#that episode was pure garbage

[what-do-1000-swords-look-like]

This might be a hot take but I've gotta get this off my chest:

I have seen so many times in the past two years the point being made by a particular section of the fandom that Sam was the hero of SPN, the "Luke Skywalker" of the series as Kripke himself stated, and that the finale ending made sense for not only Sam getting to live but also for Dean's ending. And in the very same breath, it's mentioned that the show was always about the brothers, no one else, that's what Kripke always wanted, etc., but this argument is always made from a very pro-Sam slanted/skewed anti-ship (and sometimes anti-Dean) point of view without taking into consideration of just how much the story of SPN evolved even before Kripke left the show.

Like say what you will about Sam being the hero of the story, and I'm not going to disagree with you about that being Kripke's original intention because you're right. Sam was the main protagonist; that's clear from the outset of the series. The whole first season is everything being told from Sam's POV. It's evident in every single episode in how each case has resolution thanks to Sam. He is made to be the hero. The whole arc of season 1 is about Sam being dragged back into this world due to his desire for revenge for what happened to Jessica which turns into something more aka Sam is naturally a hunter and he wants to help people/help his family->Dean. It's even Sam in the season finale that chooses a different way compared to John's quest for revenge by choosing Dean/his family over his revenge.

So, yes, you're right when you say in the beginning of the series that Sam was the hero/main protagonist. Absolutely. But what is not being mentioned/realized is that somewhere along the way, during Kripke's era, Dean's own story within the series became just as integral to the main story like Sam's as did their relationship as brothers. Kripke developed the story to include both. They both become essential to the main overhead arc of the entire show. The whole reason John and Mary even got together (through Heaven's intervention as per SPN canon) was to bring about both Sam and Dean's existence. Dean becomes the complement to Sam's role. We find out that Sam is the chosen vessel for Lucifer, and then we find out Dean is the chosen vessel for Michael, which leads to the showdown between Heaven and Hell essentially through the two. Both have a decision to make; both are tapped on the shoulders by both sides (i.e. Cas/Ruby); both are essential to the main plot while having their own separate arcs/journeys. Dean is no longer a side character or even the "Han Solo". His story is developed and we not only see his own hero's journey that he has to go on (when physically separate from Sam for example; going into the future though this is still intertwined with Sam's journey itself; going back in time, etc.) but his own desires, thought processes, relationships (outside of Sam), are also brought into the forefront for his story. Can this happen with side characters? Sure. But that's not what happens here because Kripke not only develops/beefs up Dean's story but also interweaves it with Sam's very carefully, to the point that the show doesn't work without both characters. Hence, Sam is no longer the sole main protagonist.

Which is why, for example, Dean is the one to kill the YED even though Sam had been determined to make YED pay for what happened to Jessica. And Kripke masterfully balances the main plot between the two as the show develops, so much so that we get payoff for Sam's journey (which leads up to Swan Song but I'll get to that in a moment), by fulfilling big plot points such as his killing Lillith and setting Lucifer free. He even still gets the hero's end by choosing to sacrifice himself to save Dean and the world in 5x22. Kripke beautifully takes Sam's original journey and tweaks it in such a way that while Sam had his dad's training and a similar quest for vengeance, he made a different decision and he did that while having much more on his shoulders (literally the weight of the world) than John ever did. And we still get payoff for what was initially set up way back in season 1. We get a close out to the Jessica story line, to Sam's powers story line, all of it, before Kripke dipped out.

And in the same fashion, we also got a closeout to Dean's story line. If he would ever get out of hunting, would he allow Sam to go into that dark night alone, would he be the same as John -- all of it.

So the ending to 5x22 absolutely makes sense. And we get: Dean surviving and going to live a "normal" life & Sam making the sacrifice (as the hero the series started out with) while also somehow surviving & making his way back to his brother. That's Kripke's ending. Now to be fair, Sam making his way back to Dean more likely had to do with them setting up the next season, but ultimately he wasn't dead after throwing himself and Michael into the pit.

Then in the later seasons, which some fans like to exclude or dismiss (but it's still part of Sam and Dean's official story), their stories were still integral to the main story but they had also evolved to include other characters (such as Cas, Jody, Donna, etc) and they had developed over the next ten years. So when looking at the series as a whole, Dean and Sam's endings in the series finale do not make sense. Kripke already got his ending in 5x22 and the show moved past that, and quickly set out to dismantle it in 6x01. This theme continued and the idea of free will became the center stage even more than it had in the first five seasons. By the time the last season rolled around, Dean and Sam had different desires, their stories had not only been completely intertwined to make both of them the main protagonists but both the heroes, and how their ends/hunting boots were hung up in the end would both matter.

So if you watched all of the seasons, 15x20 doesn't make sense. Because Dean and Sam wanted very different things by that point, they had both built relationships with other characters (Cas and Jack were the biggest ones but those two were not the only ones), and their story had effectively changed.

And if you didn't watch any of the later seasons (or you dismiss it), 15x20 still doesn't make sense because this wasn't the ending Kripke had for the seasons 1-5 Sam and Dean. If anything, it felt like it could have been 1x02 instead of the Wendigo episode, ending Dean and Sam's story in two short episodes with nothing in between.

That does not make sense.

Imagine we were discussing the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We all know how that ended (I'm talking TV only, not the comics). Buffy saved the world, she survived (finally!), and she was free from Sunnydale. Now imagine she had been killed off. Not only would it feel redundant but it wouldn't feel like a true ending for the story told over the past 7 seasons. What would have been the point of her being resurrected in season 6 then? What would have been the point of her relationship with Spike, Dawn, and the others? Could Joss Whedon have made it into another hero's sacrifice (instead of Spike doing the heroic/redeeming sacrifice), that she got Dawn, Willow, Xander, and the other Slayers ready to defend the world that she would die saving? Sure. But again, when you compare that ending to her story, it doesn't really make sense. There is no payoff, for the viewers or for the character of Buffy. She had earned that ending, the freedom from the Hellmouth and from the burden of being alone as the only Slayer (aka Chosen One). Which is why we get that great shot in the end:

Willow: "Yeah, the First is scrunched so...what do you think we should do, Buffy?"

Faith: "Yeah, you're not the one and only Chosen anymore. Just got to live like a person. How's that feel?"

Dawn: "Yeah, Buffy, what are we going to do now?"

The hero, who had already made the hero's sacrifice more than once, finally earned the ending that she wanted: freedom and the ability to choose to live her life for herself. The burden of being The Slayer had been removed and spread out to others (effectively building a network, hold that thought for a minute), she was no longer alone, she had defeated the Big Bad (which was effectively the Hellmouth since it kept creating/calling to these other Big Bads she faced over the years as well as the monsters she started out fighting), she might have more to face in the future, but it's up to her now what she wants to do. She is given the choice aka free will and that's what she earned after everything she had gone through during the duration of the show.

That's an ending.

This isn't:

Death wasn't supposed to be their ending. While some might be able to turn to you and say 'but they end up in Heaven together, they're at peace', that doesn't make it a payoff ending, for the viewers (early seasons only or all seasons) or for the characters of Sam and Dean. That's not effective storytelling. Neither ending was heroic or earned.

Dean dying, while again wouldn't make sense given the story, could have been painted as heroic if it happened during the battle with Chuck for example. Their final battle with the ultimate Big Bad. Even though they both died heroically quite a few times before this, it could have been done and while ultimately disappointing, it could have been the hero's end for Dean (just like Sam's end in 5x22 was the hero's end for him). This death wasn't heroic; instead it was from vampire stunt guy #4 who apparently juiced before that scene getting an upper hand on the hero and impaling him on a piece of sharp rebar. During a milk run hunt. Now imagine if that were Sam. Ask these people who think that by the end of the series that Sam was the only hero, ask them if that happened to Sam instead, would they still be praising the finale? Or imagine that was Buffy. That she survived like she does, the Hellmouth in Sunnydale was finally gone, only to be killed by a random forgettable vampire who she had faced off with in the first season and got away, only to suddenly return and take the hero out, thus negating the payoff/earned ending she and the viewers got. Doesn't make sense, right?

Now imagine if say Dawn was killed off in a similar way (though tbf Dawn's role was not the same as Dean's in the story) or during the battle, and we see Buffy living her life through the years, getting out of slaying, having a family which consists of a daughter she names Dawn, wearing her own Party City wig and looking at a picture of Dawn all teary-eyed, dying in her sleep as an old lady, and then reuniting with her in Heaven. It doesn't work. Not only because Dawn had a very different role in the show when it came to the main story but also because it DOESN'T WORK. What kind of hero's end is that? What payoff is that? Is it great that Sam gets to choose to get out of hunting and have a family? Sure. But that's not where his story was headed, in later seasons, or even during Kripke's era.

Going back to the network thing I mentioned with Buffy, Sam had done that. Not only were there strong hints of leader!Sam near the end of the series, but he had effectively built a network of hunters for a time until Alt!Michael killed them all. But he and Dean still had a network going through Jody, Donna, Claire, even Jack until he turned God!Jack. Wayward Sisters might not have taken off when it first aired but the point was made: a hunter network still existed. And these characters, this network, even though not shown in the finale, still survived no matter what happened with Sam and Dean in the end. Why is this important? Because not only does it extend the hunting universe, but it also removes the burden from the heroes' shoulders. So they could have gotten out of hunting if they wanted to, just like Buffy could have laid down her axe (or stake). The heroes had earned it.

So for Dean to die on a random hunt and for those few to say that it was being foreshadowed this whole time with Dean's quotes (from before season 15 btw) and a proper ending to his story...they really don't know what show they were watching or how storytelling works in general. Because when they say that, they negate Dean's whole arc of season 15 (while also negating his whole series arc). Dean was angry in the beginning of the season because he thought not only had his free will been taken from him, but also because he thought he hadn't had any free will this whole time. There's a reason why he says what he says to Cas in 15x02. There's a reason why he was so gung ho on letting Jack sacrifice himself, and only once once Sam and Chuck say what they say in 15x17 does Dean make a different choice: his family (and the world) vs his own desire (his idea of free will, not fully realizing that he's actually utilizing it by making that choice). It's only when he chooses not to kill Chuck in 15x19 that he is completely self-aware and that he is using his free will to make a choice. A choice that affects how the Big Bad is ended/defeated. "That's not who I am."

He was given the hero's choice and he made it. And his decision was the right one that had payoff from not only the events in 15x17 and 15x18 but for his overall story. That's why what Cas says to him in 15x18 about who he is as a character was so important. It set Dean up to not only have self-realization but to also act upon it. Think about how many times over the years Sam and other characters have told Dean this about himself but he never really believed it. Why? Because he hadn't reached that part of his journey yet. Because he hadn't reached the end of it yet. So it makes perfect sense how 15x17, 15x18, and 15x19 play out. This is the appropriate ending battle for not only Dean but Sam as well:

This was the hero's sacrifice they made. They could have been killed from Chuck beating on them as he did. He could have chosen to snap his fingers at any point. They made the sacrifice in order to get Jack the time and energy he needed to power up to overpower Chuck. And they never stayed down no matter the pain, no matter the potential of their deaths at Chuck's hand. They refused to give it up. This is why Sam helps Dean back up and why they're laughing/smiling. Because they know that no matter what happens to them, Jack/the world is going to win. "Why are you smiling?" "Because...you lose." And their sacrifice not only hands victory over to the new generation aka Jack but also instates the new God who replaces Chuck aka The Big Bad of the entire series. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SCREAMS HERO.

So it's not only payoff for Jack's story (as well as Chuck's) but also for Sam and Dean's. And both brothers were the heroes. Which is why Sam tells Chuck that he loses and Dean tells him that they won. Why both of them tell Chuck about their plan that they formed together (and Jack doesn't say a word). Which is why Chuck says he's going to die at both of their hands, both Sam and Dean look at each other, and then Dean makes the choice not to kill Chuck. "See, that's not who I am. That's not who we are." Because they both were the heroes and main protagonists of the series. Something that Kripe had set up long before 5x22.

"What kind of an ending is this?" One the heroes had earned. Chuck as the Big Bad wanted violence and death, an ending he would be entertained by. And even for an ending he hadn't imagined for himself (where he loses), he still expected a grisly death at the hands of the heroes. Had either Winchester done that, then Chuck would have gotten what he wanted and it wouldn't be the heroes' end that they had earned.

This was the ending that Sam and Dean earned:

The choice to continue on if they wanted or to get out of hunting for good. To go see Jody, Donna, and the girls, or go get Cas out of The Empty, or go on milk run hunts for a while, or even to go to a freaking baseball game (screw you, John!); the point is it was their choice. That's what they had earned by the end of the series.

The ending that Chuck earned was not only the worst he could imagine but it was punishment for everything he had done. Both brothers say as much:

Sam: "I think it's the ending where you're just like us. And like all the other humans you forgot about."

Dean: "It's the ending where you grow old, you get sick, and you just die."

Sam: "And no one cares. And no one remembers you. You're just forgotten."

This was not the heroes' ending or the ending both characters had earned/deserved:

This was:

For the ones who insist that Dean's sacrifice was the right ending for his story and that he got a new Heaven as a reward are incorrect. Heaven wasn't what Dean wanted, not before he got what he earned.

For the one who insist that Sam's ending was right for his story and that he got to have a family and choose to get out of hunting as a reward are incorrect. Sam wanted Dean to be a part of that life (however it looked) and he had no desire to get out of hunting by the time the series came to an end.

15x20 is not the right ending for either Winchester.

And for those who say that Dean hadn't become one of the heroes in the series or that the finale was right because Sam was the sole main protagonist by the end (or even Kripke's ending in 5x22) clearly weren't paying attention. Not only did Sam not get the heroes' end or the end he wanted and earned, but neither did Dean who had been developed into the other main protagonist of the series, by the series creator himself before he left the show.

Bonus:

15x20 was not their real finale and here's how you know:

Next shot (after cutting to black):

Nothing after it.

SPN:

Next shot (after fading to black):

And then:

(while still in costume, the two leads thanking the fans and then the crew/bridge drone shot complete with show music)

Compare this to how 15x19 ended as well. We get the montage, the drive off shot, and then the scene from 1x01 of Sam shutting the trunk of the Impala as Dean watches. Then cuts to black.

That's their finale.

[renthony]

In Defense of Shitty Queer Art

Queer art has a long history of being censored and sidelined. In 1895, Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence in the author’s sodomy trials. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the American Hays Code prohibited depictions of queerness in film, defining it as “sex perversion.” In 2020, the book Steven Universe: End of an Era by Chris McDonnell confirmed that Rebecca Sugar’s insistence on including a sapphic wedding in the show is what triggered its cancellation by Cartoon Network. According to the American Library Association, of the top ten most challenged books in 2023, seven were targeted for their queer content. Across time, place, and medium, queer art has been ruthlessly targeted by censors and protesters, and at times it seems there might be no end in sight.

So why, then, are queer spaces so viciously critical of queer art?

Name any piece of moderately-well-known queer media, and you can find immense, vitriolic discourse surrounding it. Audiences debate whether queer media is good representation, bad representation, or whether it’s otherwise too problematic to engage with. Artists are picked apart under a microscope to make sure their morals are pure enough and their identities queer enough. Every minor fault—real or perceived—is compiled in discourse dossiers and spread around online. Lines are drawn, and callout posts are made against those who get too close to “problematic art.”

Modern examples abound, such as the TV show Steven Universe, the video game Dream Daddy, or the webcomic Boyfriends, but it’s far from a new phenomenon. In his book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, queer pop culture analyst Matt Baume writes about an example from the 1970s, where the ABC sitcom titled Soap was protested by homophobes and queer audiences alike—before a single episode of the show ever aired. Audiences didn’t wait to actually watch the show before passing judgment and writing protest letters.

After so many years starved for positive representation, it’s understandable for queer audiences to crave depictions where we’re treated well. It’s exhausting to only ever see the same tired gay tropes and subtext, and queer audiences deserve more. Yet the way to more, better, varied representation is not to insist on perfection. The pursuit of perfection is poison in art, and it’s no different when that art happens to be queer.

When the pool of queer art is so limited, it feels horrible when a piece of queer art doesn’t live up to expectations. Even if the representation is technically good, it’s disappointing to get excited for a queer story only for that story to underwhelm and frustrate you.

But the world needs that disappointing art. It needs mediocre art. It even needs the bad art. The world needs to reach a point where queer artists can fearlessly make a mess, because if queer artists can only strive for perfection, the less art they can make. They may eventually produce a masterpiece, but a single masterpiece is still a drop in the bucket compared to the oceans of censorship. The only way to drown out bigotry and offensive stereotypes created by bigots is to allow queer artists the ability to experiment, learn through making mistakes, and represent their queer truth even if it clashes with someone else’s.

If queer artists aren’t allowed to make garbage, we can never make those masterpieces everyone craves. If queer artists are terrified at all times that their art will be targeted both by bigots and their own queer communities, queer art cannot thrive.

Let queer artists make shitty art. Let allies to queer people try their hand at representation, even if they miss the mark. Let queer art be messy, and let the artists screw up without fear of overblown retribution.

It’s the only way we’ll ever get more queer art.

_

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[tocomplainfriend]

HAZBIN AND SA (+HB)

TW: SA and RAPE

THIS ITSELF DOESN'T TALK ABOUT THE SCENE! But the surrounding context.

So I really hate everything about how this has being treated. I am a SA victim and wanna talk about some stuff. If you didn't know, in episode 4 (I think) there is an exploration of Angel Dust SA, before going to do that lets see some stuff first:

She made a "cumming" joke about the song Poison (that accompanies the SA scenes)

This person over here worked on HH/HB (draws r-pe/non-con)

BLURRED AND CUTTED IMAGES: (Some are more or less explicit)

You know, that whole thing of shipping, and drawing porn of the canonical sexual abuser with the victim?

They also left this comment, under a comic where Val threatens brutal r-pe on Angel.

This person also worked in/directed the scenes of Angel dust Sexual abuse in the episode. The person that ships a r-pe ship and does all this shit is the one to work in this scene?????

ALSO????

Like??????? What happen here?

Also...

(The pinkie pfp person is 15 here too)

Why does Angel sexually harrases Husk non-stop (which is acknowledged by Vaggie)? Why is Moxxie SA by the succubus played for laughs? Same with Chaz or Blitz harassing him sexually or touching him without consent? Why did Stolas do so many unwanted advances towards Blitz, and that's literally the endgame couple of the show? (All of this are jokes, or by the Husk x Angel shit "ship moments"

WHY THIS TOO?

And yes you are "correct", something like Hypersexuality Trauma-should not being shamed. You are not a bad person, for dealing with this. BUT HEY, that doesn't mean you get to sexually harass people like Angel does to Husk or anyone.

Also, the problem is not having an SA victim's story. The problem is how it is treated and all the context that surrounds it. All of this above is that context! Why is so much SA jokes in Helluva? Why is that funny? You want to tell a story of SA, and anyone calling out the problems with it is deleting victims feelings and stories... YOU AND YOUR STUPID FUCKING JOKES DO THAT ALREADY. WHEN SA IS A JOKE FOR YOU, YOU ARE DIMINISHING SA AND R-PE.

There are also a lot of random fans saying that "Viv is an SA victim too"- #1 Where the fuck did she say that, cause you randomly saying that she said it doesn't mean shit. #2 DOESN'T DELETE THE WAY SA HAS BEING TREATED! THIS IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO MAKING A JOKE AS AN SA VICTIM ABOUT YOURSELF- SHE/AND OTHER IN THE TEAM ARE WRITING CHARACTERS GETTING SEXUALLY ASSAULTED AS THE JOKE. -OR NOT UNDERSTAND LEGIT POWER DYNAMICS AND THE GROSS THING THAT STOLAS DOES TO BLITZ. OR THE LITERAL "SHIP COMPILATION" THAT IS PURELY ANGEL SEXUALLY HARASSING HUSK.

"Is important to represent SA survivors stories- specially men who-" BROTHER ALL YOUR OTHER MALE CHARACTERS SEXUALLY HARRASS/ASSAULT OTHERS AS A JOKEEEE. "They are in hell" BITCH A HUMAN, A REAL PERSON WORKING ON THE SHOW WROTE hahaha Moxxie gets violated by the succubus so funny lol. IT'S NOT "LOONA IS A BAD PERSON FROM HELL THAT'S WHY SHE MADE FAT JOKES AT MOXXIE" NO IT'S WRITTEN AS IF THE SA WAS FUNNY IN ITSELF!

This is also not a scenario where there was a realization of the problems in HB with all those jokes and the harassment, so it was trying to be fixed with a serious story in hazbin. NO, THAT'S NOT IT!!!!

If there was an apology of how the sexual assault was treated in previous works! "We'll make up for it!" (the fact of that was a thing in the first place, it's still bad). That would be a little different. BUT NO, IT'S NOT! IT'S HYPOCRITICAL AND GARBAGE BULLSHIT.

I think purely by the context already given here that I think the representation it's bad. I don't feel like it comes from a good place, due to the hypocritical shit, the comments, and the artist who directed it.

We could go really back and forth with the direct scenes of the episode. BUT THIS IS ABOUT THE CONTEXT SURROUND IT rather than the scenes themselves. (Which is partly connected to the fact that it's incomplete)

Here is the scene "Tuca and Bertie". Is Bertie telling her friend of her assault. It's amazingly respectful and well written. It's not graphic, and tells the story really well.

[onwhatcaptain]

To Star Trek TOS fans that say "TOS was so bad, but I love it."

One thing I noticed is that Star Trek TOS fans really will throw their own show under the bus out of pure self-consciousness. Star Trek TOS fans hate themselves a bit and will immediately make it known so others won't attack them for liking it, as if pre-emptively admitting TOS was bad will protect them from any criticism of it. They'll be like "yeah I know it's garbage YEAH everything sucks the plots the costumes the effects the acting blah blah BUT I LOVE IT!"

I mean, not really. Actually, I don't think it's bad. I think plenty of it is fantastic and has some misses and moments that warrant criticism... like everything does.

But frankly, it's no worse than shows they make today. I mean, Riverdale exists. Even Star Trek today can be garbage, like the SNW episode where they said Spock's bowl cut and every single Vulcan behavior is genetic.

You're allowed to like TOS, people. It's really not that bad and tbh the insistence that it was just awful totally contributes to the popular culture image of the whole womanizing rash captain in space concept. Star Trek TOS was great. The costumes and the effects and yes, the acting. Star Trek would not have survived without every single aspect you insist is really bad. I have no idea why we insist on being embarrassed. The effects and costumes were actually fantastic given what they were working with. Let's not be so quick to admit that TOS was shit but we love it. We love the fun, the characters like our lovely and amazing Uhura, Chekov, Scotty, the plots, we love the intense chemistry between the leads and if you're in the same circles as me then, especially K/S, and there's a lot to love—and plenty that was good.

It was good and we love it.

[omgthatdress]

Everything I know about the royals comes from Tumblr memes and one bonus episode of a totally unrelated podcast but now I'm morbidly curious, so: what's up with William? And the Middletons? Or if that's a longer story than you want to explain, do you have recommendations for where to read about this that is likely to be fairly accurate?

I don't have any facts I just have pure fucking speculation if that's okay. :)

Like I've been saying for a long-ass time the one thing I absolutely LOVED about The Crown was its portrayal of generational trauma. It very skillfully showed how being a shitty husband who cheats on his wife and treats his kids like garbage was passed down from Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark to Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh to King Charles and then to Prince William. Hell, it probably started long before that but holy shit THE CYCLE OF DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE BE REPEATING ITSELF.

And if you really want to dig into it, well.... I think he and Harry followed a pattern that a LOT of siblings of bitter and messy divorce fall into, one kid sides with the mom, one with the dad. It's been said a LOT that Harry was Diana's favorite son, so it probably started with that. And OF COURSE William is gonna side with Charles because well... he's the heir. They have that shared trauma.

And then there's the way the whole "heir and spare" thing absolutely perverts any relationship they might have had as brothers. Charles managed to have a decent relationship with his siblings, I think, because first of all, Anne was a girl, and then Andrew and Edward were significantly younger than him and Anne, so there wasn't this unnaturally massive imbalance of power between them. One of the reasons I've come to believe the monarchy should be abolished is because of how badly it damages the structure of a family in a way that no one should have to deal with.

I think Diana might have been able to guide William into being a better person if she'd have lived, but idk. It may be wishful thinking. His relationship with her became kind of strained when he was a teenager and she was going on TV to tell the whole fucking world about her sex life. I think Diana did the right thing exposing the family like she did, but I can also understand how a 13 year old boy would be absolutely humiliated by that.

THEN there's the whole way he was a MASSIVE heartthrob as a teenager, and was intensely sexualized for it. Like it will absolutely mess with you when you have girls screaming and throwing themselves at you when you're still trying to figure your own sexuality out. It will also massively inflate your ego and convince you that the whole world loves you and there's nothing you can do wrong.

SOOOOOO

as for his relationship with Kate. She's much harder to pin down because she hasn't spent her entire fucking life in the spotlight, and the Middletons are sill granted a certain degree of privacy that the Windsors aren't. I don't think they're as absolutely fucked up as Diana's family was but I still definitely think her mom was a major driving force behind her staying with William.

I think there actually was some initial mutual attraction and that they may have even actually been in love. Buuuut then he waited ten years to propose to her, during which he cheated and they broke up and got back together. Honestly, I don't know what Kate's damage was with all of that, whether or not she was able to convince herself that William wouldn't be another shitty husband, or if she was willing to put up with his bullshit if it meant she would be queen.

Diana was more or less picked out as a bride for Charles because it was assumed that she would be a meek and beautiful wifey who never caused any problems. I mean, she was 19 and he was 32 for fuck's sake. She very much wanted to be queen. BUT what everyone wasn't counting on was that Diana would *gasp* have some serious emotional needs. She was deeply traumatized by her own parents' incredibly bitter divorce, overwhelmed and deeply lonely in her position as princess, and on top of that, suffering from bulimia and then post-natal depression. She needed love and support and Charles spent the whole marriage balls deep in Camilla.

Kate had a much more stable upbringing and had more than a few months to get to know both William and what her role as a princess would be. Ultimately, the vibe I get from her is that she's willing to be the perfect meek beautiful wifey who puts up with William's bullshit if it means she can be royal, which is exactly what Diana was supposed to be.

And I don't mean that to knock or belittle her. She's good at it. She looks incredibly happy when she's doing that. It's her career. It's an exchange I can actually really understand making, especially when your only other prospects involved working for your parents' party company.

But I could be extremely wrong about all of this Maybe she's absolutely miserable but she feels like she has no other options and worried about losing her kids and is terrified of what happened to Diana. It's hard to know, and I wish The Crown would have at least committed to *something* rather than just brushing all of this off.

[physalian]

Content Warnings for Original Books

Can we please encourage content warnings for smut and other triggering topics in published literature? This needs to be a thing. Everyone bashes fanfiction for being fanfiction, but I’ve never seen a fanfic where the smut or trigger warnings weren’t tagged to high heaven somewhere in the description or in the opening author’s note.

AO3, compared to FFN, even has a specific “mature” rating just for sex—”E”—that FFN didn’t have. FFN had nervous authors throwing objectively mild content into the “M” rating (e.g. "rated M to be safe"), which meant that if you wanted to read a story that was a little bit violent, you had to turn off your filters as a kid and sift through all the smut just to find that one smut-less, but violent, fic.

When I was a kid in my early FFN days, I was probably exposed to way more stuff I shouldn’t have been reading because I had to disable the mature filter, just so I could read so-called “graphic violence” from pearl-clutching authors. I’d be looking for that one action-adventure fic that happens to have a little murder in it, and sift through fifty pure-smut summaries that ranged from vanilla to straight BDSM—of which had a high chance of being incredibly unhealthy, but you wouldn’t know that at 10, 11, 12 years old.

Fanfic authors, especially when the fanfic platform gives them the freedom to tag, are very clear to let you know just what you’re getting into.

—

I doubt I need to explain what a content warning is on Tumblr, but I will anyway. A content or trigger warning is a heads up at the beginning of a work of media that there are some elements not meant for younger audiences, or for sensitive audiences, or for people who have experienced situations depicted in traumatic ways, or for people who just don’t want to consume media with such content.

In film, this is obvious. If it’s rated R, you generally know what to expect. Generally. Because an R rated film could be R because of anything from profanity to graphic sex/assault and torture scenes. The MPAA rating system is garbage and ‘harsh language’ is not nearly on the same tier as sex in terms of what we should expose our children to.

Before streaming like Amazon as a platform to get around cable censorship rules, you had premium networks like HBO for all your adult content, and then some shows greenlit on smaller networks like AMC—never on ABC, CBS, TNT, etc. HBO wasn’t only for adult stuff, I used to watch Crashbox all the time.

That was the place you went for media that circumvented foul language, violence, and nudity rules in America. It kind of came with its own built-in content warning by virtue of being on those networks, and even then they still give warnings for shows on HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc.

At the start of every episode, you either get a full screen from Starz with the little icons for profanity, nudity, violence, etc, or it would be up at the top around the episode's title. You'd know exactly what you were getting into.

—

In a fanfiction, because I’ve never seen one in an original book, much less for generic vanilla sex scenes, this is what we’re all familiar with:

A/N: Trigger warning! This story contains mentions of rape/non-con. Turn back now, don’t like don’t read.

They also tend to appear at the top of the chapter that contains said scene to double down on the warning, or will, upon completion, include which chapter or chapter section to skip in the work’s summary or opening author’s note. In the old FFN days, there might even be a 4th wall break mid-chapter. Though the terminology we use over the years shifts, we still manage to get the point across.

Like, if I turn off all the filters on AO3 trying to browse for tags and underloved characters that may be lumped in with stuff I’d rather not read, I’ll see tags like “DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT,” which was not a thing in FFN days, even if FFN had allowed things like tags.

While it’s easier to tell in movies due to that shitty-but-functional rating system, that’s not really the case with fiction books. With books, I know the genre, and I know the intended audience age group. If I pick up a book in the children’s sci-fi section, I know it’s going to be something about robots or space or the future and our characters are going to be about twelve years old.

If I pick up a YA thriller, I know I’m going to have a cast of sixteen-to-twenty-somethings and there’s going to be some violence, very vanilla cussing or the author’s own slang, and probably some murder.

Adult or new adult romance—Sex. At least one scene guaranteed.

The problem is that unlike films and TV shows, we don’t get a breakdown for books on what to expect and the nature of those scenes. There’s no little ‘R’ sticker on the back cover and there’s certainly no little insert between chapters to let you know what’s coming next. There's no "trailer" I can read to get a sense of your tone.

So if I’m in the mood for a new adult supernatural romance novel and I have to sit through a vanilla sex scene, that’s fine, that’s what I’m reading it for. But if Mr. Badboy is incredibly aggressive and dominating and being an asshole with very dubious consent, that’s different (although, objectively determining what is and isn't 'dubious' is mighty difficult).

Should I still expect that I take my fluffy or angsty romance with a fat grain of salt just in case?

What happens if it’s not a romance novel, but I get a surprise rape scene as my character’s Tragic Backstory? What if it’s an adventure novel? Spy thriller? High fantasy or historical fiction or murder mystery? If there’s no indication in the genre, summary, or by the style of the cover that I’ll have to read about two characters getting it on?

Some people don’t want to read your characters in all the nitty gritty details. They really like everything else about your book, they just don’t want to read a sex scene, and they really don’t want to be super invested, hundreds of pages and even years of series dedication in, and be massively turned off by smut.

It doesn't need to be this big to-do or hyperdetailed like fanfic. In my upcoming book, I had beta readers with personal and moral objections to some of my themes. From then on, I made sure to ask up front so I didn't trigger my betas.

ENNS is about vampires. I haven't settled on what my content warning page might look like or how exactly I want to phrase it, but it might read something like this:

Dear readers, this is a content warning for graphic violence and adult themes. This book contains mentions of assault, self-harm, and suicide. Please be warned that these themes are present and prevalent in this story and readers should take the utmost care for yourselves when approaching this book. Thank you.

Something like this, just a quick, lighthearted heads up for your novel would suffice:

Dear readers, this book ain’t for kiddies! Be prepared for some adult themes and suggestive romance between characters.

I'm definitely not in the camp of pearl-clutching suburban conservatives, but if I'm browsing for a new novel for my tweenage bookworm and I opened up a book with an intriguing summary, and saw that warning? I'd be much happier with the author for their consideration, instead of buying it blind for my kid. You have no idea why someone wouldn't want to read a sex scene. They might be prude, or they might be a survivor just trying to enjoy a new book.

Because romance and sex is taken for granted, most people are at least going to be open to the possibility of sex, but not everyone will be expecting it or wanting it or think it warranted. It’s not spoilery, it’s not revealing some surprise plot twist, it’s a kind and considerate gesture for those members of your audience who just don’t like sex scenes. And heck, maybe they don't want to read it right now, but they'll remember you and pick your book back up later because you tried.

—

TL;DR: I don’t mind smut. When done well.

There’s a reason romance such a compelling story and why it dominates fanfiction and original works leagues ahead of all other plotlines.

But it still needs a content warning, even if you think it’s obvious, or spoilery, or patronizing. Because if I’m not in the mood for it, it just drags and I want to put the book down instead of reading all your hard work to completion.

[mikuni14]

Twins - Ep 7

I tried to write some sensible commentary on this episode, but no sensible words come to mind 🤡

I love this series, I love how chaotic it is, how for 6 episodes nothing happens in terms of romance, but there are random, sudden scenes of the second couple making out hotly - a couple which is barely shown and if you don't watch carefully, you can even miss them. And how the main couple catches up with all the previous episodes in terms of their romance in one episode 😀😂👌

MY EVERLASITNG LOVE IS SPRITE, MY BELOVED PRECIOUS BOY, THE BEST HIMBO BOY THAT HAS EVER HIMBED. Sprite has no filter, he is very dumb, but at the same time he has the surprising wisdom of the ancient gods. He doesn't see how he's being treated badly (DON'T WORRY BABY, I SEE IT, I'M NOTING IT IN DETAIL, AND I'M HOLDING MY GRUDGES FOREVER), but he always sees when others need his help. Sprite's game is at a level impossible for mere mortals to achieve. He has First where he wants, he does with him what he wants, how he wants, when he wants. First didn't even notice how his entire existence is now in Sprite's hand (the other hand, not the one holding the garbage bag). First's mood depends on Sprite, what he will do, what he will tell him, how he will behave. First, the "perfect grumpy dude", in the presence of Sprite turns into a pathetic, sad, sulking jealous babygirl, who is 🥺 because Sprite gives him ONLY 96.78% of his attention and who is 🥰 because Sprite says that he is his special, most important boy…. I AM IN AWE, that's my son! And the funniest thing is that Sprite doesn't do it consciously, he is SINCERELY devastated that he is not on the same team as First, he honestly runs after him with the most 🥺🥰🥳🤡😇🤩😋😊 face in the world, he sincerely wants to be with him and take care of him. Putting aside everything that happens in The Sign, the shoe-tying scene is my third favorite, hottest scene of the year. And that is the perfection that is Twins. They have no shame or objections at all to just... randomly throw a scene that makes me wonder why I'm still alive and writing these words and not my own epitaph.

And that's not even all! There's also the adorable necklace scene with Salmon, Evil!Buddhist Monk sowing disturbance with his whispered evil words :) random scenes with the other characters and their own messy lives, how social media and shipping culture destroy friendships and real people, Sam heartbroken pumping volleyball balls while the camera shows him from behind 😭😂…

The only thing I didn't like, but I just NEVER like it, was the romanticization of bruises. No honey, bruises are NOT signs of love, can we stop this already?

But! Back to being stupid and high. I can't help but praise the 'realization of their feelings and the kiss' scene, which was the most random, ridiculous, TRASHY lol and funniest scene in the world, which I spent half of wheezing on the floor, but which I absolutely fucking LOVE.

The amount of love I feel for Sprite and his pure energy is immeasurable. Both me and First have NO chance, he's just too powerful. And the moment when Sprite knelt in front of First, slowly and never breaking eye contact, was defining and life-changing for both of us 💖

[sanguineterrain]

about spilled milk - e.m.

okay now you folks said you weren't tired of the eddie snapshots so here i am with another one because it's all i can write these days...

Summary: Eddie's got you every time. Even when you've spilled milk.

Pairing: Eddie Munson x gn!reader

Word count: 1.1k

Warnings/tags: depressive episode, reader has an emotional breakdown, brief suicidal thoughts. there is an uplifting ending; not a 'they got over it!" because that's not how depression works, but i made a point not to end on a sad note. if you think these topics might upset you, please take care of yourself first.

by the way, it does get better.

divider by firefly-graphics

Strawberry milk is your favorite. 

Chocolate is a close second. Pure, whole milk is likely the Devil's invention. Soy milk is decent when you have the sudden, crazed urge to go healthy and reinvent your personality. 

But strawberry milk has always been there for you. 

There's a carton of it in your fridge right now. You hope it's still good. If you remember correctly (not that your memory is all that reliable these days), you'd bought it Monday. It's now Sunday. Milk doesn't expire that fast, does it? Certainly not strawberry milk, with all of Nesquik's special preservatives. 

You feel preserved too. It must be a strange process, forcing a thing to be something it's not; making it last when it doesn't want to. 

There are too many dishes in the sink. You'd promised you'd get to them today, but that had been three days ago. They add to the kitchen’s essence, you think. Or maybe that's just the preservatives talking. 

You use a paper cup so you can throw it out after. You need to throw out the garbage too, because it's rotting, and you can't handle another rotting thing in this house. 

The paper cup has little orange flowers on it. You stare at them for a long time while you work up the courage to open the fridge. 

You feel naked without your blanket. It's covered you for many days now. You're not sure what to do without it. 

Part of you wants to abandon the cup. But you're so thirsty. And you're hungry but you haven't got the energy to take a pan out of the cupboard and add another dish and throw something else away, all to rot, rot, rot. 

You take the milk from the fridge. It expires next month. The cold makes your fingers ache. It's the first tangible feeling you've had all day. 

Down the hall, the lock turns. You can't remember inviting anyone over, but, as you know, your memory isn't trustworthy these days. You think you've felt this yawning agony in your stomach for years, but you've managed to graduate high school and you've tricked a boy into falling in love with you. Years must be a stretch, right? 

You pour the milk. It's a pretty, happy pink. You wonder if it'll turn your insides a pretty, happy pink too. 

"Sweet thing, are you here?" 

The trick is done. This good boy, this person in your life you don't deserve, he's going to learn your secret. He's going to find you and your preservatives expired all over the kitchen floor. 

"Honey? Please respond to me if you're here." 

You take the milk. Somewhere between staring sightlessly at your ceiling tiles and thinking about doing the dishes, you've forgotten how to hold a cup. 

It falls. Pink milk sprays the kitchen tile. 

The yawning agony does something funny. It decides to climb up your throat. It's tired of being inside you. You can't blame it. You wouldn't want to be inside yourself either. 

Eddie finds you hunched over the counter, crying like you're grieving. And you are. You mourn the milk and you mourn the flesh that used to fill the hole in your chest. 

"Baby? Hey, hey, what's happening? What's wrong?"

Everything is wrong. You're the wrongest of all. 

Eddie leads you away from the mess. Your legs don't work right and you stagger, knees giving out. Eddie holds you and you don't like being held, but you think you might've never gotten up if Eddie wasn't here. 

"Oh, honey. Baby, it's alright. It's okay, it's okay."

This is scary. You are scary. People don't like to be afraid. Eddie will snap at you, get angry that you've spilled milk and that the agony couldn't come out until after he left.  

You wait for the hushing. The urgent pleads to calm down. You have never calmed down in your life. You don't know how. 

"It hurts," you cry and grip Eddie's shirt so hard your fingers ache. 

"What hurts? What hurts, honey? C'mere, lemme see."

"I hurt," you say. "I don't want to be here."

"Oh." Eddie tucks your face into his neck and rubs your back. Up and down, up and down. "Oh, oh, it's okay. I got you. I want you to be here. It won't always feel like this."

He cradles you through your agony. Eddie doesn't shout or shush. He doesn't tell you to mind the neighbors or your parents in the next room who'll think something is seriously fucking wrong with you. 

You cry and scream and probably squeeze Eddie too hard. And he lets you, even though the trick is over and he doesn't have to love you anymore, if he doesn't want to. 

"I'm sorry," you wail. 

"No, don't apologize. Nothing to apologize for."

"I'm sorry you have to see me like this."

You don't want to rot. You've tried your whole life to avoid this feeling. To be happy, because that's what people want. They want you to be happy so they can burden you. It's hard to burden somebody who rots. 

Eddie holds you until you stop your mourning on your own. Then he picks you up from the floor and helps you to the couch. 

"D'you want the milk?" he asks, gentle even though you're monstrous. 

You nod. 

Eddie's hand lingers on your cheek. Then he goes and cleans up your milk. And he pours more into a real glass, one that will need to be washed. Then he ties up the garbage and brings it outside. 

You drink your milk and wait for him to not come back. 

But Eddie does. He washes his hands in the kitchen sink and then he sits down next to you. 

You drink half the glass. Eddie takes it from you and puts it on the table.

"I'm sorry for scaring you," you say. 

"You didn't scare me."

"I did."

I don't want to be here, you'd said before, and they'd screamed at you for it. 

"No," Eddie says, and slips your fingers together. "You didn't. I'm not afraid of your feelings. I'm worried. And I care about you. And I love you. But I'm not afraid."

"It's too much." I'm too much.

"No, it's not." No, you're not.

You look at him. Your eyes feel hot again. 

"If you want to leave—"

"I don't. And I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it." 

Your lip wobbles, but not because of the agony. 

"You want me to hold you?" Eddie asks. 

You crawl into his arms and he sorts through your mess. He's real and alive and so are you and God, you don't want to fight this good thing anymore. 

"Tell me again you'll stay," you plead. 

"I'll stay," Eddie says. 

You curl your hand into a fist and rest it over his heart. 

"I spilled so much milk."

Eddie wipes a tear from your cheek. 

"That's okay. We can always get more."

[beepborpdoodledorp]

it’s been literal months but I finally finally FINALLY got around to revising my designs for post-Episode 10/Cookie Odyssey onwards designs for Black Raisin and Strawberry Crepe, which is a revision of this which in and of itself was a revision of this, both of which look like complete garbage by my current standards for myself.

But seriously I’m so glad I finally got around to completing these, A. because I’ve been wanting to revisit these for months, B. they’re relevant to that ‘CRK main story rewrite where Healer/Pure Vanilla and Black Raisin are the protagonists’ I’ve been wanting to get off the ground for over a year (which is far from dead! I just have a massive talent for procrastination), and C. these two are stinky and are in desperate need of new clothes. seriously Black Raisin’s lived her entire life in a barren wasteland wearing nothing but ripped rags and bandages and Strawberry Crepe was stuck in cryostasis for god knows how long and that stupid pajama-poncho combo has probably been their only set of clothes this entire time, both of them need a new wardrobe

[rynekins]

Welcome, friends, to the Sideshow Bob Awards! Recently I did a few polls about certain elements of Sideshow Bob episodes, and now I shall give some commentary over the results!

Why did I do this? Eh, funsies, but I’ll always look for an excuse to ramble about Sideshow Bob.

First up is the Award for Humor. Which Sideshow Bob episode is the funniest? Black Widower makes Honorable Mention. While an important episode with a lot of notable moments, I might not personally rank it amongst the funniest. Though Bob’s dry wit (as always) wins me over, and Bart explaining Bob’s plan to Homer, worthy of a chuckle.

This overall ranking, out of all of the polls, I agree with the most. Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming has some stellar Bob moments: Bob on helium, mimicking the Colonel, his pathetic attempt to kill Krusty, and who could possibly forget the Air Show Rant.

“Air Show? Buzzzzzz-cut Alabamians spewing colored smoke from their whiz jets to the strains of Rock You Like a Hurricane? What kind of country-fried rube’s still impressed by that?!” As for the Air Show Rant, I am also giving it the Award for Best Quote. Unfortunately, this poll did not have much engagement. I expected people to be shy, and I suppose I should have made it a normal poll for people to vote on instead of asking for more direct input, but there are simply too many good Bob quotes to narrow it down! How could I possibly? I had not the strength. His exasperation with his peers, mocking elitist tone, the venom, the sass, the hip swaying and crossing of his feet, going wall eyed and throwing his arms out cuz he always gotta be extra, if there is a perfect Sideshow Bob quote that exemplifies his character it would be this one.

Aside from that, mocking the military and garbage television, this episode offers a ton of laughs, worthy of at least Third place.

Brother From Another Series takes Second, and has a different brand of humor, but the kind that always gets me. It’s supposedly written like an episode of Frasier, which means the script is chock full of one liners from two guys too smart for their own good, constantly trying to one-up eachother. You wonder how both Bob and Cecil could ever end up in Springfield, an environment of pure dumbassery, and it clearly has had an effect on them (they must have drunk the water). Personal favorite moments are the boys with the slack-jawed locals, “especially Lisa, but ESPECIALLY Bart”, and “utterly hopeless”.

To no one’s surprise Cape Feare takes the crown. It often makes top 10 lists for its humor alone, and with good reason. This episode is packed with jokes, funny drawings, and goofiness, with running gags so memorable and powerful that they would get callbacks even 30 years later. The idiocy is at an all time high, both with Homer and Bob, which frankly is necessary to balance out the more sinister and rather tense scenes. Homer scaring Bart, the rakes, the drive through the cactus patch, The Rakes, “Hello Mr Thompson”, THE RAKES. This episode is iconic, and I completely understand why.

Next up we have the Award for Animation. For our Honorable Mention, we have Bob’s official debut, Krusty Gets Busted. I’m glad to see some love for season 1, when everything was experimental especially with the animation. The linework, expressions, poses, models, colors, everything seems off by today’s standards, but you can see the effort and love put into it. There’s something beautiful about how rough it looks because you know what a struggle it was to make it work. And it does work. But I’m biased toward things that are hand drawn.

In Third for this category, the award goes to Gone Boy, the complete opposite of Krusty Gets Busted. We have the modern era, the clean colors, the characters staying on model, a lot of the stiffness that a lot of people don’t care for. However, there are moments that feel like a return to form in this episode. My eyes lit up when I saw Bob’s face as he encountered Milhouse. Then the dance he does as he sings is song-o. The wintery environment, a few ambitious angles, some great character acting. It’s proof that newer episodes have their beauty too. I only wish that the hallucination sequences went harder. Imagine, if you will, they suddenly went Courage the Cowardly Dog mode on you and changed mediums, turned into something more experimental and maybe truly nightmarish. This episode was great, but it could have been legendary. I am grateful for the feast we got. In Second, Black Widower returns, which dare I say has been robbed. Yes, I think it should have been First. This episode is gorgeous, but as I have established, I liked the earlier, rougher animation.

Every single frame of Bob’s rant on MacGyver is absolutely wild, as is the skipping through the flowers. The colors in the night scenes. The glow from the explosion. There’s so much character here, so many expressions and extra motions with hands in scenes, even when no one is talking. The weight in Bob’s hair when he throws back his head for a maniacal laugh. What this episode’s got is flair. Once again, Cape Feare takes First. I can see why, because it is a very good looking episode. One of the best. Oh, how I wish the show still looked like this (the latest Treehouse Ei8ht made me crave what we have lost). But I must wonder if it might be taking the number one spot because of how memorable it is with other factors. No doubt it’s funny, with a lot of well done and imaginative scenes. Bob’s lil dance during his work out comes out of nowhere and is hysterical. You think for a minute that the episode is going to cheat you when the elephants are trampling him off-screen then it pans down to show you the exact moment one steps on and off his skull. The increasingly elaborate set and costume designs for Bob’s theatrical performance. There is a lot of artistry to appreciate here. It’s cinematic even. Then again, a lot of the cinematic moments can be attributed to its source material: the 1991 movie Cape Fear, some moments directly inspired. Not to say that all of the work was done for them, certainly not. They put their own spin on things.

Perhaps the placement is deserved. The shot that goes from Bart’s window, flying over all of Springfield, to Bob’s prison is particularly impressive. There’s a lot of juicy saturation and shifts in color reminiscent of shots from Krusty Gets Busted and Black Widower. It’s safe to assume that I’m drawn more towards character details, and little things like all the lower angles we get from Bob work well in conveying menace, as if we, the audience, are in danger

This concludes Part One of the Sideshow Bob Awards, In Part Two I will cover Best Song and Best Mystery. As for intermission, picture THE RAKES!!!

[transgenderization]

When I was like 15/16 in highschool, I was particularly well known in my friend group for hating mindless garbage anime, only really liking shit like GITS, Lain, Ergo Proxy etc. (perfect transgender cyberpunk cocktail you understand. I was incubating). But Oreimo had finished airing and no one would shut up about it because Saori Hayami voices one of the characters and people wouldnt be quiet about, like, the side characters. So I told everyone I'd watch it to understand and to understand why even otaku hated it. Immediately, everyone started getting so serious, telling me to watch only a few episodes and then quit, or to watch up to a certain episode and then drop it, like they all Knew it was going to piss me off so bad for just being mindless stupid bullshit -- I think everyone got the idea that I also hated characters like Kirino with a volcanic fury and was never silent about it.

I ended up watching the entire thing out of pure hatred, I think I drew art of me outright killing Kirino after that (again: being 15 years old). I can't remember a lot of it now because it's been over 10 years, but all I can remember is that even amongst people who will watch those LN adaptations with titles like I Can't Believe My Best Friend's Cat Turned Into My Refrigerator By The Way I'm Transforming Into Mao Zedong And My Mom Has Only 3000 HP But Maxed Out Her Offense What The Hell Is Wrong With Her, ... that Oreimo is particularly bad in a certain way that even mush-likers can't stomach. Well, no one but Elon Musk and Grimes I guess

help help help. hi rose!

[ultraericthered]

Why am I encountering Akito Sohma discourse in 2024, soon to be exactly 5 years since the premiere of the second anime adaptation?

Not naming names, only commenting on the garbage takes here.

No duh on "being abused doesn't justify abusing others", but you might want to tell that to all the stans and simps for (usually male) villains who were abused and took their inexcusable actions towards others even further than Akito would've ever dared to yet they get their crimes downplayed or even defended and rationalized with "the abuse they suffered made them into people who act this way, don't judge the way any abuse victim internalizes and externalizes their trauma from the abuse they experienced, there is no 'perfect victim' y'know?", and are said to "deserve better" or "deserve" redemption.

The idea that Akito "got away with everything Scot-free" seems like a really poor reading of the story based on only the notion that if Akito is not dead, locked up in a penitentiary or asylum, or left completely alone and miserable forever by the end of the story, she faced zero consequences for her actions. Totally disregarding how almost the entirety of what the 2019 anime has as its final season was reality coming in to smack Akito around repeatedly and make her face all the natural consequences of her actions, of how she'd lived her life and ruled over her family as an abusive tyrant. See this? All of this?:

This is all Akito's karma. It's from the punishment she wrought for herself. The misery she passed around through her family came back around in full, and she had to watch her entire world, the world of the "eternal banquet" she was promised and believed herself entitled to, gradually unravel along with her own mental and emotional state.

In the anime at least, it hits a crescendo that's regretably so brief and silent that it's easy to miss, but when Akito has mentally shut down and is just sitting there moping beside Shigure, we're shown a bit where she suddenly gets up, like she just hit a breaking point and without any thought, just on pure instinct and emotional impulse, she walks to the screen door and hits her head against it. Given her frail, shaky body language, and the mix of alarm and pity that lurks beneath Shigure's still calm facade, I'm to assume that Akito is wailing and screaming. She's having a full psychotic breakdown.

"She never apologized, never made amends, never did anything to deserve anyone's love and forgiveness". ...I'm sorry, this person really stopped watching after Tohru got put in the hospital, huh? In the last couple of episodes, Akito did nothing BUT be apologetic and set out to make whatever amends she could, including undoing all remaining bonds and breaking the Zodiac curse! She did nothing to "deserve" anyone's love and forgiveness even at this point because now she at last understood she was undeserving of such things and was entitled to nothing, especially nothing from her victims, after the way she'd behaved and the many sins she'd committed. Forgiveness is earned and granted, never "deserved", and it's always a choice whether or not to grant it, so anyone who'd never forgive Akito for as long as they lived would be entirely within their right to do so, and so would be those who did make the choice to forgive her. Neither is invalid. And love is never a matter of "earned", "deserved", or "owed", and to think that it IS is ironically adopting a very Akito mentality.

Also have to go back to that "she never apologized" thing. Really?

Really?

And if "that Tohru, of all people, befriended her despite the horrific things she did to her (not yet and in fact he'd just rejected her) husband" disgusts anyone, than Fruits Basket was never the story for them and Tohru was never a character they were going to love. That moment, and that gesture from Tohru, was one of THE core pillars of the entire narrative, something everything had been building up to from the very beginning. Tohru looked deep inside the cruel, childish, deranged, abusive, controlling, possessive, selfish, cowardly, downright evil pseudo-god that she, and the entire Sohma family, knew as Akito Sohma and she found who Akito Sohma truly was: a sad, abused, broken, twisted, pathetic, wretched, needy and terrified child who'd suffered through an upbringing in which she'd never been allowed to forge a single human connection with anyone else that was not dependent upon her status as the family head and the bonds with the Zodiacs that was her promised birthright, and was thus left with so much vulnerability, so much mental and emotional instability, such fear of living her life in the world as the woman she should be, as the human being she should be, that she kept concealed beneath the armor of a wrathful god who she felt could be comfortably in control of everything in her life and keep it all from slipping away from her and leaving her all alone with all her internal anguish and misery. It's that Akito Sohma who Tohru reached out to and extended the offer of friendship, to become her first ever true human friend in her life, no string attached and no bonds or godhood required. Because that's what Fruits Basket was always all about: the existence and value of love. family, and friendships as forged, mutual, equally consensual connections between humans rather than as some divine mandate upon animals or some commodity to be horded by a god.

Already took shots at "she gets away with everying and does nothing to deserve anyone's love or forgiveness". On the belief that Akito needed to be jailed for her crimes, that is actually something I can agree with and see as a weakness in the series' ending. Once the Zodiac curse was broken and Akito was no longer "God", there'd now be nothing standing in the way of some of the Sohmas, the family members and servants alike, pushing charges against Akito for all the worst things she'd committed against them. We should've been told that such legal action was taken and that Akito knew it was coming and accepted it, being fully ready to accept accountability and justice for her crimes. When last we'd see her and Shigure, they could be doing a round of community service together! That would've been perfect! But Takaya didn't go that route, and I think what we did got was also satisfactory: Akito had lived her life with power, privileges, and freedom with which to do whatever she wanted but was also a prisoner of her own damaged psyche and of the broken family system she was born into and had to play such a large role in perpetuating, so by the end, it's now flipped so that Akito has been internally set free, is healing and finding inner peace, but without the Zodiac curse, the family headship in a lonelier, harder, constraining position but she voluntarily endures with it so that she may live the rest of her life atoning for the sins she'd committed when she was "God", all at a distance from family members who mostly will never forgive her, never think any better of her, and are glad to be free of her. So the idea that Akito's fate not being punitive enough being akin to a slap on the wrist is misguided. It's a lifelong committment to restorative justice and not getting all she desired that Akito's made, and she has to endure it while being romantically involved with Shigure, which honestly feels like a punishment worse than prison!

Piss the fuck off with the "blatant abuse apologist" claim, too. This is the same bullcrap spewed towards Kohei Horikoshi when he gave Endeavor a self improvement/atonement arc. WIth both Endeavor and Akito, the narrative is never at any point remotely pretending that their actions are anything but monstrously abusive, toxic, cruel, harmful and wrong. They're bad and so the abuser is made to feel bad about having ever done them and must face up to all the natural karmic consequences that will inconvenience their lives. An anti-abuse narrative that does not keep it as simple and black-and-white as "the abuser is 100% Bad Person, it's a problem that they exist and hurt people, the solution is to remove them from life entirely" yet still condemns the abuser for their actions and champions their victims ability to move beyond them, find healing, peace, love, and happiness in lives better than what the abuser could ever hope for, is not in the slightest bit "abuse apologism": no apologies or excuses for the abuse are being made.

Not Akito-related, just showing how this same person truly feels about Fruits Basket on the whole due to how "problematic" it is. If it's not for you, fine, and this is actually 100% correct regarding Katsuya Honda being a sociopathic predator who fucked a child student of his yet it get beyond inappropriately framed as a beautiful, romantic, loving thing within the narrative. But when it reaches this hyperbolic "the entire series has no value, it's irredeemable media and deserves to be trashed" level of vitriol for the work...nah. That's not agreeable.

And then there's this anon who called in to say:

Seeing you rightfully call out the utter bullshit of Akito's "redemption" has me heated. The story becomes irredeemably bad the moment the forgiveness shit is pushed.

Let me say this much: there was no "redemption" or "redemption arc" for Akito. She had her big epiphany and recieved personal salvation from Tohru's approach to her, and from then on she turned herself towards self-improvement and atonement for her many sins while finally living a true human life of her own. Atonement /=/ redemption, as all avenues for her to redeem herself for her abusive acts directly to those effected by said abusive acts got closed off a long time ago.

And forgiveness is entirely another matter from redemption and atonement. Tohru, Kureno, Shigure, Momiji, Arisa, and Saki chose to forgive Akito. Literally no one else was shown to do so. Rin even said outright she could never forgive Akito after everything she did, and in the anime at least, she was positioned as not in the wrong for that.

Takaya is on my shit list for life for how she handled Tohru's character, she is my favourite I love her compassion for people and her determination to never give up despite how difficult things can be plus her learning to move on from her crippling grief resonates with me. The ending Takaya gives her is fucking vile Tohru forgiving and befriending Akito is bullshit and my mind is never going to change on that.

"I love her compassion for people." "Tohru forgiving and befriending Akito is bullshit!" Do...you not see how these are conflicting ideas? "Tohru is wonderful for how much empathy and compassion she has for people...wait no, not THAT people!" How do you miss that big?

The sole reason Tohru wants to break the curse is because she sees how much her friends are suffering under Akito's abuse both mentally and physically. She would never be so inconsiderate of their feelings as to befriend the person who hurt them so much.

And she also saw how much Akito herself was suffering under the curse and the role that was forced upon her from birth. Also, how is choosing to befriend her friends abuser inconsiderate when they don't need to factor into it at all? Tohru doesn't try to force Yuki, Kyo, Rin, Momiji, Hiro, Kisa and the rest to also be friends with Akito. She at no point even considers that possibility. What's between Tohru and Akito is kept purely between them, away from Akito's victims. Tohru understands that they'd never be comfortable around Akito due to having a history with her that Tohru herself does not have, and while she wants to help Akito move past her pain and put in the good work to make reparations for her sins, she's not going to ever downplay how vile those sins were and how badly they hurt people, nor would she put up even the pretense of giving absolution of them to Akito.

That's not even getting to my other major problem with this storyline Tohru never even learns about half of the horrific shit Akito does to her friends, Takaya intentionally has her character be left in the dark. Not to mention how abusive akito is to HER!

Why does it need to be Tohru's business to know absolutely every horrible deed Akito ever did to every person she was ever horrible to? Akito did that shit, it happened, there's nothing Tohru can do that could possibly change that or make any of it better. And oh dear, are we getting into the "antagonistic behavior = abuse" bullshit again?

She manipulates her the first time they meet and then at the beach house she threatens her and scratches up her face. Tohru outright admits she is scared of her. Then towards the end of the story akito then has the audacity to blame her for the zodiacs not loving her despite that being the consequences of her own disgusting actions. She shows up at the house to hurt and potentially kill Tohru, she slaps her multiple times, stabs her and pushes her close to the cliffs end directly putting her in danger. Akito almost gets the poor girl killed. Akito spends the entire story being an abusive monster to Tohru and the people she loves. And nearly leads to multiple characters dying, Takaya really wants us to think a friendship Between the two of them is cute because they both relate to being lonely????

Ah yes. Yes we are. Most of what's described above is Akito being a cruel villain and acting as a threatening adversary to Tohru, with actions that are clearly reprehensible and uncalled for but are not inherently "abusive", as Akito is treating a stranger badly and making enemies with her rather than being in any relationship in which she can treat her abusively. The hardest into abuse it ever swings is when Akito is holding a knife to Tohru and physically strikes her, and that's when Akito is in the midst of a full-blown psychotic episode.

And that the characters apparently aren't that different to each other??? When they clearly are. Tohru is a kind and compassionate person who helps those around her while Akito is a manipulative snake who treats those around her like they are her possessions. Tohru grows up being bullied and alone. Akito is a child abuser and commits multiple attempted murders. Trust me Takaya these characters aside from them having tragic backstories and fears of abandonment are as far away from each other as you can get.

Tohru was brought up to be kind and selfless, to the point of seeing her own self as lesser in value than others. Akito's upbringing shaped her into becoming cruel and selfish, to the point of seeing others as possessions for her to keep hold of, to pleasure her with a sense of superiorty as a cover for her own poor self image and lack of self-worth. Tohru was left alone without her mother and was ostracized by her peers. Akito was left alone without her father (as her own mother would never give her the time of day) and was "othered" by literally every person around her. They're foils. Akito is a broken reflection of what Tohru might've become if Kyoko had not put in that effort to be such a kind, loving, nurturing parent, and Akito always envied Tohru because she reflects the girl she might've been had she been allowed to be, and not internalized everything wrong with the Sohma family nor adopted her mother's own internalized misogyny.

The friendship is disgusting, Akito is an evil bitch period she is not Tohru's problem or her responsibility. Also Uo and Hana being friends with her after they find out she nearly killed their best friend and Kureno was also so gross. The characters do some of the most OOC shit in order to give Akito one of the least deserving redemption arcs i have ever seen. It is truly some of the most atrocious, insulting writing, Takaya should be embarrassed for thinking this was an acceptable way to end the story.

If you want to get technical, none of the Sohmas are Tohru's problem or responsibility. It's not on her to "fix" them or be their therapist and savior, she doesn't owe them anything. She chooses to help them out of compassion, empathy, and a desire to do right by others, to see true justice done and freedom, peace, and happiness assured for the people she cares about in their lives going forward, With Akito too, she did not impose or make her into her responsibility; she extended her hand. She offered Akito a choice. The friendship would not happen if Akito decided she was unwilling to put in the effort to do her part and accept the care, help, comfort and understanding offered to her by Tohru. So yeah, you can blame Akito for that too, even though it's not a wrong thing of her to do whatsoever! Uotani also did not become Akito's friend, more like a friendly acquaintance. Hanajima did follow Tohru's lead and befriend her, and considering she knows how it feels to internally tear yourself apart with self-loathing over guilt from having hurt people to the point of cursing your very identity and existence, I'd say her decision makes sense.

I haven't read the spin off but Akito having a child just reinforces that she is still the same selfish person she has always been. Her wanting to have children but deciding not to because of how they would suffer due to her terrible actions would actually mean she has to live with the consequences of what she has done. but of course we can't have that.

Meh. Not much a fan of that spin off and I'm kind of hoping we don't get it adapted into an anime. Some things are best left open-ended.

[clonewarsarchives]

BACK FROM THE DEPTHS! (#132, APR 2012)

Being bisected by a Jedi and plunging down a seemingly bottomless pit would ordinarily prove fatal but not for Darth Maul! Sam Witwer plays the long lost warrior in Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ epic season conclusion.

Star Wars Insider: Before you were cast, what was your opinion of Darth Maul?

Sam Witwer: The thing with Darth Maul is that we all want to know more about him. He shows up and creates this incredible impression—and then he’s gone! We’ve all been clamoring for him to return. The fun thing about these episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is that we learn a little bit about what he’s been doing for the last 10 years and it’s not good. He’s been uncomfortable.

What did you think when you found out Darth Maul was returning, and that you would be playing the role?

Dave Filoni hinted that he might have something for me after the Mortis episodes [in which Witwer voiced the role of the Son—Ed], and so I was naturally curious. I assumed it was going to be some bounty hunter or something, which I would have been thrilled with. When he informed me that they needed an actor to play Darth Maul, I just had a geek-stroke and lost the power of speech! Dave not only said that he wanted me to play Darth Maul, but that he wanted to take it in sort of a “Gollum” direction. When I read the script I saw what he meant, but also saw that this might be an opportunity to take it in a “Colonel Kurtz” direction.

How did this influence the character?

We decided that he might be pitiful one moment and dangerous the next, creating this maelstrom of conflicting emotions and unpleasantness. We all have our opinions about who he is, and that creates expectations, so what do we do? We blow away all expectations and say he’s insane! It makes perfect sense. If you’re going to be dispatched in the way he was, there must be huge consequences for having him come back. He can’t just come back with mechanical legs and say, “I’m the same old Darth Maul that I ever was.” There was a major cost, and its consistent with the other things we see in the movies.

Palpatine says that the dark side of the Force leads to abilities that some would consider to be unnatural, and one of those things is cheating death. The Sith see death as defeat. The Jedi see it as the natural progression of things. The Sith don’t look at it that way; they want to control everything. You can’t gain any more power if you die, so one of the things that all the Sith do is try to preserve themselves at all cost.

For example Darth Vader is all about that. He gets burned and put in a suit, but that’s somehow preferable to death. In a way, Darth Maul has done something similar. He’s wallowed in these caves, eating garbage, living in these horrible conditions. Through all his grief and connection with the dark side of the Force, these spider legs made of garbage have grown out of him as manifestations of his pain.

How do you feel about the character now that you’ve played him?

He’s a fearful man. He feels that his rage and hatred have kept him alive, along with his fear of death. He has a twisted sense of humor and he’s far more dangerous than people realize. I looked at him as purely muscle: He was the ultimate hit man. But we learn that he’s also potentially a general. He’s tactically minded, strategically minded, very smart and politically savvy. He was raised by Palpatine—or so we’ve understood —so he’s good at things that you might not expect.

Let’s also not forget that Darth Maul perhaps was intended to participate in the Clone Wars. Maybe he was supposed to be General Grievous or even Count Dooku? There was a plan for him, a purpose for him and all of that was stripped away by Obi-Wan.

How has he changed?

In the first two episodes, we focus on the madness of what’s happened to him, how he’s been disabled for a decade, and lost a lot of what he was trained as. The way he speaks is muddled and he’s not the same person he once was.

In the next episode—after he is reunited with Savage and gets put back together a little bit—he still doesn’t quite know where his place is, but we do get that ultimate dark warrior that we were hoping to see back. We see pretty much exactly what we thought we were going to see: a very angry, very efficient warrior who wants nothing more than to fight Obi-Wan Kenobi.

As the story continues, he realizes that fighting and destroying Obi-Wan ultimately isn’t satisfying. He has many opportunities to kill Obi-Wan, but he keeps prolonging it and realizes that this has to last; he’s been dreaming about it for 10 years and can’t just kill Obi-Wan quickly! He starts developing plans and aspirations, but at the center of those aspirations is, ultimately, revenge against Kenobi.

What was it like to record these episodes with Clancy Brown (Savage Opress) and James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan)?

I love the way James plays Obi-Wan! No matter how much you beat that guy up, he’ll always have some snarky response; he’s like Indiana Jones!

I’ve been a big fan of Clancy since I was a kid, going back to Highlander and The Shawshank Redemption. I met him when I was doing the Mortis trilogy last season. He brought his son in because he wanted autographs from the people that were working on The Clone Wars, and I had no idea that Clancy was part of the show. I was recording the Mortis episodes and Clancy walks in and says, “Hey, you’re the apprentice from The Force Unleashed, will you sign an autograph for my kid?” It was weird—he should have been signing autographs for me not the other way around!

Dave Filoni was talking about some sort of story point and how it would relate to The Force Unleashed and Clancy starts piping in about “Well, in The Force Unleashed, this happened…” He really knows his stuff! He’s a tremendously well-respected actor and here he is talking to Dave about “my” video game!

When we were recording, I was so nervous. I think I’ve settled into it now, but in that first session I felt like the pressure was on. Dave and Clancy were cracking jokes, and I think someone mentioned to me about loosening up and I said, “If I mess this up, millions of fans are going to be mad. at me!” Dave Filoni’s like, “Welcome to my world, pal. Now read the lines!”

You’ve embodied the dark side before, as the Emperor, Starkiller, and the Son. How is each role different for you?

Those roles are extraordinarily different. When we were developing the character of Starkiller, we thought of him as an interpretation of Darth Maul in part. We created this little geek formula where Starkiller was two parts Han Solo, one part Luke Skywalker, one part Indiana Jones, and one part Darth Maul. Any time that Starkiller was talking to Darth Vader, Darth Maul became the inspiration—I thought he should behave more like Darth Maul did in the film. When Starkiller addresses Lord Vader, he sort of assumes that Sith-like posture and voice. Palpatine has the manipulative edge and a wonderful sense of humor, at least when things are going his way.

Since he’d been trained by Palpatine as his protege, he would’ve taken a lot from that guy. So we borrowed heavily from Palpatine for Darth Maul and I think he’s a much more dangerous character when you realize how smart he is.

The Son was an arrogant character. I felt Darth Maul had to be extremely arrogant; that starts causing trouble for him later, but you don’t necessarily see that at first. It’s cool because there’s a little bit of connection to the Mortis episodes that the fans will pick up on.

I read a scene in the script where Darth Maul is ranting and raving. I was doing my research, and as soon as I read that Darth Maul was muttering to himself, I found myself wondering, “Well what is he muttering about? What has he told himself in order to keep himself alive?” Part of it is remembering his training, so I started bringing pieces of the Sith Code into the mutterings. There is a thought that the Sith had this code that’s a mockery of the Jedi Code. It’s things like “Peace is a lie” and “There is only power in strength” and all this great stuff. As I was reading that there was this moment where it said something about “Through victory my chains are broken.” Immediately I thought, Yeah, the chains....

When I was recording the speech that the Son delivers to Ahsoka before he turns her to the dark side — “The chains are the easy part; it’s what goes on in here that’s hard”—I was adlibbing and threw that line in. I love how they feature it; there’s this moment when Maul is getting disjointed bits of the Sith Code out, trying to remember his training and then he gets to this point where he recites this line about the chains. It makes his insanity specific in that way.

There are things that he talks about that you’ll have to turn up the audio and listen to very carefully.

BROTHERLY LOVE?

Sam Witwer: “It’s sad to see how hard Darth Maul works just to get back at Obi-Wan; it’s kind of tragic, especially when you take into account Savage and where he sits with all this. Savage is not necessarily a bad guy, or at least didn’t start out that way. We can imply from Savage’s back-story that Maul had a similar story. We explore that a little bit, too. I think the relationship between Maul and Savage is very interesting as Maul will eventually look upon Savage as his apprentice.”

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Sam Witwer: “I went to a sneak preview of Episode I the day before it opened, After the movie, we noticed that there was a line at a nearby theater for some guy named Ray Park, So we went and met Ray Park. He was a total sweetheart to us and this was just before the film was going to open that night, out there in Skokie, Illinois!

“My first impression of Darth Maul was at once, this brutal, dangerous, terrifying warrior and Ray Park who was just the nicest, coolest guy you could ever meet. I think between those two experiences—seeing the movie and meeting Ray—that this character really has a special place in my heart.

“The next time I met Ray was years later. I wasn’t even an actor when I saw first saw Episode I. I met Ray and I tried to explain to him, ‘You know, Ray, this is gonna sound weird, but in a video game, I sort of fight you!’ I tried to explain the whole Force Unleashed connection, but I don’t know if he understood what I was saying because I was geeking out! Then a week later, we were both signing at a convention and I’m like, ‘OK, you see now? I’m sort of a Star Wars character, too!’ He’s a wonderful guy.”

AM AMERICAN SITH?

Sam Witwer: “I know that Darth Maul has an English accent in The Phantom Menace, but we didn’t worry about that because he’s been eating garbage for 10 years and that’s going to slightly change the way you talk! But don’t worry. We made sure there were moments when he sounds like his old self.”

REUNITED WITH VADER AND FRIENDS!

“I had a lot of Star Wars toys when I was a kid, but alas, they were either given away or thrown away—or so I thought! My mother recently found my Darth Vader Collector’s Case with tons of my old figures. I was stunned. I really thought all that stuff was gone.”

RED MENACE!

George Lucas described Darth Maul as “a figure from your worst nightmare,” leading designer lain McCaig to offer Lucas a design based on a nightmare of his, which although rejected, would later inspire the Nightsisters from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

McCaig’s eventual illustration used his own face adorned with markings blending a “flayed flesh face,” face-painting of African tribes and Rorschach experimentation (spilling ink onto paper, folding it in half and opening it to produce a pattern—Ed)

Darth Maul’s head originally had feathers, which were interpreted by the design team as horns.

THE FUTURE...

Sam Witwer: “Darth Maul will be around for a while in the show. The story takes some really interesting turns, but the psychology of the character is very, very well thought out. It’s deep stuff! He’s not just a moustache-twirling villain; there’s a lot more going on there—there’s pain and there’s suffering. I don’t know how the audience is going to react, but I actually feel sorry for the guy. It’ll be interesting if the audience does as well by the time we’re done.

WITWER’S WORLD

Sam Witwer was born in 1977, making him the same age as the Star Wars saga! He has appeared in individual episodes of numerous television shows as well as minor recurring characters in shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Davis Bloome AKA Doomsday in Smallville, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Dexter. He also played the main protagonist, Galen Marek/Starkiller, in the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video game and its sequel. He can currently be seen in the US/Canadian remake of BBC’s supernatural drama series Being Human.

On the big screen, he has appeared in Crank, The Mist, and Gamer.

His talents also extend to music, as he fronts his own band: The Crashtones! Check them out at www. samwitwer. com

[exhelluvafan]

Thoughts about the Helluva Boss Full Moon episode (cw: classism, sexual coercion and SA topics)

Rant under the cut.

The only thing that Stolas caught feelings for was Blitzø's cock, nothing else.

If he truly cared, then he would've apologized to Blitz and tried to comprehend his POV.

But guess what? He didn't, because he got denied imp dick and proceeded to throw a tantrum over it.

Nothing in this situation screams about "true love", this is exactly what Ozzie said and called out back in EP8, this is just a display of pure lust and no love.

It's just that Gary Stu Stolas just so happened to be attracted to Blitz because... idk, it never got elaborated further than "good sex".

How are we supposed to root for them both if they barely know each other outside of the bed?

Like, the only PROPER interaction they ever had was back when they were children, but outside of that, everything else has been some form of sexual interaction, either direct or indirect.

They don't even share hobbies nor likings, how tf are these going to be endgame when they're as incompatible as two puzzle pieces that just don't match at all?

And even that, Blitz has more chemistry with Fizz, Striker, Verosika (despite being exes, their interactions are still meaningful) and even fucking Chaz despite being in only one episode.

With this in mind, the Gary Stu owl is nothing but forcing himself onto Blitz's life, no wonder why Blitz decided to explode on him.

And even with all of this, we're supposed to side with the sexual predator a.k.a Stolas?

Haha, no, fuck you.

Stolas can go and fuck himself, despite Blitz being a douchebag, he's still a victim at the end of the day, and Stolas is a sexual predator at the end of the day, taking advantage of a lower class imp.

Of course, this show will bend over and start giving Blitz Stockholm Syndrome to force the Stolitz ship to happen, which of course because this is Viv who we are talking about, she doesn't know jackshit about relationships outside of dramatizations made by Broadway shows.

In the end, this whole thing boils down to this:

Blitz and Stolas were never meant to be together.

And this is clear from the very first episode of S1 and throughout all of S1 that Blitz and Stolas were never meant to be together at all, yes, the potential was there, but was squandered by the full moon deal.

Like, even a threesome consisting of Ozzie, Fizz and Blitz is far more probable to happen than fucking Stolitz.

Reminder that also Viv loves to rush and get to the "good part", scrapping any prior buildup it may need, it's now crystal clear that Blitz and Stolas were never meant to be a couple, maybe a crackship, but not canon.

And Viv's attempts to make it happen no matter what are severely harming the show, making Stolas slowly but surely start to:

Hogging more and more undeserving screen time.

Derailing the original premise of the show to the ground in favor of a stupid, nonsensical melodrama worthy of being in "La Rosa de Guadalupe".

And the worst of all, making people side with the predator (Stolas), while victim blaming the victim (Blitz)

This whole situation reeks of wasted potential in favor of making two blorbos make out, just for Viv's stupid self-absorbed pleasure, and it has been seen over and over again that Viv only makes the shows thinking about herself first, and later the wider audience.

(if the Hazbin EP4 fiasco wasn't enough to notice that.)

There's no feasible way that this melodramatic piece of garbage manages to finish S2, let alone have S3, because things are already starting to catch up against Viv and it shows, through the delays, the incessant need of Viv to keep herself locked in an echo chamber where they kiss her ass unconditionally and the fact that competence is already catching up to her, if not beating her to it (TADC, specifically).

But yeah, to start packing up this rant:

Fuck Stolas, he should've died all the way back in Harvest Moon if Viv wanted to get cheap angst, but Stolas became Viv's self-insert and creator's pet, so instead now the show will force the narrative to be in Stolas' favor and people will and ARE getting sick of it.

And it doesn't help the fact that Stolas is going to steal Verosika's spotlight in the next episode (Apology Tour), proving my argument about "Stolas hogging up more screentime than needed" is true and truer as time goes on.

tldr; go watch "La Rosa de Guadalupe" instead of whatever this piece of shit is, at least you can get a laugh or two out of it.

[winxclubfangirl]

Icy's backstory from s8 is garbage

Icy’s backstory as shown in season 8 is ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense for the real Icy that we saw from season 1 up to 3.

Firstly, was she a witch or a fairy? Remember that in season 1, when the Trix broke into Alfea to look for the Dragon’s Flame, they mentioned that fairies are the ones who are royalties. In other words, if Icy was a witch, there’s no way she was ever royalty. Yet, in season 8, her backstory claims that she was a princess of a realm called Dyamond. If we are to accept and believe that, it would imply that she was a fairy who became a witch later on. Now listen, I know that the interconversion between fairies and witches exists in the Winx universe (even though it’s silly). But in this case, it’s not possible to assume that Icy was a royal fairy with a fairy family and became a witch when she swore to free her family from the “powerful witch’s spell.” Why? Well, I’ll tell you why.

In the earlier seasons it was mentioned that Icy, Darcy and Stormy were the direct descendants of the three ancestral witches. In other words, Icy was definitely a witch. Always has been. So, it contradicts her backstory of being a princess. Also, this is exactly why those three witches call each other ‘sisters’. They are related. Yet, in s8, Icy acts like she isn’t related to Darcy and Stormy at all but to some Sapphire who just materialized out of nowhere. Just weird.

Now, in her backstory she was portrayed as a poor, wronged girl who wanted to avenge a family. Okay? Now kindly recollect the Icy up to season 3 or even up to season 7. Avenger? What a joke! A dominant, power-thirsty, cold-hearted, purely evil witch! Before anyone says – “She wanted power to free her family!” – listen up first! Think about how she showed no sympathy or understanding for Bloom and Domino even though the situation is basically the same for them in the first 3 seasons. Isn’t that weird?? Also, Icy was not only hungry for power but world domination – something clearly not needed if saving her family was her goal. She and her sisters tried to take over the Magic Universe several times. Also remember again that she is the descendent of Belladonna, one of the 3 Ancestral Witches – beings of pure evil. She definitely could not have been the cinnamon roll she was shown to be in her s8 backstory.

Another thing. Hair colour. Lol, wth!? Icy always had white hair. In s3, the black willow episode showed how the Trix looked like when they were young. Icy had white hair and looked very different from the blonde-haired princess we saw in her backstory in s8. In fact, changing her hair colour from blonde to white is meaningless and … like, why would anyone want to do that? She’s supposed to be some panic-stricken princess in her backstory… not some fashion-crazy girl. Nothing makes sense. Absolutely nothing!

Last but not the least, the Trix were arguably the most powerful witches after their ancestors in the series. So, who is this mysterious witch seemingly stronger than Icy, who destroyed Dyamond or whatever? This is stupid as hell.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rants. Byeee!!

[x0401x]

Hi there! I wanted to ask, what were your impressions/thoughts of Tsurune season 2 episode 1 so far? And the colors symbolism in the opening song with the ribbons? Just curious about your thoughts, thanks and have a great day!! :D

BRUH. I LOVED IT??? FUCK YEAH, THAT WAS AMAZING.

I really wonder how all those annoying Anons who filled my inbox with garbage back in 2019 are feeling right now, because just in this one episode, KyoAni has fixed literally every defect that I had pointed out in S1. The amount of improvement is just surreal.

First of all, the storytelling this season. The freaking storytelling. You can tell the difference between works that a studio actually places their bets on and the ones they don’t by the amount of effort that the animation team puts into the flow of each episode. S1 was an ungodly mix of slow pace that suddenly went too fast at punctual moments without any warning, bad humor, boring tone, missing information, inconsistencies and shit that the animators pulled out of their asses to cover up plot holes. This one, though? Smooth as a feather. Full of well-thought details. Scenes and events connecting properly with one another. Flashbacks very nicely timed. It was entirely an anime-original episode, 90% non-canon content, yet there’s canon info at every single second. I love the little things, such as the way that we’re led to think that the MVP of the sports event is going to be Rika and the show makes use of every possible hint that it’s going to be her, until the very last second, where it turns out that it’s Ryouhei. Awesome screenplay right there. This episode was meticulously planned and it shows.

The changes in visual. The upgrade in the artstyle is the most easily noticeable thing about the animation of this season, but the quality is a million times better too. The characters also have a lot more facial expression now. I once talked about Morimoto Chinatsu’s incredible talent for character design and the way that she goes as far as giving not just different hair and eyes, but also different eyelashes, eyebrows, ears, noses, mouths, chins, jawlines and even fucking wrists to every single character that she drew for the novel. And seeing S1 doing the opposite and giving every character a base face was just... no. So now that there’s been a turnaround and the characters externally show what they’re feeling and thinking, following their journey is a whole new experience. That moment when the team stares at Minato after he answers Masaki’s question is pure character study right there. And it’s probably the most blatant example of this season’s improvement, given that we never had this in the previous one. I also love how the expressions are not just there, they’re on-point. On par with what the novel tells us about them. My biggest peeve with S1 was that I’d look at these kids and a voice at the back of my head would go “who the fuck are you people”. Those weren’t the characters I knew. They didn’t look like them and didn’t act like them. But now I recognize them. These are the kids I read about. They finally feel like themselves.

The symbolism of the series. By God, so many treats in this episode in that regard. The yesterday-today-tomorrow blossom splashed with watercolor in the team’s theme colors. The intimist approach of the shots. The way that Minato and Shuu’s positions oppose each other on-screen. The lighting, the colors, the smear filter… literally everything is more vivid and lively. One of the things I recall commenting about S1 is that it didn’t feel like a KyoAni anime because KyoAni’s works are very immersion-based. You can feel yourself being inside that world, together with the characters. But I couldn’t feel that from Tsurune’s first season at all. With this one, I was able to dive head-first into it. It was absolutely magical. I also love that the leaves that fly out of the targets whenever the characters hit now don’t look so obviously like CGI.

Personality traits. They’re fucking everywhere. Like I said, this was entirely an anime-original episode, yet there’s canon info at every single second. Even better: information that clearly contradicts S1 but that matches the novel. Seiya being a smartass little shit full of wit instead of a Minato-obsessed yandere. Kaito being a team-driven hardworker instead of an obnoxious asshole who wants nothing but victory. Ryouhei actually acting upon his lack of experience in archery to catch up to everyone. Nanao being charismatic and having screen-time of his own instead of being pushed to the background while all his personality and lines are used on Seiya. Minato expressing his thoughts and feelings instead of just being an emotionless doormat who never really does anything. We learned more about the characters in just these 20 minutes than the entirety of the first season. It feels like KyoAni has finally taken a step back to look at the material they had in their hands and truly took in what the novel was about and what each character had going on for them. Even the girls’ team was fleshed out in this one, which was honestly a great surprise. I think we’ve gotten from this episode all the little things we didn’t get from S1, such as the way Noa and Yuuna are fangirls of Rika. The way Nanao shines better as support than as main even though he’s so conspicuous. The fact that Kaito is good at soccer and Seiya loves soccer tactics. The way Ryouhei, who doesn’t know much about archery, is used as the eyes of the viewers, and how unpretentiously the lessons he is taught are presented to us as something that we should also keep in mind (for example, that the target is the archer and the archer is the target, and when you’re at the stage of the draw, you’re aiming at your very own self). And the way that Minato is something in this season. We finally see the inner machinations of his mind here aside from his struggles with target panic.

Lastly (and what I consider to be most important) is that the roles of each character and their relationships with one another seem to be in tune with the novel now. Well, okay, almost. Seiya is still being weird around Masaki, but I guess that’s because it’d be too sudden if Seiya started acting the way he acts in canon (y’know, like a normal fucking person). However, the difference is that the narrative is clearly pushing towards Masaki instead of Seiya now, as it should be. Kaito, Nanao and Ryouhei, who used to be just in the background most of the time in S1 are now set perfectly into their own functions and you can tell that they do exist for reasons other than just fill up the team positions. Nanao also seems to be his own person now instead of living through Kaito. Seiya is being shown looking after the whole club, as the competent club president that he is, instead of just Minato. Minato now has proper reactions to everything and doesn’t just completely ignore when Seiya is being a little shit. Masaki is now acting like a true mentor and already in the first episode we have him giving more advice to the boys than the entirety of the first season. But more than anything else, what caught my attention was Shuu. S1 did him really dirty by giving him scary jealous rival vibes and not expanding at all on his relationship with Minato. As I said before, they’re not your usual sports anime rival duo. They really respect and admire each other, are jealous of each other to some extent, but they’re friends first and foremost. They’re also opposites of one another in every way. We didn’t get any of this in S1, and now we’re getting literally all of it at once. What a fucking blessing.

Honestly, the only things I’m concerned about in this season are 1) Kaito and Seiya’s relationship. It’s probably too late to mend it now and make it the way it is in canon, and it also seems the animators are just not interested in doing that, which kinda hurts, but I guess we can’t have it all. And 2) Minato and Masaki’s relationship. I’m pretty sure that we’re not gonna get the same amount of content for them as there is in the novel, and in the off-chance that we do, it’s just not gonna have the same approach or the same quality. Minato and Masaki are mirrors of each other but the anime vehemently refuses to acknowledge this for some reason. They try to treat Masaki as a completely separate entity that has absolutely nothing in common with Minato despite all of the mystic, supernatural and fate-oriented themes that their connection is centered around and the fact that they’ve gone through very similar experiences and hardships in doing archery. But I’d rather believe that it’s a little too early to make a judgement and wait. Truth remains that the characters and their relationships in the anime will never be nearly as good as they are in the original work no matter how hard they try, so I’m just gonna take what I can get.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on this episode. It was one of the very rare instances where I completely approve of anime-original content in an adaptation.