, not Dinobot, the BW character, but Dinobots, like a faction. Their backcards explained that they were formatted using memories / data provided by Dinobot's spark. So it was like Dinobot was reaching out from the afterlife to help his friends.

First, that's a cool and touching idea. Second, they were awesome toys THAT WERE DINOSAURS and yet were never in the show. Even though kids love dinosaurs.

I can't believe we missed out on surprised Pachycephalosaurus with pop-up head.

The Dinobot leader was a repaint of original BW Megatron, which could've played into the whole "BM Megatron hates beast modes now", like he'd be personally enraged to see that. Also, a lot of these could easily have been adapted from BW character models.

The New Guys Deserved Better

There was no way every toy-character could / should be in the show. (It didn't happen in Beast Wars either.) That would be way too many assets and too many bots to characterize well. So I understand why we just had a small crew of heroes fighting Megatron and the Vehicons.

But maaaan, I wish we'd had different heroes from what we got.

First, it would've sidestepped all the "Are the BM bots out of character?" debates. (The answer is yes, btw.) Second, I just think it would've been nice to get to know new characters. Third, a lot of coolest toys never got any screentime.

Silverbolt, who had the worst BM toy, with his head peering out of his crotch in bird mode and wings that looked like a stupid cape, got to be in the show.

But not this cool bull.

Or this cool snake.

Or this cool UNICORN.

Just . . . what a waste.

What I Would've Done

Okay, so here's what I would've done if I had to keep the general premise (the Big Bad has taken over Cybertron and only a plucky group of survivors can defeat him and his Vehicons.)

1. The Big Bad would be Nightscream. This is so obvious it blows my mind. His toy is huge and bats freak out a lot of people. Just change his robot-mode head so it looks villainous instead of emo.

His motivation wouldn't be related to organics, it would be something like . . . he's siphoning off the energy from Cybertronians' sparks to become a god or summon Unicron--you know, anime bullshit.

2. Nightscream has taken over Cybertron via some kind of electrical macguffin, like a stasis grid that covers the planet or something. TFs are lying around the streets in permanent stasis.

But then! Optimus Primal & crew (with Megatron tied to the roof) literally crash into the planet. The crash disrupts the grid in a small area and some TFs awaken from stasis. They start exchanging info with the BW crew. Their sparks are so weak that they have to be transferred to new bodies to re-energize them, so the BW crew uses the protoform pods from Earth--which have been pre-programmed with an encyclopedia of Earth animals, which is how they get beast modes.

But then the stasis grid is put online again. A handful of Cybertronians escape--mostly new guys, but maybe one or two of the BW Maximals. Megatron also escapes.

Maybe over the course of the show more BW characters are rescued and added to the cast. But mostly it's focused on these new guys.

3. I would have half the new guys be Maximals and half be Predacons, for some inter-faction tension. (And ROMANCE?!?!) Nevertheless everyone knows they have to work together to defeat Nightscream.

4. If they really want to sell the crappy tiny Megatron toy, they could have him try to cut a deal with Nightscream, but then Nightscream backstabs him and dumps him in the mini body to mock him, idk.

5. After that Megatron decides he's really going to give it his all to defeat Nightscream. And he decides the way to do this is to clone Dinobot, because he LOVES cloning Dinobot. So he tries, but instead creates these other dinosaur robots. They have Dinobot's independent streak, so they flip Megatron the bird and leave.

6. The Dinobots are also trying to stop Nightscream, but they're constantly messing up the plans of the Predacon/Maximal group, and vice versa.

7. But in the end the good guys win. And they sell a lot of toys.

#Beast Machines #Beast Wars #Transformers #Dinobots #long post #toys #headcanons #I can't believe they managed to make a snake TF that looks that good #and then SQUANDERED them

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kaydeefalls · 4 years

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What would’ve been your ideal plot points/character arcs for star wars ep 9? The palpatine post reminded me how much tros just makes my head erupt in flames 🙃. Or alternatively, what’s your fave Star Wars thing?

OHHHH MY GOD THE PALPATINE THING WAS SO DUMB.

Okay. So. Part of the problem with ep 9 was ep 8. And here’s the thing, I mostly agreed with the choices made in TLJ (which...I know fandom was SHARPLY divided on that one). But so much of TROS felt like a deliberate refutation of every single plot point in TLJ, and that’s just...not how you freaking structure a trilogy, guys. This is not where you fight it out! Pick an arc and stick to it! So let’s assume, for starters, that ep 9 is NOT setting out to undo every decision made in ep 8, okay? And that includes the parts of TLJ I personally found incredibly dumb (see: Poe’s entirely story arc).

What I would have liked from ep 9:

1. A character-centric plot revolving around Rey taking up Luke’s mantle and facing off against Kylo Ren as the Big Bad (with Hux as the Lesser Bad; he can still do the knife-in-the-back betrayal shtick, that very much suited his character). Also, Rey really is a nobody, lineage-wise. Just like Anakin once was. The Force can be found in a scrappy desert scavenger, too.

2. Finn comes to terms with his own Force-sensitivity and realizes that’s what helped him break free of Stormtrooper conditioning; he and the other ex-troopers start a revolution within the ranks to help topple the First Order. This is crucial: it starts from within, not just some big space battle like we see in literally every other episode of all three trilogies. Troopers were people too, once. Stolen children. They rise up.

3. If there is a redemption arc for Kylo Ren, it comes from a sudden burst of self-awareness -- maybe looking out at the sea of Troopers engaged in their own civil war -- realizing oh shit, I did this, what the fuck did I do. I am not invested in Kylo Ren, I don’t think he deserved a redemption arc, but those threads WERE set up throughout eps 7 & 8 so it does make sense for them to play out.

4. I kind of think the Jedi order needed to be formally ended? Like, Rey and Finn realize that they need to forge their own paths in the Force, to find balance in a new way.

5. Poe does take up the General role after Leia’s passing (which should be handled...differently, IDK, I know there was no good way to handle Carrie Fisher’s loss but they could have done pretty much ANYTHING else with it). He has to actually kriffing strategize instead of just jumping into a ship and blowing things up, and he struggles with it, but he learns and grows. Rose plays a key role in this; she has more than two minutes of screentime.

6. Look, honestly, I don’t care if endgame pairing is Finn/Rey or Finn/Poe or everyone is just friends and that’s great. I just want their character arcs to make SENSE, dammit.

And on this topic, a fannish friend of mine wrote up a whole article last year on how they would have redone TROS, and frankly, I think they’re spot on - The Rise of Skywalker We Deserved. Very much worth a read!

#star wars #tros #ask me anything #obiwhan

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haikyuu-trash-can · 5 years

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Haikyuu fic rec - Bell, Book and Candle by Skittidyne

THE BEST HAIKYUU FANFIC YOU’LL EVER READ!!!!

@skittidyne

Okay so yeah this will be a long rant, but please stay with me on this one, you won’t regret it.

I’ve been reading copious amount of fanfiction since I was like 13 (which is 7 years now). I know my way around the block. And this magnum opus is The Number One best fanfiction I have ever read. This post details my top 100 reasons why.

It’s looooooong. How long? Most likely longer than anything you have ever read. It’s over 750k words long and it took me about 4 months to finish (because I was reading slower and slower as I was nearing the end because I never wanted it to end). 750k+ words of volleyball fanfiction. Yes.

Okay so here’s the kicker. It’s not about volleyball at all. It’s set in the modern world with the characters aged up and that world is your typical modern supernatural AU. You have your witches, psychics (Oikawa who can read your mind, anyone?), ghosts, cat spirits, uhh, virgin-blood-attracted-carnivore unicorns and all kinds of creatures from every lore imaginable.

I’m a sucker for these settings but that’s not what sold me on the fic. It’s one of those fics where every single character makes an appearance and it’s like seeing the canon Haikyuu come to life (with extra wings or tails here and there). Every single character is so spot on I could cry, even characters that didn’t really get much screentime.

It’s laugh-out-loud funny. I can’t count the number of times I burst out laughing in the middle of a scene and couldn’t stop for 5 minutes, not even to respond to my concerned roommate. It has some of the wittiest exchanged I have seen in fanfiction.

Now for you tumblr folks: Every. Single. Character. Is. Gay. There are transgender characters and gender non-conforming characters and they are handled in a way that feels very natural. The ships are always paired by the “most canon” axis with the occasional poly thrown in. So not only this has the best characterization and dialogue, it also has an incredibly sweet, kinky and naturally progressing romance. The dialogue can get pretty dirty but there’s only one actual smut scene and it’s so good too omg.

And now, since I’m a huge sucker for the plot: Even though it sometimes looks like a slice of (supernatural) life scenes, IT HAS A VERY COHERENT OVERARCHING PLOT AND THE SEEMINGLY RANDOM SCENES ACTUALLY COME TOGETHER AT THE END WTFFFF HOW DO YOU DO THAT. It’s SO worth it to keep reading to the end because the reward is huge. Not that the buildup isn’t great, but I feel like it’s pretty rare for an author to finish a fic in a way that will stick with you for months.

If I’ve convinced you to go read the fic, I am so glad and I hope you have a good time. I have yet to write a proper review for this because I have’n’t had the time to sit down and write a several thousand word magnum opus sucking up to every single line in this work but I will eventually. If you do give it a try, please come back later to yell at me about it.

This is the type of story that creates it’s own universe and inspires other authors to use this universe for their stories.

BONUS: BBAC SIDE STORIES by skittidyne - if you’re wondering where all the smut went in such a mature story, look no further. Mostly Kuroken and Daisuga with a side of other pairings and other daily life shenanigans. You can read it as standalone smut oneshots but I feel like some aspects of the AU would be difficult to grasp without knowing the main storyline. This is a great thing to read after the Big Void that follows finishing Bell, Book and Candle. Aside from smut, it also has AU AUs? to the main storyline, eg the actors AU, pairing swap AU etc.

BONUS BONUS: Literally anything else by skittdyne. I’ll be writing a separate thread for Blood Will Have Blood, which is a shorter story of similar magnitude, but she wrote a lot of oneshots, all of which are worth your time. Shoutout to the Iwaoi Death God one and the Pokemon Go one.

Final note: I wish this is what the canon Haikyuu was.

OH MY GOOOOD I WANT TO GO REREAD IT ALL AGAIN

#skittidyne #bbac #bell book and candle #haikyuu #haikyuu fanfic rec #haikyuu fanficion #fanfiction #fanfic rec #fanfiction recommendation #haikyuu ship #oc

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ajoblotofjunk · 5 years

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Before I leave the warm cocoon of Brynn’s house, I am going to write out ALL MY FEELINGS about New Amsterdam. Most of which can be summed up by: this show had a lot of great individual elements and did not know what the fuck to do with them at all.

Here are the things I SHOULD have expected going in but for some reason did not and was continually surprised by:

1. Nik is in the show ALL THE TIME. That was like 7 hours of concentrated Nik we just consumed and it was wild. (This fact will, funnily enough, be the reason behind one of my biggest issues with the show later on.)

2. Nik is very tall! And lanky! He’s around a lot of tall people in Game of Thrones I guess and the armor makes him look bulkier. I was just very surprised by his profile all the time.

Huh I thought there were more but I guess not. Moving on!

I’ll start with the things I loved:

1. Since it was so much his show, let me give credit where it’s due: Nik was GREAT. I have many issues with the character John Amsterdam but NCW took what he had and did excellent work with it. There were a couple of flat moments but they were either genuinely unsalvageable dialogue or because the show was relying on chemistry between him and the doctor that just was not there no matter how hard he tried. And he had amazing chemistry with MANY people on that show so I think it was just one of those weird mismatches you can’t overcome. You can’t fake chemistry! Someday casting directors will learn that. Anyway, I was very proud of him.

2. The supporting and one-time cast are incredible. (This is ALSO lead-up to my biggest issue with the show!) Eva Marquez is a TOP TIER character, a woman cop who is great at her job, quick and witty, has some hinted at emotional depth, and deserved her own show tbh. If I were re-writing this show I’d make HER the focus and saddle her with John and come at it from that angle. Omar is ALSO AMAZING and every scene he was in SPARKLED. The lady sergeant walked the line sometimes but could have been good and that white guy detective who seemed to have no partner of his own was developing in an interesting way. The one-time guest cast were all also really good and there was a surprising amount of casual diversity that I really appreciated! I did not appreciate how Indian culture was used AT ALL in the already atrocious rape episode and frankly Nik’s past-John hair in that was also an offense so you miss literally nothing of value if you skip all of it except the last five minutes and even that, turns out, means nothing by the end of ep 8. MORE ON THAT LATER.

3. All of the past stories (except the rape episode one) were really interesting and I am like 50/50 shipping John/Lily and John/Eva mostly because Lily canonically died and Eva is GREAT. The conceit of using a new past life moment to tie to the present day case would have gotten very old even 20 episodes into this show, but for 8 it was neat.

4. The IDEA of the show had a lot of potential! That is the nicest thing I can say about it!

The things I did not like:

1. As I alluded to above: John is in this A LOT. ALL THE TIME. They surrounded him with this amazing secondary cast with whom he had incredible chemistry (every Eva and John and Omar scene was GENUINELY DELIGHTFUL and I would watch a supercut of this show of just the three of them in whatever combination). But the hyper focus on John was frustrating BECAUSE they had all these other characters. And like, this was 2008 and the show is about him and they needed to hook you into the main character I get all that. But because the other characters were always just props to John’s pain, including the ACTUAL VICTIMS OF CRIMES, it got very cringe-y very fast sometimes and also left behind so many opportunities to expand on the secondary characters even more. Like the rape episode: EVA should have been spearheading that, but because the show is All About John, he stepped in and it became about him getting revenge for a missed opportunity to get revenge before (even though he did actually get that revenge before? You can’t have your cold revenge cake and eat it, too, show), and it stopped being about the victim at all. It was gross. I cannot stress enough you should not watch that episode. Y’all know I love Nik but the focus was too much on his character, especially by ep 6 when it would have been reasonable to expand more. The worst part is the show walked to that edge MULTIPLE TIMES and then walked back again. So frustrating.

2. My overall problem with the show can be summed up by: they were SO CLOSE to greatness in so many ways and they just couldn’t pull the trigger. FOR EXAMPLE. The show is about John finding his soulmate so he can become mortal again (which.....more on that in minute too) and in one of the later episodes he and Eva go to this dating service (that’s a front for something else but they don’t know that at the time) called Soulmates and the lady who runs it talks about the questionnaire everyone takes to join and your IMMEDIATE THOUGHT is: they’re gonna take the questionnaire right?? RIGHT?? Readers, they do not. No one talks about it, no one mentions it, the only important thing about this place is it’s a front for crime and also it’s called Soulmates which is basically only there to make John look angsty and confused about the situation he is in with his. SO CLOSE TO GREATNESS. What I REALLY want is for fandom to get their hands on this show and make it better. Fans would have KILLED with the set-up they give us.

3. Soulmates. I actually LOVE soulmates tropes. I know a lot of people don’t and I absolutely understand all the problematic elements to soulmates but I love it anyway. And I very much did not love the soulmates stuff going on in this show. Mostly because John Amsterdam is 400 years old and he’s learned a lot of skills and nothing about how to live and that could have been an actual choice by the writers but I don’t think it was. I think THEY were so focused on John finding his soulmate they forgot to make him a person beyond that. WHICH IS WEIRD given he gets together with The One (sigh) like halfway through the episodes we have and then breaks up with her by the end of the last one and yet they did zero work to show that relationship at all instead ONLY relying on the “they’re soulmates!!!!” connection. Combined with the actors’ lack of chemistry (honestly Sarah felt more like his mom than his girlfriend and that’s NOT GREAT) it killed that whole plotline. They had way better chemistry at the beginning of the series when they were just flirting; once they got together it went to hell. Which I guess worked since they ended up breaking up! But the show seemed like it wanted me to be upset that they did and not relieved which was how I actually felt.

ALL THIS BEING SAID. I do not regret watching the show! It was fun to see Nik as a new character and getting so much screentime and in all the different get-ups. I have adopted Eva and Omar into my Fandom Characters I Adore family and am happy to have them there. I kiiiiiiinda want to write fic that uses the elements in ways I want but that will probably never happen since there are tiny fandoms and then there are nonexistent fandoms and frankly I have enough JB fic ideas to last me for years at this point. So if you’re an NCW fan, I DO recommend it! Except episode 4 which is offensive! Heh.

Also John swims naked in the YMCA pool at night multiple times and they never explain WHY and I need an answer. I wish I could ask the showrunners what their long-term plan was because given what happens in 8 episodes it is NOT AT ALL clear. Maybe they were going to make it Eva/John endgame?? Who knows! I’m not sure they did!

Plus there’s this:

They had VERY good chemistry. It’s a shame the show didn’t even give us very much of them being partner-y. Their banter was so good and so limited. We didn’t even get late-night bullpen talks where John kind of casually has his tie loosened!! COME ON.

#new amsterdam #meta #spoilers but you shouldn't care about that #as brynn and i discovered #this show gave us the things we wanted but always in the worst possible way #props to nik's face though

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zhouxuns · 5 years

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thoughts on the finale

overall, s3 was quite good. but the finale makes it all feel pointless. and not just s3, but s2 and s1 as well. and i know the line about “the universe acknowledges you” was because of what was to come and was supposed to be some sort of comfort to the audience, but it wasn’t. at least not for me. legion never stuck the landing for their finales so this doesn’t surprise me. but i’m gonna rant anyways.

several things i didn’t like.

1) no acknowledgement whatsoever of the hallers who gave david a loving life. they retconned the hallers’ existence this whole season to push the idea that david never received love in his childhood and didn’t grow up looked after. despite the fact that we’ve seen throughout s1 how dearly important david’s childhood was and how important mama and papa haller were to him and how much he loved them and vice versa. i mean really, no acknowledgement of amy haller at all? the woman he cared about most besides syd? his sister? who was so important to him, we got a multiverse episode about how key amy was to david’s lives? not even an acknowledgement towards lenny when she killed herself inside amy’s body? and even worse, we’ll never know precisely why the xaviers gave david to the hallers in the first place. i found this retcon extremely insulting to david’s character, but to adopted families/foster families.

2) farouk’s redemption. how utterly insulting to the audience’s intelligence to redeem farouk with no recognition for his insidious actions and unrelenting vile choices. he possessed a baby, terrorized it for fun, abused a child, he sexually molested david every time david was frozen with fear to further suppress him, he raped lenny, a lesbian, whenever he felt like it, he stole people’s bodies because he felt like it, he killed endless amounts of people. and then they have this same farouk ask his younger self if he was really that hateful and petty as if the audience is supposed to forget that just a year prior to that conversation, that this same farouk brutally murdered an innocent amy haller to get at david and, as lenny said, raped her whenever he wanted. the same person who continued to plant the ideas in david’s head that he’s god and doesn’t have to regard the lives of other people. the same person that kidnapped syd and manipulated her into turning against david before he even betrayed her. like, for real? just retcon all of that to pretend like farouk had a change of heart and always loved david and wants world peace? all it takes is to share beer with your old enemy despite the fresh blood on your hands? wow. how embarrassingly bad is that on the writers’ behalf.

3) syd. not only did syd have a mere handful of lines in this episode, but yet again, it’s as if the writers changed their minds about syd’s feelings/characterization. she’s got to be one of the most jerked around characters on this show. she used to be consistent up until the latter half of s2 when the writers decided to make syd ooc for the sake of plot (you know, the david is evil crap). syd just episodes prior expressed that she felt it was worth it to have been with david and that she wouldn’t change it. she didn’t regret their love, she regretted their downfall. in her final moments, she’s back to bitter snark, borderline defeating the whole empathy episode. i loved the bit about saving baby david, but loathed the “i am” in response to david saying she’ll be extraordinary without him around. it retcons the entire value of syd’s history, her life choices, her self perception. syd, who ALWAYS believed she was extraordinary, given by her famous quote “who teaches us to be normal when we’re one of a kind”, suddenly will be a “better” person w/o having known david? when it was through him she found summerland, found mutant allies, found freedom, found a second childhood. and then what is the purpose of saying her new life will be distinctly amazing if we don’t even get to see it? not even an epilogue paragraph of what syd became in her new life? it felt like such an impersonal send off for her. she’s the female lead but yet again she ends up on the reduced end of things.

4) no consequences. the entire theme of s3 was, time traveling can change the past, but it can’t change who we are. there were no consequences in sight for any of these people. all those awful things david did, murdering and orphaning people, causing his best friend/sister’s suicide, drugging those hundreds of women, none of it mattered when legion pretended like it was supposed to. we didn’t really see david grow. we didn’t truly see him redeem his self. we didn’t see him express any true regret or remorse for all he did on the way there. right up until he end he remained in his entitled tantrum state. all it did was justify everything he did. because the past got rewritten. david got his second life and the people he sacrificed to do it don’t matter. and really? “sorry” was all he could say to the woman he raped and hurt the most? big yikes. legion’s faux commentary on make entitlement and sexism went absolutely nowhere. it’s absolutely bull crap. further proof that rape should’ve never been part of this show, let alone trying to do commentary on rape culture.

5) disjointed elements. switch turning out to be a time god felt so last minute and so lazy. she suffers and endured all this abuse from david because she was meant to “grow up” into her celestial clock form. sure it’s better than just her dying, but it feels as if her screentine was dedicated for a disappointing surprise. given how much screentime switch took up, i expected better. this is my main problem with shows adding more characters to the main plot. it causes the original characters to be neglected which results in less screentime for the originals (syd and the loudermilk twins) or being killed/written off (lenny, ptonomy, the birds) and usually the pay off isn’t good.

6) the severe lack of follow up. we will never know what oliver’s 1 + 1 plan was. we will never know what ultimately became of the birds. what became of ptonomy, who they turned into a flash drive and gave all of 3 lines to for the whole season, we’ll never know what the 3 years from now event change ptonomy calculated turned out to be, or what became of summerland or division 3. we’ll never know why they showed 616!legion in the desert. we will never get a true apology from syd to david and vice versa. we will never get an actual explanation for why farouk was allowed to roam around freely and unchecked despite him being the root cause for david’s demise.

7) the impersonal approach to mental illness. what’s the deal? legion had such a sensitive despite clinical approach to mental illness in s1. they handed the diagnoses with such care and the themes involved with it. in s2 it’s all but abandoned, and in s3 the theme returns, but with no personal touch whatsoever. ah gabrielle has the sickness, it runs in the women in the family, okay mental illness is hereditary for david, understandable. how come this is something david never reconciles his self with? how come they never give david’s true diagnosis? we know he has dissociative identity disorder, but david doesn’t. david is expressly in denial about being mentally ill, even saying he’s not “crazy” to his mother. yet he has a system of alters he works with. they all say “i am legion” which we know is what his collective of alters are called, but that’s it. one of the things david wanted to change was his mental illness. is he ever going to learn he can’t change that because he was sick all along because of his mother? his mental illness is such a huge aspect to her character yet in s3 it just feels like a post it note stuck to his chest. no one regards it with sensitivity. no one accepts responsibility in exacerbating his condition. nothing. legion used to be about mental illness. then they shed it for social commentary which held no weight, and destroyed the characterizations for an outcome that was ultimately inconsequential.

overall, this just proves to me that legion needed more than 3 seasons. easily 4-5 seasons would’ve worked better for this. legion doesn’t even leave things up for interpretation, it just leaves most of what they set up unanswered. i felt since s2 that it had been too soon to develop the story they were developing and i was right. choosing a 3 seasons arc where 2.8 out of the 3 seasons the male lead is a sympathetic and genuinely good character to make him evil and narcissistic and apathetic? makes no sense. or when the female lead used to be this complex morally grey character and at her last hour becomes isolated once more and is quoting things straight out of 2014 tumblr? i mean really? wtf.

the other characters didn’t get to do enough across these seasons. they were cannon fodder for david’s story/development (or lack thereof) more than anything else. once they were less proximal to david, they were less relevant to the writers too.

syd and david’s relationship didn’t last nearly long enough before they were thrust into ghastly new territories. and the same goes for everyone else’s dynamic on the show. far too much offscreen development occurred. farouk having a change of heart? you truly couldn’t pinpoint any point where farouk ever felt sorry for david or cared about anyone else but his self. he’s been nothing but condescending, sadistic, manipulative, and countless other atrocities. d3 and the summerlanders being comfortable with farouk with no mind control at play at all? get real. kerry and syd’s friendship was nice tidbit but we didn’t see it develop at all. it would’ve been important to see these female mutants develop a relationship. it’s the most frustrating thing aboutall of this. clearly more time was needed.

we needed more time for these things to feel truly earned. but noah was way in over his head because of how busy he became by the time s2 swung around and decided to cut the show short. i don’t buy for one minute that 3 seasons was the plan all along. everything about legion’s story progression beyond s1 screams improvisation and a messy one at that. there wasn’t enough time for these characters to breathe, too much characterization and story had been retconned to get the ending over with, and legion choosing to end where it began, except all the characters we loved are gone, all the things that made the show most important to us are gone, feels more depressing than i thought it would.

it’s going to be difficult rewatching the show especially from its flawless premier season, knowing none of it happens at all. it’s literally unfathomable to think that 3 years later this is where we’d be. i’m so disappointed.

#legion fx #david haller #sydney barrett #amahl farouk #lenny busker #text post

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calliecat93 · 5 years

Text

(Part One)

Welcome to Part Two of the Volume 7 Review everyone! If you missed Part One, you can click the link above and check that out first if you’d like. Otherwise, not gonna waste any time. Let’s resume the Character Section and get this baby done!

Characters, Part Two (RWBYJNRQO)

So some characters got it a bit easier here. I don’t have too much to honestly say about Jaune, Blake, and Yang. They were good, but they didn’t really develop any this volume. But honestly? That’s fine since they already had a great deal in the Mistral seasons alone. Blake and Yang do have some a few things though. They spend the majority of their screentime together, and while it kinda irks me because I dislike when two characters get put together and mostly cease interacting with others (Ren and Nora in most of the early seasons for example), after Volumes 3-6 it was nice to see them rekindling their relationship. They’re much happier and comfortable together and their teamwork is at an all right high now, though we see that Blake at least is still haunted by killing Adam. It’s this fear and worry about Ironwood that causes the two to try talking to Robyn, and that of course bites them hard in Chapter 11. They did the right thing though... though I do still have to wonder if them seeming to not tell any of the others int he main group will cause issues for them later. Jaune was... there, but seeing how he’s grown and him having now moved on form Pyrrha is nice to see.

By contrast, though, we got much more from Ren and Nora this year. They are by far the two who get the least amount of substance in every volume with V4 being the only time they got spotlight. And that was more for Ren than Nora, who I considered the least developed... and sadly I still do. But compared to before? Nora was freakin’ great here. She is the most vocal about Mantle’s mistreatment, which makes sense considering how she lived in poverty as a child until she met Ren. While IDT it really develops her, she’s still the same as before, it helps give her more depth than just the ‘energetic comedy relief who crushes on Ren’. Which we finally have some development with there being some actual conflict between them due to their differing ideologies and Chapter 6 confirms that yes, their feelings are romantic. Nora loves Ren and she tries her best to comfort and assure him, despite her frustration with him. She just wants him to open up to her, which provoked her to finally do the thign we’ve been waiting for for years. That kiss was a long time coming. But... sadly there is one obstacle to them being happy and going beyond that one night, and that is Ren himself.

We see that Ren is slowly closing himself off more and more. He pushes away Nora’s advancements, he seems much more frustrated about the mission, and he seemed perfectly fine with following Ironwood’s orders until they became wanted. He’s not emotionless, but clearly, the circumstances are eating away at him. He’s also never been the most upfront with his emotions, but as Volume 4 demonstrated, once he’s overwhelmed by them he loses it. That time, Nora calmed him down. She isn’t nearly as successful this time, especially since after the kiss, Tyrian’s murder spree happened. Then to really clench it, in the finale not only do they lose the Relics, but he can’t stop Neo because she’s disguised as Nora and that breaks him. In the end, he looks on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I wish this was a bit more in focus cause there’s a long gap where it seems they dropped it and Ren seemed normal again... but the finale shows that they haven’t forgotten. I get the feeling that V8 may just have him reach a breaking point.

Qrow also got it a bit better... well, at first. We see him trying to improve himself as he’s given up drinking, even resisting the urge in Chapter 8, and seems to be back to being the uncle figure. He no longer has to worry about being the adult/guardian over the kids and just has a much better attitude compared to the previous volume. What helped was meeting Clover, his polar opposite, but instead of going the rivalry route Clover was a nice guy who encouraged him and outright told him that he shouldn't keep putting himself down. It’s words that Qrow took. He’s still cynical, but much happier and was able to properly comfort and assure Ruby and even open up about Summer. Something I doubt that he had done for a very long time. Things for him were on the right track... but fate, unfortunately, had other plans.

I know some reception to the final two chapters with Qrow were controversial, for more reasons than one. However, right now, I’m okay with this direction. Qrow is doign better, but we’ve still never really seen him open up. We know that there’s a lot still haunting him, like with STRQ and the fallout with Oz, but he’s internalizing it like a certain niece of his. That’s bad for her but even worse for someone like Qrow. Plus now that he’s faced with tragedy again, betrayed by his friends just like with Raven and Oz and now one dead, can Qrow pull back from it? This is where we see if he truly can improve now that he’s again been dealt with these harsh circumstances. It may be a while before we see since Qrow is going to jail, but I think it’ll be like what happened with Blake. He’ll fall for a bit, but once he’s back up, he’ll be better than ever. I’m looking forward to seeing that and overall? Compared to how annoyed I was at Qrow last year, I am very satisfied with him here.

Next up, we have Weiss. Last volume, she was the one of the main four who got the least focus. This time? She got a pretty good amount. First, she’s back in Atlas, but she’s able to make due. Despite any feelings she has about it, she pushes forward and tries to do what’s right. This leads to the lovely scene where he backtalks Jaques in Chapter 4 and when he tries to break her by bringing up her mom, her team is there. Unlike last time in V4, this time she has her friends with her. Her family. This gives her the strength to, when she suspects Jaques of foul play, to go back tot he Manor and find evidence. Once she has it, she’s able to arrest Jaques and even uses her Knight, the same thing that Jaques previously tried to use to break Weiss when she tried to leave te first time, to block him and become his undoing. After how much Jaques made not jut Weiss suffer, but his whole family, this was a delight.

But it’s also made clear just how broken off form her family Weiss is. Her relationship with Willow is clearly shaky due to Willow doign nothing and her broken state. Once that Weiss had to watch unfold, and it’s clearly something that pains her. She also feels like Whitley wants nothing to dow ith her, and given past evidence and him trying to rub his success in her face here, can we blame her? Willow tries to push Weiss into seeing why he feels that way, but it’ll be a while before we see if Weiss takes that to heart. The one person Weiss still has is Winter. We see here that the two are as close as ever with Weiss clearly being concerned about Winter’s fate, but she does take her advice about carving her own destiny despite circumstances to heart. But sadly, it ends with the two on opposing sides. It hurts them both, but Weiss is now an enemy of Atlas and she can’t stay by Winter. Their final moment int he finale was just... heartbreaking, but Weiss has to carve her own path. So she does. Hopefully, they can get around this, but it’s going to take time. Still, Weiss was excellent in this volume and I enjoyed every minute of her.

Then we have Oscar. So...farmboy has not gotten it great when it comes ot his character. It usually ends up rushed or out of focus, with V6 being the breaking point for many. Have they improved on that? FOr the most part, yes. I do still feel like Oscar is a tad underdeveloped, but I think it's just due to how rushed the previous seasons with him were. But I gotta say, in comparison, this is an improvement. Int his volume, Oscar is trying more and more to carve his own identity instead of being just Oz’s vessel. While he still hasn’t unlocked his Semblance, he has started to speak his own thoughts and give advice to others. He worries about Ruby following Oz’s path, though that pretty much got dropped sadly. But we do see this very well with Ironwood where he tries to help the general embrace his feelings and do what’s right. Unlike Nora, who kept getting nagry at him, Oscar tries to be much calmer and friendlier and finds out more about the General personally. And it seemed to work y Chapter 9 with Oscar convincing him to tell the truth and even kept him calm after revealing their own secret.

Sady though, Oscar couldn’t save Ironwood form himself. He tried so hard, but IDT even Oz could have helped by then. It sadly ended with Ironwood dismissing essentially both of them and shooting him down. Fortunately, though, this gets Oz back and allows Oscar to tap into hos true power. IDK if it’s his Semblance or Oz’s magic, but he’s unlocked it. I think that this volume, above all else, helped show that Oscar is not just Oz or even Oz 2.0. One big issue with V6 is despite saying it wasn't the case, it felt like Oscar’s own real importance was because of Oz. But here? Oscar forges his own path. He’s not as wise or experienced as Oz, but he has the hope and determination that he lacks. I think if the two can sort things out, they can be the effective leader that they all need. But still, this is the best volume with Oscar thus far and while they DO need to improve on setting up a thing happening to Oscar, except not’ thing, as a character? He is much better and finally feels like his own person that’s not burdened by Oz or whatever happens when the merger completes.

So finally we come to Ruby. V6 was a mass improvement for her character, so did they accomplish keeping that here? Yes... but I do have some issues. I feel like there was much more potential with Ruby having to make hard, O-like choices. Now we do see that it is stressing her out and she is uncertain about what to do. This is good to see and it’s clear that she is trying her best in a very bad situation. But after Chapter 4, her worry about being no better than Oz is dropped and I just feel like there was more to explore with her and her newfound leadership role. But I think the big issue is that, again, she keeps her feelings internalized and is given no chance to express it. Tbf we have her scene with Qrow, which helped, but I really wish that they'd just let this girl talk about these things more. Her not getting to talk to Penny about Beacon or her first demise despite it clearly still bothering her especially was a horribly wasted opportunity that I am unhappy with just because I don’t get whyt hey won’t just allow Ruby to talk about her feelings already. Maybe in V8, I guess...

That being said, I’m happy with Ruby here. Less so than V6, but still happy. She got to express some things like her uncertainty about what to do, her fears about her choices to Qrow, and of course about Summer. She finally asked about it, and she also sadly found out what happened via Salem. Thus we got the first time that he legit broke, and it was heartwrenching to watch. But through and through, Ruby is still the smaller, more honest soul who keeps trying that he’s always been. She tries her best to reason with Ironwood, is as devoted to protecting those counting on her and the others as ever, her Semblance has massively improved, and Chapter 11 just demonstrates the best of her. She stands up to Salem with zero hesitation, and even after she broke her, she still refused to let Ironwood jeopardize Mantle. The looks he gave him before she Petal Bursted behind his desk to warn everyone else was amazing. Also, we see she still isn’t 100% experienced with the Silver Eyes which is good, but we also see that when she’s pissed enough she has no issue such as doing it pretty much the instant she saw Cinder. Best subtle moment by far. So in the end, I feel like a few things could have been better, but Ruby was overall great and I’m very happy with where she currently is.

This volume was very much more story-driven than character development-driven but there’s still plenty of the latter. I think that Ruby, Weiss, Oscar, and Qrow got it the best. The others, especially Ren and Nora, were still good though. And of course, other characters, especially Penny and Ironwood, got a great deal as well. Everyone was very well done and I am very happy with the character writing this volume. Excellent work~

Story

Volume 7 is a volume about trust, fear, and doing the right thing. We have our heroes arrive in Atlas, but the sight is not pleasant. Mantle is being abused, Ironwood seems unhinged, and there seems to be nowhere safe to turn. As a result, Ruby lies about the Lamp and Salem, despite Ironwood appearing to openly trust the group unconditionally. The events that unfold include political insanity that hit far too close to home, seeds of mistrust and conflict among the heroes, and the villains unfolding their schemes amidst all of it. This line from Ruby in Chapter 4, which was also heard in the trailer, I feel sums it all up:

I’m trying to do what I think is best, but I really can’t tell if what’ best is what’s right.

We see this all unfold with the conflict between Atlas and Mantle. Ironwood has a plan, to re-establish communications and reveal Salem. But to do so, he causes Mantle to suffer by putting it under a police state, banning nearly everything under the sun, and worse of all taking resources needed to rebuild Mante’s defenses. Now once can argue that Ironwood is doing what’s necessary for the greater good, but he’s still causing this already worn down city to become even /more/ worn down and burden all the sacrifice. Not just some, but /all/ of it. Ironwood knows this and that he looks terrible for it… but he’s so concerned about beating Salem, about becoming this Big Good figurehead with Oz gone that he shoves that aside and allows his paranoia to consume him.

It’s made very clear that the general has good intentions, but that he is not doing the right thing. While he does give the heroes his trust and does things like let them keep the Lamp and grant them their Huntsman/Huntress licenses, he won’t trust the Council or Robyn even though if he had been upfront, this whole thing could have been handled much more reasonably. Most of the plot has the cast trying to get him to see this and open up to these people, but he continuously refuses until he’s pretty much forced to. Ironwood doesn’t trust his own allies. As such, the heroes cannot trust him and hold onto the info they know until they can be for sure that he will do the right thing. It’s all a waiting game as things continue to get worse and worse with Watts and Tyrian framing Ironwood, murdering others left and right, and just causing a large amount of unease that ensures frequent Grimm Attacks while Ironwood sits in his office and does nothing but allow his paranoia to clout his mind. Thus our heroes must try to push the General to trust those around him while trying to thwart the villains and help those suffering such as the people of Mantle. But of course, it’s much easier said than done...

Every chapter was chock full of content. They all felt very well-paced and had a consistent tone. There’s so much complexity with the volume as it weaves the themes together. You grow attached to characters and you hope that ones like Ironwood are going to make a turn and do the right thing. The tone begins as tense but overall has the usual RWBY optimism. But by the end, it took the V3 route and grew darker and darker until by the end, you are left with only bleakness. Heck, I even criticized Chapters 9 and 10 because it began to become optimistic again in a way that, considering all the build-up and tension throughout the volume, felt like a jarring, anti-climatic shift. But it was all a trap for when Cinder made her grand return, and caused Ironwood to lose himself. Everything came back to haunt our heroes, and as a result, we are where we are now. Absolutely brilliant writing.

Unlike past volumes, Miles and Kerry were not the sole writers. They added Eddy Rivas, a long-time writer at RT, and author Kirsei Buckhart to the team. I gotta say, this was a very good choice. They brought so much to the volume. There was so much depth and tension but also plenty of fun and light-hearted moments. Every step helped push the characters and the plot forward, and every step made sense. But of course Miles and Kerry remain as great as ever as they wrote Gravity, which is probably my favorite chapter of the volume and one of the best of the whole series. Each chapter, even when I wasn’t 100% happy, made me tune in every Saturday at 11 AM so that I could see what was going to happen ASAP. They all did an excellent job, and I look forward to seeing even more of their work in Volume 8.

Speaking of… that finale, huh? Yeah, it was… quite the thing. But it beautifully rings everything around full-circle with Ozpn’s monologue. How we all feel fear. How there are so many reasons why we do. But it isn’t fear in and of itself that we should be concerned about, but what we become when grasped by it. When RWBY was afraid, they grew and continued to move forward even when things kept getting worse and worse. When Ironwood did so, however? He became lost to it, and has now become the very same demon that he’s fought against. He also brought down the Ace-Ops and Winter with him, but Penny? She trusted in love, and because of it she became a Maiden and proved herself as human as anyone else. Even moreso than the man who claimed to have complete control over her. You can’t allow fear to corrupt and twist you, otherwise, you lose your way. It’s a lesson that our heroes will need to cling to more than ever with Salem’s arrival and whatever she unleashes upon Solitas.

Thus, we return to our main themes. How people need to trust each other, but of course it isn’t that simple. The heroes can’t trust Ironwood because of his morally questionable decisions, and once they did he broke it instantly. Ironwood seems to trust the heroes, but no one outside his own inner circle and thus is antagonistic to people like Robyn when cooperating with her would help all of them. The heroes' decisions cause people like Ace-Ops to feel betrayed, and they themselves feel the same way as demonstrated with Qrow towards Ironwood. It all leads to Ironwood choosing to allow Mantle to die for what is a plan of desperation, while our heroes stand against him to protect the people. Why? Because they are Huntsmen and Huntresses and their loyalty is to the people depending on them, not to any authority figure. Doing the right thing is what matters, not just the best thing. Our heroes trusted in love, but Ironwood became blinded.

Unlike in the past few volumes, where the heroes learned the lesson by the end and became better for it, here we have the heroes trying to teach Ironwood the lesson. It sadly fails. But they stick by their morals, and it’s shown that this is right. The heroes trust each other and thus are able to defeat Ace-Ops. They decide to stand by Mantle, the right thing to do. They sadly couldn’t get Ironwood to trust love and open his eyes and were forced to flee from Atlas in the end. But there’s another line to the song, one that is more important now than ever:

The way’s uncertain, but we’re together moving towards the light When we trust in love, and open up our eyes.

Indeed, things are uncertain. I don’t know what’s going to happen going forward. None of us do. Maybe things will become better. Maybe it’ll continue to go downhill. All we know is that it’s probably going to be harder going ahead than it ever has been, which is saying a lot. But no matter what, it’s going to be okay. RWBY is still there. They all are there, together. It’s not gonna be easy, maybe they’ll even face their own trust issues amongst themselves. But they’re still trying. They’re still heading towards that light. If they could stand back up after the Fall of Beacon, they can pull through this. As long as they continue to trust love and can open their eyes, they will pull through and keep hope alive. Let’s hope that we can do the same.

So I think it’s pretty clear that I loved the story. It is one of, if not the best-written volume of the series. So… how does it rank compared to the rest? Well, right now it’s crushed 1-5… but it is just a smidge below V6. The reason is V6 gave me a lot of what I had been hoping for at that time, which V7 did less so. But that isn’t saying much, and once I have more time to digest things that may change. But regardless, the story was excellent. IDK if I’m in a hurry to rewatch it anytime soon because GOD I need a breather. But I greatly enjoyed it and it makes me so happy to see how far we’ve truly come.

Season Stats

Favorite Characters: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Winter Schnee, Penny Polendina, Nora Valkyrie, Oscar Pine, and James Ironwood Favorite Overall Moment: The confrontation with Salem in Chapter 11 and everything following. Least Favorite Overall Moment: The anti-climactic truth ‘resolution’ in Chapter 9, even knowing what happened later. Favorite Fight: Cinder vs Penny and Winter Least Favorite Fight: Tyrian vs Qrow, Clover, and Robyn Favorite Chapters: A New Approach (Chapter 2), Sparks (Chapter 5), A Night Off (Chapter 6), Gravity (Chapter 11), With Friends Like These (Chapter 12), The Enemy of Trust (Chapter 13) Least Favorite Chapters: Ace Operatives (Chapter 3), As Above, So Below (Chapter 9), and Out in the Open (Chapter 10) Favorite Voice Actors: Lindsay Jones (Ruby), Jason Rose (Ironwood), Taylor McNee (Penny), David Fennoy (Pietro), Jason Liebrecht (Qrow), Sam Ireland (Nora), Anaris Quinones (Harriet), Mick Lauer (Marrow), Cristina Vee (Robyn) Favorite Song: War by Jeff Williams, sung by Casey Lee Williams, Adrienne Cowan, Dawn M Bennett, and Erin Reilly. Rating: 9.9/10

Final Thoughts

It has been… quite a trip guys. Even though November was just three months ago, it feels so much longer. It’s certainly been quite the emotional journey, in both good and bad ways. But I wouldn't change it for the world. I loved this volume. Even when the pit in my stomach grew more and more, I was always excited to tune in every week and see what CRWBY had in store for us. Think it’s safe to say that they certainly made something memorable. As I said, I need a breather before I truly revisit this volume just because it feels like my emotions have been trampled over. But I’m still satisfied with everything and truly looking forward to what Volume 8 will have in store. Gonna be a wild time~

But until then that’s it for the RWBY Reviews! Whoo! Thank you all who have read this far! I may do some more RWBY related posts in between now and V8, but for now this is it. I hope that you guys enjoyed all my mindless babbling. My focus is gonna turn to RvB as I prep for RvB18 and get those reviews ready to go. I hope that you guys will check those and my Top Likes/Dislikes posts I’m going to do for them like I did with RWBY prior to this volume. WHich I’ll do it for V7 when we’re closer to V8. But, once again, thank you for reading and it’s been a pleasure~

#rwby #rwby7 #rwby reviews #callie reviews

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machi-kun · 4 years

Note

Thanks for answering my question! And I’d love an in depth explanation of the compatibilities if you’re offering!!

of course! it’s no problem at all, I actually have a lot of fun talking about stuff like this SJDFSKDJFHKDJFS Here’s a brief explanation of why I put them in that order:

1. Rhodey: I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory. Despite Rhodey’s attitude being a little more uptight at times, you can see, in canon, that he’s just as dynamic and wild and capable as Tony, they share a similar humor and they have genuine care and affection for each other. Even if they have bad moments, like in IM2, it’s never out of hatred or anything like that - it’s Tony acting contrary to their friendship on purpose, out of his own issues, not a demonstration that their friendship isn’t as strong as it seems. In fact, it’s only proof that their friendship is as strong as it seems that Rhodey is able to jump back to Tony’s side almost immediately as he realizes what is really happening, and no hard feelings are kept from either of them. Out of everyone else, these two are the ones who truly understand and support each other.

2. Pepper: Pepper goes second because even though she has learned to navigate through Tony’s personality and issues quite well, and they do seem to have a nice relationship, Pepper falls short in a place where Rhodey doesn’t, and that’s why she’s the second, not the first, on this list. Pepper really struggles to understand Tony’s motivations as Iron Man - which is to say, she tries really hard to help Tony with some of his issues, but she goes about it in a less than advisable way. It’s not the worse of problems, certainly not in this list, but it’s enough not to give her first place, because between someone who vehemently tries and fails to conciliate this part of their lives together, in comparison to Rhodey, who does it flawlessly, does indicate that something in their relationship doesn’t fit quite as neatly as the first one does.

3. Natasha: In the MCU, Natasha and Tony are so eerily similar it’s shocking. They both have the same kind of personality, they both are very good in keeping a tight hold on their feelings, but are hopelessly loyal, despite pretending they’re lone wolfs or whatever they want the world to believe they are. They also are adaptable, in a sense that if they need to change plans quickly, change sides, change perspectives, change everything to make a certain mission work, they’ll do it, even if it’s hard - they struggle to live on the line between being practical and being idealists, because they are both, and sometimes they make decisions that hurt each other, but they never harbor too many hard feelings because they understand each other far too much to not see the other’s logic when they try to analyze their decisions. What’s unfortunate about the MCU is that Natasha made one of those decisions at a very essential moment of the story, which makes her seem far more loyal to Steve than to Tony - and whether you believe that or not, it’s up to you, but she doesn’t do it out of dislike for Tony; she merely does it because that’s what they do, they adapt.

4. Bruce: Though Bruce and Tony have opposite reactions to things sometimes, with Bruce choosing to step back because of his insecurities and being far more hesitant for it, and Tony acting despite them even though it costs him, almost to the point of recklessness - they have a very deep understanding of why they do so, much like Natasha and Tony. Both Tony and Bruce share some very similar insecurities, guilt about hurting people when they’re not careful, and despite it all, they still feel strongly enough about it to fight and help, because that’s more important to them than their insecurities. There’s a lot of camaraderie in that. See that Bruce also goes along with Tony in AoU despite their small problems along the way, and also despite Bruce’s fears about Vision coming out like Ultron: because they both understand what they’re trying to do, they don’t doubt the other’s intentions, and even if Bruce is not willing to push himself as far as Tony does, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand why Tony does it.

5. Bucky: The thing about compatibility is just that we don’t always have the same amount of shared screentime for every duo, so it’s a little hard to figure out dynamics like this, since they interact so little and in such a specific situation. Based on what I know about these characters’ personalities, I also have to do some theorizing to figure out some more informative details from the dynamics. What I see from Bucky that would be a stepping stone for a great relationship between them is exactly their very careful approach to determine if someone is trustworthy or not. Bucky is in a bad mental state so he’s very cautious, but very open, to gather information - and when is Tony not that? Both are also staggeringly loyal, but Bucky is not loyal the way Steve is, despite their friendship - Steve is forceful, and Bucky is conceding. And guess what - Tony is also conceding. They share an unfortunate amount of trauma too, which, for better or for worse, really adds a layer of understanding between them, even if their history begins with a bad story, it allows a kind of companionship and feeling of protectiveness and community that only a few things in life do. If they had the opportunity to surpass this bad break and become friends - they would be really great friends. It’s a shame they never got the chance.

6/7. Strange and Steve: I put them in the same place not because they have the same problem, but because their problems are equally impeding - they both are too involved in their own plans to make concessions, and that’s something that causes problems with Tony. Tony concedes most of the time, but he’s incapable of doing it all the time, nor he should do it all the time. We haven’t seen enough of Strange for me to believe he has trust issues that run as deep as Steve’s do - he seems to suffer from the same brand of assholery and i-work-better-if-i-make-the-call attitude Tony did at first, but if Tony can grow out of it, there’s no reason for me to believe Strange can’t do it too - even though Strange is, by nature, more reserved than Tony. Steve’s problem runs a little deeper. He and Tony share similar ideals, and they’re both as pro-active, which would put Steve above Strange on this list, but at the same time, he has massive trust issues and we’ve already seen what kind of consequences those trust issues can have between them. I would almost say Steve gets over it thanks so some of his attitudes in Endgame, but alas, his ending contradicts a lot of stuff, so as it stands, it’s very ambiguous how exactly they would be capable of a prolonged, peaceful relationship.

8. Thor: What makes me really upset about Thor sometimes is his lack of availability to be present and open with the rest of the team. Taika was the only one to get it right, I believe, but unfortunately, since Ragnarok only has Bruce around for us to test that theory, it makes it really hard to get a clear idea of what it would be like had Thor been emotionally available for the others too. I feel like they could get along, had the Thor we saw in Ragnarok continued - if that was the case, I would have put Thor all the way up next to Bruce, but seeing as canon cant make up their mind and changed Thor’s attitude and personality again for IW and Endgame, I have no choice but to assume Thor is simply not compatible for the kind of interactions with Tony that others can have, not the way he ended up being cemented as in canon.

9. Clint: Clint is, by far, the least compatible with Tony, from what I can gather from him. Though it seems at moments that they can be amicable (like the party in AoU) Clint is quick to change his opinion in a way that’s very intense, he can jump from complete mistrust to total attachment in a matter of minutes, and that’s not something Tony can handle, because if there’s something that fucks up Tony a lot is trust issues. Clint also seems to be very mistrusting of Tony in particular, and even if it wasn’t, and he would grant Tony the same “courtesy” he grants Wanda for example, to change his opinion and give the people he finds less than pleasant a chance - he doesn’t do it with an expression of genuine and vulnerable regret, as an apology should; either he doesn’t do it, or he doesn’t do it to the person who deserves to hear it, or he does it too late. Clint’s emotional availability is untrustworthy, and at times it almost seems like his loyalty is untrustworthy, so the way it stands in canon, I think there’s no way they could have had a better relationship than the trainwreck they had.

#ask #anon #machi replies #Anonymous

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clarkgriffon · 5 years

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The 100 Season 7 Speculation Tag Game

tagged by @immortalpramheda @hostagetakerandhistraitor @captainwilldameron @carrieeve @peterstarkss @nightbleeder (i haven’t checked my notifs in a hot minute so i saw all of these at once sjflflg)

Pick one or more characters you think will survive:

Bellamy, Clarke, Raven, Madi. I think Murphy, Emori, and Octavia are possible survivors as well, but less likely than the first four. Murphy and Octavia could easily die in a sacrifice play- Murphy solidifying a five-season redemption arc with his final choice to revoke his cockroach moniker to save his friends or Octavia dying to solidify her two-season redemption arc. Emori is just less likely because she’s a minor character, but probably the most major minor character there is. She’s Spacekru, so her death would proportionately affect the largest amount of our mains without technically qualifying as major character death.

Pick one or more characters you think will die:

Let’s see... Jackson, Echo, Miller is possible, Octavia/Murphy/Emori are possible, as I said. Russell will probably die. Diyoza may die as well (protecting Hope?).

Pick one deceased character you think might make a cameo:

Just one?? My first and foremost has to be Becca just because any other character they brought back would be an emotionally charged choice- Monty, Harper, etc. Those are people that matter to our characters, not to the plot. Becca actually has hefty influence on the plot and her story hasn’t even been close to fleshed out. So, unless they’re going to finish her tale completely verbally, she’ll be back for flashbacks.

Do you expect any romantic changes to happen this season?

B E L L A R K E, bitch. Also, Raven may get a love interest. Remains to be seen. I have trouble imagining it in under a season, but they did get her with Shaw in only S5 (a few weeks), so it’s not impossible. Finally, I do think Gabriel and Octavia are likely.

Where will the final scene take place?:

Fuck, that’s hard. Either in the anomaly, in a place that’s sort of... an alternate dimension but more of an idyllic reality, a place they can finally start over. Or Earth. Or an Earth they didn’t destroy IS the alternate reality. I don’t know.

What will the final line be?:

Stealing @immortalpramheda‘s answer, but I think it’s really spot on- some sort of a take on re-spinning Clarke’s S1 monologue. That monologue played before almost every episode of Season 1, reminding you of the backstory of the Ark.

Who will say it?

Clarke.

What’s one thing you hope happens?

Our new “main characters” don’t eat up an undeserved amount of screentime. Look, I love Gabriel. I don’t mind seeing a lot of Chuku Modu, how could I ever, y’know? But like... him and Hope... those aren’t the characters I know and love. I’m hoping even with things like Hope’s bump up to main cast (over deserving cast members like Luisa and Jarod!), it’s more like Jordan in S6 than real main cast. Shannon was in the credits for S6, but barely around. So, I hope it’s the same for Hope.

Do you expect a happy ending?

A hopeful ending. An optimistic ending. Happy is too nice a word for this show, and even Jroth has said that it’s “happy for the show.” With a dark show like this, that tells me that, of course, there will be major character death, but the mains will probably trudge on and there will be a lot of hope for the future. My guess is something like the ending of S5, but hopefully a bit more fleshed out.

List your favorite character, season and episode up to this point:

Character: Clarke

Season: 1

Episode: I can’t pick one so I’m doing one per season I Am Become Death (1x10), Human Trials (2x05), Join or Die (3x13), Praimfaya (4x13), Sleeping Giants (5x03), What You Take With You (6x09) - bolded are top 3

tagging @talistheintrovert @fen-ha-fuck-you @clarkegriffinlovebot @chase-the-windandtouch-the-sky @charmainediyoza @viviansternwood @nvermindiseeyou

#tag game #the 100 #the 100 season 7 #speculation

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wadey-wilson · 6 years

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I see you saw Captain Marvel. what's your opinion on the movie? i kinda liked it, but I feel like i haven't got a strong opinion yet :/

since i don’t know how to write reviews, i’ll just… here goes.

ok so, the movie wasn’t as bad as i expected it to be, and it necessarily wasn’t as Great as i wanted it to be. i say it wasn’t as bad because i always go to a theater with the half ‘how bad can it be’ and half ‘i hope it’ll be good’ kind of an attitude. 7/10 for me. i feel like upon rewatching it i’d give it a 7,5/10.

and now hear out my logic before you go after me or something, because i can explain, okay. it’ll be messy, so i’ll just… do it in points

- music - some of it worked, some of it didn’t. i felt like the need to be 90s-like overwhelmed the directors/producers, and some of the songs weren’t put in the moment they should’ve been, or were put in a wrong way (say, Come As You Are). but it worked for the most part, no big complaints on my side.

- editing - it worked for like 90% of the movie. sometimes the editing was so quick that i couldn’t tell what was going on. but even the badly edited moments are light years ahead from the TASM movies.

- the make up was just… amazing. the fact that the skrulls looked so good makes you wonder why fox got lazy on their make up with like one fucking person. mcu literally paints like half of their characters, even wade wilson in fox looks just wonderful, and then you have raven who looks more and more like shit with every movie she appears in.skrulls looked almost breathtaking, i was really amazed by the job the make up artists did, huge kudos to them. the fact that talos expressed his emotions so well under the prosthetic was just… wow. kree looked very good, the glowing on carol look very nice, and the cgi on nick fury was just freaking groundbreaking - at some point you just couldn’t believe this guy is like 70yo in real life. when the cgi is so good you don’t even notice it, then you know that the artist reached their goal.

- i liked the world building. i understood the cosmic stuff for the most part. i knew who, why, when, and what for. the movie had a lot to say in not so much time, yet it still kinda managed to no overwhelm me with the information.

- i adored the interactions. characters were playing off each other really well. the buddy cop relationship between carol and fury was undoubtedly one of the best parts of the movie.

- the pacing was great. some of the marvel movies or movies in general really feel like they want to be 8 hours long, and this movie doesn’t have that problem. you don’t really notice the time passing, the scenes don’t drag, there’s no focusing on such bullshit like obligatory/forced hetero relationships, too long conversations, or too long action scenes, and before you know it the movie ends - that’s how you know the pacing was fine. (compare it to AMATW and how it dragged. seriously, i needed breaks while watching ant-man and the wasp. i couldn’t sit and watch this whole movie. thank god i didn’t go to the cinema for that because i’d probably annoy everyone with pee breaks every 3 minutes. but that’s an opinion, don’t @ me, we can have different opinions about different movies and still live a good life.)

- i really, really enjoyed the way the movie mixed everything. you have the kree, you have skrulls, you have humans, shield, the air force, some flashbacks, and the movie doesn’t feel like a frankenstein kind of a creature. take TASM 2 for example where it feels like you’re watching 9 different movies put in 1 movie despite the action taking place in one freaking city. i felt like it was all tied together very well in captain marvel, and i think it may be because the main character took you on the journey and showed you everything from her perspective, and it worked.

- the humor was so good. you had to get used to carol’s snarky comments or how she brushes off everything with jokes, and then some dry-like kind of humor came in, and then some real humor came in, and even if some jokes didn’t land, it still felt like that person would actually say it.

- i like the twist with mar-vell [*‘everything has to be like in the comics’ people screeching in the background*]. i like how the skrull were done - i really, really felt for the skrulls (that moment when talos rubbed his face against his wife… my eyes watered.)

- goose the cat. that’s it. he won my heart.

- and as i mentioned before - the movie also undercuts these superhero-landing tropes - we’ve seen that before, it’s not so impressive anymore, AND we’re gonna see it dialled to 11 in endgame.

- now hear me out and don’t @ me - brie larson does not have the MCU-like charisma… YET. just yet. she’s on a good ground. you know she likes that role, it shows she likes that role, she wants to play it, she wants to be that character.

mcu charisma is what i like to call the kind of a vibe that the mcu actors give off when playing their roles. you know nobody could replace tony stark, you know nobody could play steve rogers the same way evans does, you watch tom holland and forget it’s tom holland, you see a peter parker, you look at rhodes and forget there’s an actor underneath. i didn’t feel that with brie larson just yet in like 1/3 of the movie. i could see her acting, see her having fun and knowing what she’d like to do.

and i’m NOT saying it’s her fault she doesn’t have that charisma yet. i think the fault’s in the writing and the directing. carol danvers did not have enough ‘me’ screentime. again, don’t @ me, i do not criticize the acting or the actress, or the movie. it’s about how her character was written into the story. because it felt just like that - she was written into the story, instead of the story being written around her, despite her being the main character. and it was a glaring problem that wasn’t really a problem you cared about - and that was because the lines delivery was great, the movie was funny, well-paced, well-acted, the action was good, the music for the most part was good, the cgi aged well. so you didn’t really notice that lack of ‘is she the charcter yet, has she become the character yet?’ thing.

but then again, i didn’t feel for steve rogers up until the end of the movie where he crashed the ship. i didn’t feel for thor in any other movies than the avengers, ragnarok, and then endgame. i still don’t feel for sam wilson EVEN THOUGH i like the character (he certainly has more depth than black widow in one movie than she has in all the movies, and it’s the writers’ fault, not scarlett’s). i have never felt for black widow - she has no character for me. she’s better now than she was in im2, but i still don’t like her as a character, and that is because i have… nothing… to like. she’s snarky and bland for me. and it’s a shame because then you see shuri or pepper potts, or okoye, or even aunt may and you can tell they have a lot of depth despite being given not so much time on the screen. and then natasha shows up and like, ugh. *spider-man noir voice* who are you again?

some of the mcu actors hit off with the character charisma the moment they show up on the screen, some of them take their time, and it’s ok. it’s absolutely ok for brie larson to not BE carol danvers yet.

we’re yet to see her in endgame and in other movies, so i’m more than certain she she’ll become a captain marvel.

i feel like she’ll kind of have this thor complex - boring (yet carol is way way way way better in her movie that thor was in thor 1 and 2, don’t @ me, i really don’t like thor 1 & 2) in the origin movie, but wackier and ultiple times more interesting as it goes on. she also has this stephen strange complex - she needs more characterization the way doctor strange did. strange was a prodigy in almost everything he did job-wise but was disconnected with his emotional side, and i kinda feel the same for carol danvers.

she will be good, i feel it, i believe in it, give her time. even though i liked her in the movie, she still lacks some depth. that’s not to say she has no depth, no, she has a lot of it. she just hasn’t been able to show it yet.

overall, given that it was a first movie with such huge budget for those indie movie directors, i think they managed. yes, the movie is a bit scattered, and it lacks a bit of depth, but it ties into the mcu very well, it’s entertaining, the humor is good, and the action is good.

7/10. lighthearted and entertaining, even if a bit choppy. we can discuss.

#captain marvel #captain marvel review #captain marvel spoilers

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rwbyconversations · 6 years

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The weaknesses of Volume 6

As someone who had sub-zero expectations going in, Volume 6 was overall a really good season of RWBY- in fact I’d called it the best overall Volume since Volume 3, if not overall, the best season we’ve had so far. Everything seemed to come together for this season, and most of the fandom has agreed that the opening salvo of episodes was the best the show had, and that the season hadn’t had a dud episode until the group reached Argus. I know some parts of the fandom don’t love the Argus episodes but I found something good in nearly all of them so I can’t say it was a complete waste of time.

But, every cloud has a silver lining, and while Volume 6 was unmistakably a huge improvement over the previous Maya seasons, especially Volume 5, there are still several areas the show can seek to improve on as the show moves to the chilly frozen north of Atlas. So in this essay, I’m going to highlight the (ultimately small but notable enough to warrant talking about them) weaknesses I found in Volume 6.

1) The show needs to more efficiently handle its villains (and why Cinder and Neo’s plot was a drag)

Weird that I’m saying this in the season that gave its longest episode to exploring Salem’s origin story, but Volume 6 had a lot of difficulty managing the pacing of its villains, and the largest subject of its focus arguably didn’t need to be in this Volume. I’m talking of course about Cinder and Neo’s plot this volume.

Now on paper, giving Cinder more spotlight should be what I want. After all, I wrote an essay last year detailing why parts of the fanbase weren’t fond of Cinder, so giving her focus should ideally be able to remedy those problems, right?

Well, that’s the problem. In that essay, I talked about how Cinder’s two biggest flaws as a character were that she was very boring, and how her lack of backstory made it difficult to really care about her as a character. Cinder has effectively been the same character for six volumes in a row and much like Volume 4, the show has a golden opportunity to finally change that and give her a new narrative arc only to waste it.

Volume 6 should have been a drastic wake-up call for Cinder. Unlike at Beacon, where she lost due to Ruby’s sudden intervention and the awakening of her Silver Eyes, Cinder lost at Haven entirely thanks to her own failings. Raven beat her handily in straight combat and goaded her into the entire train-wreck of an operation to begin with, which for a power-focused individual like Cinder, should have really been an igniting spark to get her to begin seeking some introspection on why she’s lost twice in a row in failing to burn down the Academies. But sadly, just like in Volume 4, right as Cinder appears to be getting an arc about her recovering from her loss at Haven, she just ignores it and goes right back on her murder-Ruby train, as if she’s stuck in a Groundhog Day loop.

Cinder’s refusal to move on from a basic arc of “Plan to destroy an academy, enact the plan, get slaughtered, blame Ruby, rinse and repeat” has made her easily the least interesting villain in the entire show. At this point we’re six years in and barring a few contextual clues, Cinder has no backstory, no sympathetic traits, not even any character development to differentiate her from her Volume 1 self. And this after the season where she dominates the villain screen-time until the final third when Adam hijacks the plot.

Cinder’s plot in Volume 6 is therefore largely just setup for Volume 7, in that it explains how Cinder survived Haven and how she reaches Atlas. Along the way, she encounters the in case of bad season break glass button Neo, whose out for revenge and gets a really cool fight scene that’s ultimately just there for fanservice.

Let me repeat. Good fight, really liked it. Let me also repeat- just there for fan-service. This is not an inherently bad thing, but it does have weaknesses.

Neo was always coming back to the show and part of me feels like she was always being held in reserve in the event of a really bad season, so that the next one could have her return and generate some hype since her fan-base are that loyal. And sure enough, Neo’s return did see a notable collection of fans who had dropped the show after 4 and 5 coming back to see their ice cream queen return in a non-Chibi format. I won’t fault the crew for using a plan that worked. Where I take umbrage is that this fight was not necessary. It was a good fight, but I’d have much rather taken a Cinder scene of her actually recovering from Haven and thinking about why she lost again. Instead, Cinder and Neo effectively hijack all the villain screen-time for the rest of the season. And as someone who doesn’t adore Neo like her fans, this made their arc very tiresome, especially when the hints we got of the other villains were far more intriguing. I could talk a lot about the symbolism and thematic choices of the Mercury/Emerald scene in Chapter 9 but I’d struggle to find a lot to say about Cinder’s plot that wasn’t just “Setup for Volume 7.”

The other problem of course is that the rest of Team WTCH are sorely underdeveloped. Hazel at least is interesting again now that he’s several miles away from Ozpin, Tyrian came back and was a delight and I loved seeing him all-but-begging Merc and Em to run so he could hunt them, but Watts remains crucially underdeveloped. He really needs to step up in agency in Atlas because his sardonic wit can only carry him so far, and the man’s voiced by Christopher Sabat, what more reason do you have to give him more to do? The man made the virus that Cinder used to cause the Fall of Beacon, can he be given some agency now please?

Ultimately, Cinder’s plot didn’t need to be the focus for the villains and yet again, the fragments of focus they got showed how much more interesting they were as antagonists. While ultimately Volume 6 did finally give Mercury and Emerald more screentime than Volumes 4 and 5 combined and reminded the audience why you should be paying more attention to them, the rest of Team WTCH desperately needs development, Watts in particular. Cinder remains the worst villain in the entire show in my opinion, and it’s a shame that she’s almost guaranteed to be the one that makes it to the end of the show. I can only hope in Atlas she finally gets time devoted to what makes her tick, but at this point I’m almost at the point of not caring. It’s been six years, I won’t start caring for Cinder now if the show finally remembers to tell us why she joined Salem.

... also I just think Cinder’s new costume sucks and I’d rather Em and Merc get new ones over Cinder and Neo buying extensions for their wardrobes.

2) Cordovin was a joke and she really shouldn’t have been

Show of hands, who actually took Cordovin seriously? Yeah, me neither.

Even during the fight scene, the heroes don’t take it seriously. Having a fight the characters aren’t taking seriously isn’t an inherent flaw but it does mean you can’t expect us to turn around and take it seriously five minutes later.

Cordovin was a wasted character, and one that the show shouldn’t have undershot in all of her scenes by making her the punchline of nearly every joke. Her long-winded rant at the gate scene in Dead End is a huge factor in why a lot of fans, myself included, consider it the weakest episode of Volume 6 despite picking up in the back half. It just drags on for so long that Cordovin outstays her welcome from her first scene.

Additionally, the show not taking her seriously steals a lot of gravitas from the mech battle, and plays a large role in why I think the mech fight failed to really excite a lot of fans outside of key moments like Ruby’s missile run and canon shot. Being alongside Adam’s confrontation with Blake and Yang didn’t help but even on its own, the mech battle drags. Not quite to the same extent as Haven dragged, but on rewatches I was making liberal application of the skip button. That lack of gravitas itself goes on to hamper Cordovin’s serious moment in the season finale where she realizes that her ego allowed the Leviathan a straight shot on Argus and undergoes a soft redemption to let team RWBY leave the city. However, this moment of taking Caroline seriously comes after the plot has made it clear that the entire reason the Grimm attacked Argus was because of Caroline over-reacting to Maria and breaking out her mech instead of scrambling fighters as Qrow predicts they will. Caroline is solely at fault for the Leviathan getting as close to destroying Argus as it did, so it’s difficult to care when she pulls her head out of her ass to do her job.

A lack of investment also means a lack of emotional dedication, which I think showed in the lack of fanart Caroline has generated since her reveal. Her design being very drab and militaristic doesn’t help matters but unlike say, the Yang/Adam rematch where the stakes were present on an emotional and thematic level, Caroline failed to excite the audience beyond a few funny memes.

The additional problem with lacking in emotional dedication/investment is, again, we don’t have enough interest in Caroline to take her seriously, she goes in one episode from the Kooky Racist Grandma to someone we’re expected to sympathize with. And additionally, asking the fans to sympathize with a character whose opening scene includes a not-too-subtle dig at her Faunus traits was asking a lot of the fandom, especially after the previous years showed that the show’s handling of the Faunus racism plot was... varied in quality.

In short, Cordovin basically took a shotgun to her own foot in her first scene. Establishing her as an over the top comic relief character before expecting the audience to care when she broke out a walking advertisement for gen;LOCK was an extensive reach for the writers to try and unfortunately they fell flat. Trying to make the audience care for the problem she herself created is a similar long-reach. Hopefully this extended comedy sequence depiction of the Atlas military will be left behind as Volume 7 heads into the heart of darkness itself.

3) Oscar desperately needs limelight

Oscar’s been in the show now for three volumes. He spent much of Volume 4 on his own, much of Volume 5 as Ozpin’s meat-sack, and now in Volume 6 he finally gets to... get some clothes. I like them, but they’re not suitable compensation for the character development that he clearly had stolen from him.

Oscar is easily the most underdeveloped main hero right now, and it’s a problem that’s haunted the series since Volume 4. Oscar wants to be a hero much like Ruby herself did as a child, but this sole fragment of backstory is never used to make a connection to Ruby. Aaron Dismuke, bless his heart, is giving this show his all and his impression of Shannon McCormack’s tones must be applauded, but much like Cordovin he’s not given much to work with. In a way, he’s almost the hero’s version of Cinder- a character who keeps finding themselves in situations where they should realistically develop as a consequence... only for each time they do, it either gets shuffled into the next volume or relegated to offscreen happenings.

Volume 6 really should have had Oscar undergoing some kind of arc, be it his fear at being persecuted by Team RWBY and Qrow due to harboring Ozpin, his fear as his days as himself become more and more numbered, his acceptance of the fight against Salem or, most glaringly, his running off while the team is in Argus. But every time, Oscar just powers through these circumstances and never gets to develop from them. He never holds it over Qrow that he attacked a child, that Yang indirectly called him a bastard, he never thanks Ruby for having his back after the train crash, and he brushes off Jaune’s apology for smashing him into a wall and alleging he’s Ozpin masquerading himself as Oscar.

Argus is really where Oscar should have stepped into his own. I was looking forward to him going solo and having to fend for himself for a short while, maybe have a scene where he forces Ozpin to come out and talk or gets to chat with Ozma himself about his place in the war against Salem. Have him be scared of losing his personality and just becoming another body for Oz to inhibit, have him be angry that his dreams of being a hero have been cruelly dashed on the rocks for some agenda he never signed up to. Oscar should be an emotional hurricane and instead he’s just a gust of wind.

Seriously show, you had a golden opportunity for an Ozma and Oscar scene since we know Oz can speak to his past selves, and you know Arron has enough range to do both roles at once, why do you spite my farmboi.

But he got a coat now so I guess that’s technically development. Kerry admitted in the Rewind for Volume 6′s finale that some parts of the season got pushed to the next one as they usually do, and I can only hope that Oscar finally expressing emotion was one such scene because Christ alive, he needs it after all the times he just got over crap offscreen this year. I want to like Oscar, he could easily have one of the most tragic arcs of the entire show if they went with it, but the show really needs to give me something to like about him in the first place. Or else he really will become the heroic Cinder, trapped forever in a nightmarish world of never getting to properly develop in spite of countless opportunities being handed to them on a silver platter.

... I still think Oscar lifted Qrow’s wallet for that costume btw.

4) The reaction to Jinn’s story felt lockstep

I don’t have as much to say on this point but I find it rather saddening that all of the characters have much the same reaction to the truth of Ozma’s past- “Salem can’t be killed, you were leading us on for nothing”- when the weeks around the Ozma reveal had the fandom reacting to the story in a far more diverse way. Even in the hiatus we still have arguments over whether Ozpin was truly in the right or if the story was painting Salem as the true innocent party, to say nothing of the takes that Salem and Ozma’s relationship could be seen as an early iteration of Arkos or even Taruadonna with Salem as the abuser.

The fandom had such a diverse range of reactions to Jinn’s story, with everyone seeming to have their own take on the episode and the truth wherein. Some people even used this to ponder if Summer Rose had learned the truth during her time and tied it in with Red Like Roses 2, where she laments having made a necessary sacrifice, to ask if Summer had learned the truth and bitterly signed on to the war against Salem in the hopes that she’d be able to turn the tide thanks to her Silver Eyes.

“Just because I have to give you this origin story doesn’t mean you’re gonna take the right lessons from it.”

Some idiots even decided that this meant Oz was the main villain now, but I’ve learned to drown those people out.

But the show itself has a very flat range of reactions, with nearly everyone in-universe only taking away from the story that Salem cannot be conventionally killed and that therefore their entire journey is pointless. Everyone had the same reaction, with the only levels of variance being how angry they were at Ozpin and Oscar, ranging from Ruby’s “ask first if they have a plan and then be angry at Oz specifically” to Qrow and Jaune’s “physically assaulting a fourteen year old child.”

It almost makes me wonder, if the characters themselves didn’t take anything from the lesson barring Maria connecting the Silver Eyes to the God of Light and that “SALEM CAN’T BE KILLED,” why should the fans? No one took this and went “OK so we can’t stop Salem with force, maybe try talking her down?” Their minds all immediately went to not just being able to shoot her.

Jinn’s story was great, but the reaction to it in universe felt very lacking and I only worry that the more people are told about it, the more chances we’ll get to hear a variant of “Salem can’t be killed.” It’s a shame that such a morally gray out of universe debate has been stripped to its raw components in-universe.

Conclusion

Volume 6 was really good, I really liked a lot of it and it still warms my heart that I can say that about a season of RWBY post Volume 5. But there’s still a lot of work that can be done behind the scenes to fix up the flaws remaining. I chose three big flaws here but there are a few more I could bring up for quick points (mostly: Weiss getting shafted entirely in V6 feels like an overly corrective backlash to her constantly getting slaughtered in V5, Ruby’s agency does not substitute for a character arc and she still needs one, the introduction of the Faunus in Ozma’s flashbacks felt very contrived, Ren and Nora continue to feel useless to the wider plot but at least this time Ren wasn’t getting bodied every fight, so on and so forth), but ultimately we got more good than bad, and you don’t throw out an entire batch of apples just because of one rotten one near the top. I can forgive a lot more when the overall product is good, and Volume 6 certainly was a good season. Hopefully with these smaller problems fixed, which mostly just extends to “Give Cinder and Oscar onscreen development,” Volume 7 and onwards can keep the show moving forward into a brighter future and a better tomorrow.

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