#ur main character a villain to everyone besides his love interest

[sardonicheir]

also what the fuck was up with stede congratulating ed on "turning poison into positivity" when izzy showed up for his performance ?? be so for real right now first of all the crew helped win that treasure it was as much theirs as it was ed's if not more? second of all izzy being how he is right now is not thanks to ed its DESPITE him. its been soo clear that he decided to pick himself up because of the support he got from others after what ed did to him? everyone has been working together so hard to rid themselves of that environment that ed created. its about them choosing to continue to exist and be a community IN THE FACE of what he did. love enduring etc!!! idk it just felt like such an odd choice to be like "wow ed thanks to you everyone is sooo happy rn" when the crew came up with the idea and organized the whole thing themselves?! he was just a bystander in the whole thing im sorry 😭 im really not liking how his whole redemption arc is being written so far

[boxchewr]

no give me the essay i want to see it. take your time tho.

yes my liege as you command

CRACKS MY KNUCKLES so. i've always rlly liked him since 2012 when i played b2w2 for the first time but this Autism FixationTM on him only rlly started recently after i got rlly into the pokemon humans in general thanks to legends arceus and ingo. and already he's taken up so much of my brain space LMAo. i think his design is really solid, his battle music is great and really reflects his coldness and capabilities without being straight-up menacing like ghetsis's or something, i love that he just appears in an unrelated game (sun and moon) and just hangs out. i'm also just in general particularly weak for scientist/nerd type and fruity twink ass bitches to begin with. the perfect storm

THE BIGGEST reason why i like him though is like. in general the main reason why i love many characters Is just. analyzing them. picking them apart aspect by aspect. placing them under a microscope and studying them like a dissected frog in science class. psychoanalyzing fake pixel people is my favorite pastime ever ESPECIALLY when said fake pixel people are sort of fucked up and sick in the head (/pos)! Which he is. and i love that he is because that makes him so interesting to ponder like a wizard does his orb

he's like a puzzle to me. both games he shows up in he's not really explained at all. just shows up all mysterious and only vaguely hinting at anything relating to who he is or his past. all he explains is that he's a scientist and he's working to try to bring out 'the true potential of Pokemon' (without even really explaining what that exactly entails either). man just pops out of a fucking blown up hole in the wall of a sewer, mumbles to himself while waltzing out, and then goes "hey watch this" and uses his techno geek shit to move a bunch of stone crabs on a busy road and then battles you and then shittalks plasma when he loses. and that's how you meet him. no further explanation required. he proves himself as a very smart, capable man, powerful in battles and very determined to his goals but he explains no more about that. nothing at all

but what really gets me? he's the perfect center point between n and ghetsis from the first black and white. while he's technically an antagonist of b2w2, he's never really. antagonistic. the whole game he's polite and friendly to you, giving you advice/items and helping you even when it's revealed that he's spearheading team plasma now, he never once goes after or is rude to the protagonist or anyone besides ghetsis (which, fair.) unlike other villains like ghetsis or giovanni or even beloved fan favorites archie and maxie. who all sort of go "oh this stupid kid ur getting in my way Get out of here this weak ass child is being such a pain in the ass." he keeps himself very emotionally distant from the whole debacle and outside of the whole fight between team plasma and everyone else generally, and is only there because he knew ghetsis beforehand and he wanted to exhaust every option of his research before coming to a conclusion. he's not emotionally invested in team plasma at all (and actively disagrees with their message), nor does he really care what working with them and firing a Fucking Freezing Lazer at opelucid might do to the people who live there. his one and only care and focus is science and finding the absolute limit of what he wants to push and research. a powerful absolute neutral force, which is a complete dissonance to n and ghetsis from the first game, where n is a force trying to do absolute good but is misguided, whereas ghetsis acts like he cares about the world but is really manipulating everyone to do absolute evil and take over. he also is the exact opposite of n in some ways as well, being that where n in the first game wanted to release all pokemon believing pokemon and humans needed to be seperate; colress knows that pokemon and humans belong together and help each other to new heights. but then he. takes it MUCH further into extremes than the protagonist + others would generally agree with, which causes its own set of problems

his alternate depictions + USUM appearance also are extremely intriguing to me with this all considered. ESPECIALLY his pokemon adventures/SPECIAL depiction whoo boy he's fucking nasty in that manga. he's such a snarky manipulative cunning backstabbing little shit in pokespe that takes ACTIVE GLEE in freezing over most of unova. way more than just one city, IIRC the amount he says is about 70% of the entire region? kicking his little feet at his desk and giggling like a schoolgirl as he actively, purposefully causes mass destruction and death on an unimaginable scale. and it's so intriguing to think of what differences could have happened between game canon verse and pokespe verse that could have changed him that drastically. especially considering in USUM, he's generally doing a good thing? without really explaining why either. he's just strolling along behind you zapping the rainbow rocket executives back to their worlds, shittalks ghetsis, and then dips LMAO seemingly without any reason to be doing so. just because he can? to spite ghetsis even if it's not his ghetsis? it's the right thing to do? he admitted in b2w2 he didn't care if unova was destroyed with his inventions if it helped further science so if it was out of the goodness of his heart, what changed him from that to now? what would make such a powerfully and firmly neutral force turn to the side of active good or active evil when he previously showed no care of doing either? his goal is firmly science, and whatever he has to do to achieve said science--whether that's helping the protagonists, team plasma, aether foundation, he doesn't care who he helps or what he's doing as long as long as they can help him. so that intrigues me so much thinking about the exact experiences he'd need to go through to have that goal shift to doing active good OR active evil. he's so fascinating to me like a microbe in a petri dish and i will study him as such and fill in all the wonderful many blanks that game freak left for me

but yes tl;dr: man is so firmly neutral and mysterious yet his non-b2w2 depictions show he's capable of active good as well as horrid purposeful evil and it's so interesting to think of how he got there. or how he even got where he is in his introductory game. he explains nothing about himself and is a very perfect middle ground between the goals of n and the goals of ghetsis. he has a million mysteries that i want to investigate him. i want to put this stupid set of pixels in the shape of the internet explorer logo under a very large microscope and study him intimately. he's such an interesting addition to the cast of unova and presents his own very unique questions and ponderings with his character. also he's very pretty and handsome and a fruity fucking dork ass loser and i'm violently making out with him as we speak

[bluinary]

gag anime that you need to watch maybe

 hi hello my name is juli and i will now gently guide ur attention to some top-notch shows, please pay attanetion

(this list is for people who don’t watch much anime or who are new to it. if ur a fucken weeb youve probably seen it all. dont @ me i want to help the kids)

ONE PUNCH MAN (the obvious 1st choice lol)

Genre: Action/ Shounen

Expectation: OP protagonist with riveting backstory fights to become the strongest hero, makes many friends along the way who recognize his talents and pure heart, big bad scary villains make him stronger

Reality: OP protagonist is already the strongest hero. His backstory? After fighting a lobster-man with nipples drawn on him with a Sharpie, Saitama decides to do a workout routine every day, and somehow ends up becoming the most powerful known being in the universe. His main issue is that now, he literally can take down any villain with a single punch, and he’s very bored of it.

Best Qualities: Animation is bomb, music is dope, humor is funnie, and Best Boy is a man whose superpower is riding a bicycle. Also Saitama egg head

If you were in a coma for all of 2015, this is the main thing u missed. Moving on.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun (Monthly Girls’ Nozaki)

Genre: Romance/ Comedy/ Slice of Life

Expectation: Smol shoujo protag girl grows closer to her oblivious crush through a fated, if awkward, incident which reveals an embarrassing secret that has to be kept at all costs. Through one another they gain more quirky friends, help each other grow, and, eventually, the male lead realizes that what he needs has been beside him all along.

Reality: The crush writes romance manga, and that is literally all the man cares about. It’s not a secret, but when he told people they didn’t believe him. Nozaki and Sakura grow closer, but only because he confuses her confession with a request to be his Beta. They gain quirky friends through one another, but there is zero character development throughout the entire fucking cast. Every episode is run by Idiot Plot. All the characters share a singular brain cell. There’s a tall butch lady turning every girl in the school gay. Please watch

Best Quali-teas: Everyone is baby, lots of gay shenanigans, and toxic masculinity does not exist, the OP is pretty nice, too

I literally heard about this damn show, like, two months ago. This shit was released circa 2015. Pleeze watch

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. / Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan

Genre: Shounen/ Supernatural/ Fucking Everything tbh

Expectation: Slice-of-life supernatural where protag has psychic powers, albeit limited ones, and has to keep them a secret at all costs for fear of his safety. He has a few friends he loves and cherishes, and at least two girls who are in love with him that he has to choose between-- all of which are people he wants to protect from his double-life.

Reality: Kusuo is very aware that he is the protagonist of an anime, and he does not want to be. Born with pink hair? He rewrites the human genome to make colored hair normal. End of the world looming? He just keeps rewinding time so he doesn’t have to deal with it. Harem situation? He actively uses his powers to avoid all love interests at all times (see the above). The plot of each episode is him trying to stop the plot as quickly as possible without killing anyone. The main issue is that everyone around him is either dumb or just generally attractive to plot-driving circumstances, and they all, for some reason, want him to be in on their adventures.

Best Qualities: Heavy “me and the boys” energy, plenty of Idiot Plot, so funny that my 47yo mom who hates anime admitted that it’s funny, meta as fuck, occasionally sweet scenes, equally good dub and sub, Saiki is babie

The fandom for this shit is like. Nonexistent. Apparently it came out the same season as Mob Psycho 100, so that might be why. I almost didn’t watch it, but I got bored and it turned out to be a serious gem. Go watch if ur having a bad day, it will make u cry laughing

Sakamoto Desu Ga/ Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto

Genre: Slice of life/ Comedy

Expectation: God I don’t even know. I’d say a typical slice of life where the quiet kid is bullied but makes friends, there’s a love triangle as they grow up together through high school, yadda yadda, but look at this dude. I can’t imagine him being anything other than what he is-- a legend.

Reality: The entire show is just a question of how extra one man can be, and how well he can pull it off. Sakamoto is an “average” high school senior (in the sense that he has no supernatural abilities), but he’s....far more than that. He’s Sebastian Michaelis if he’d never been a demon. Everything always works out for him in the most ridiculous of ways-- he’s just that good. He makes a McDonald’s uniform look like Prada. He’s so smooth his bully ends up having a crush on him (and yes, it is a gay crush. no heteros in this show). 

Best Qualities: lots of homo content. the side characters, inspired by Sakamoto’s grace, all become better people, and you root for them. The circumstances are always average, but the presentation is fucking riveting. Watch to send ur depression into remission.

Another one no one talks about????? U all were so busy with ur broku no hero macadamias and ur Nartoes that you slept on this. Now’s the time to take back what was lost. Love yourself and binge this shit. 

Nichijou/ My Ordinary Life

Genre: Slice of Life/ Comedy

Expectation: Cute girls do cute, girly things and have fun with Their Close Good Friends (TM).

Reality: Cute girls get into very bizarre situations with extremely manic energies. Sometimes, the situations are normal, but the girls react in a bizarre, manic fashion. It will make you alarm-laugh.

Best Qualities: Adorable art style, little continuity, relatable as fuck

A nice little watch if you’re bored. I think the eps are on YouTube.

Pop Team Epic/ Poputepepiku

Genre: Only God Knows

Expectation: Probably a cutesy 4koma-type thing with 2 schoolgirls having shenanigans.

Reality: A regular acid trip with lesbian icons Popuko and Pipimi who are not schoolgirls, but gods. Like if Eric Andre and Hannibal Buress were turned into omnipotent anime icons. Watch at your own risk.

Best Qualities: Lots of unexpected parodies and references amongst a shitpost of a show. The OP is a bop. Popuko terrifies me, but also empowers me as a young woman because she will not hesitate to kill a bitch. She and Pipimi love each other a whole lot, so it is LGBTQ content, which is always a plus. 

I’m sure you’ve seen this one floating around. It will make you feel fear, and then laugh. Now, finally...

Ouran Highschool Host Club

Genre: Romance/ Comedy

Expectation: The protagonist is a girl who is mistaken for a boy and must be the servant of six rich, handsome young men, all of which are in love with her, and her secret must be kept at all costs. A reverse harem anime with plenty of fanservice.

Reality: Haruhi is a genderfluid queen who doesn’t give a fuck what others think she is. Because she broke a Conveniently-Placed Vase and is relatably poor, she has to pay off her debt by being a host herself-- which means male-presenting when flirting with her female classmates to make her dough. The six rich, handsome young men all share three brain cells, and most of those cells go to the character who has one line per episode (usually, it’s “Yeah”. I hope that VA got paid well). The only love interest-- the “leader” and most popular of the six men-- is so dead-set on their club being his Found Family, he confuses his romantic feelings for Haruhi with paternal ones. This is obvious to everyone but him. He never gets the brain cells. 

Best Qualities: Trans characters!! Lesbians!! Extreme “me and the boys” energy, except they’re all rich, so shenanigans skyrocket. Many 4th wall breaks. The most powerful Host looks like he’s 5. Any “fanservice” is never played straight. Takes the Found Family trope to a whole new level. Nice Parks & Rec-quality balance between hysterical and sweet. Everyone is in drag at some point.

I know all of us senior citizens grew up on this shit, but you younguns need to watch the classics to appreciate the newfangled stuff. I recommend watching when you’re in a cheesy rom-com mood. 

Honorable Mentions:

I can’t count these as gag anime, but they’re still ridiculously funny.

Mob Psycho 100

Scissor Seven

Kill la Kill

Cells at Work!

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure 

Ones I haven’t seen but have heard a lot about

Osomatsu-san

Himouto! Umaru-chan

Azumanga Daioh

Gin Tama

Sgt. Frog

Okay that is all just limke put this in ur feel-good tag because these shows will make you happy and donut for get to like and describe to my channel, where I post literally nothing at all ever good night.

[feelslikelalala]

dude im starting to foam at the mouth at tmr. whats ur characterisation of the mains i need to hear the tea

when i first read this i was like MY characterization? but eye didn’t do anything.. and then realized james dashner and whoever wrote the screenplays didn’t really do anything either so.

i feel like (much like Avatar, 2009, Oh, Wouldn’t You Know) tmr focuses more on building a world than building its characters, now i don’t really mind this as i happen to be a fan of Places and Things, but i AM annoyed bc memorable characters = relevancy and thats a setback for what i’m trying to do here

i’m literally not even saying the characters are bad i like them but they needed rebranding. if thomas had some sort of unique physical distinction synonymous with who he is and his backstory, destiny, and legacy maybe we’d have a maze runner theme park at universal studios rn you know.

ok ok but the funny thing abt tmr is it’s basically a teenage boy hivemind..... the only thing they CAN think about most of the time is how to not die, they don’t seem to individually represent anything, and they all have their fucking minds wiped so there’s nothing about their past to shape them or motivate them or anything like that.. in this post apocalyptic hellscape the core goals of the heroes AND the villains are just going to be about survival and while that’s not uninteresting, none of that makes it easy to create distinctive characters. ahdjdkkd sorry i’ll stop myself and talk more about that later and now i will actually try to chat abt the tmr characters !!

okay so i mentioned none of them having backstory which is a lie because THOMAS, hello, actually has a backstory, and it is completely wasted on him which is so funny to me. like he’s a very in-the-now person who willfully ignores the fact that he has a past and honestly that doesn’t matter bc it barely affects his current reality at all besides people from WCKD already knowing who he is. like i strongly think if thomas was just some random he would still do everything the same and everyone would still be trying to kill him. thomas (alright besides his magic blood i’ll give you that) is not actually special but it’s like HE is the only one who knows that. everyone’s like why is thomas so special why is thomas different, but i think (again, besides the blood) he’s genuinely not, he’s literally just stupid. it’s implied maybe he used to be really smart but that obviously didn’t work out for him because now he’s just a newborn calf who’s dumb and brave and impulsive and it WORKS !!!! he’s naturally very curious, which is why he’s a good protagonist for exploring our fun settings and (more importantly) another reason why it’s SO funny he does not care to know about his old life . and thomas is a circumstantial leader. i think most YA protags in things like this don’t want to be the leader but are good at it once they try and usually NEED to be the leader for whatever reason. thomas leads when it makes sense for him to lead, like when they need to take immediate action or someone needs to yell “RUN!!!!” otherwise the leadership role goes to someone who is capable like alby or minho or newt or if they’re lucky enough to find literally any grown up who isn’t evil it’ll go to them. i think it’s nice that thomas pushes when something’s important to him but otherwise is fine with whatever he’s given. if one were to use cats 2019 terms i would say most of the time thomas is victoria if she was the jellicle choice but he’s jennyanydots when he’s alone (he sits and sits and sits and sits)

i think it’s significant TERESA was the only one who got her memories back and in the movies she doesn’t really become a person until she finds her purpose from those memories and her former self’s morals. thomas was like “yeah there’s no way i’m fucking with WCKD again because they suck. they put me and my friends in a killer maze. i ain’t reading all those memories. i’m happy for me tho. or sorry that happened.” but teresa needed to know and needed to justify her choices. if thomas doesn’t think he’s different, teresa definitely thinks she is! and she is unique, once she gets her memories she’s SMART AGAIN she’s a teen scientist wunderkind which i will never stop thinking about like how does she really feel about thomas who she KNOWS has lost all intelligence on PURPOSE and is on the right side of history because of it. what teresa did wasn’t even that bad i guess she had noble intentions but she betrayed the boys and that is not on. teresa is what always sunny would call “the useless chick” for most of the time in this fun little series but her shining moment is when she entered the maze and was like IMMA START THROWING ROCKS AT ANYONE WHO IS NOT DYLAN O’BRIEN (a very accurate and impressive representation of a teenage girl). and can i mention the dynamic between thomas and teresa would be a lot more interesting if they were twins. it’s the drama of the last of your family making a decision completely opposite your own instead of some random coworker you have no real chemistry with

BRENDA is just like Cool Action Girl i have no thoughts on her but i don’t dislike her. i don’t think we like ever see her interact with the whole maze group but they’d all be scared of her because she’s not fucking around and i think she would be mean if needed. she’ll fit in

this is the part of the tumblr post where i get to the best characters but have nothing to say about them 😔

MINHO is too cool for this series. i’m confident every single one of these teens is in love with him and he knows none of them are good enough. in cats terms he’s munkustrap because without him everything would be a mess but he’s got the range for the rum tum tugger. minho is the one who says “guys why don’t we just say fuck like normal people” after a week of everyone saying stuff like “shuckface” to which gally or any other rule abiding freak is like okay that’s IT time out. get on top of the fridge. and he screams THIS MAZE IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE

newt :-) NEWT is mr mistoffelees in cats 1998 (NOT 2019) because he’s gay, he has the panache of a cat twirling around in a light up jacket shooting lightning out of his paws, and he’s saying things like “the rum tum tugger is a terrible whore” to RTT’s face and getting away with it. i love when he asks thomas if he still likes teresa and gets in his face about it and screams like what was that even about that was homosexual activity. i really love newt.... like can i talk about his fashion choices again the scarf and fingerless gloves in scorch trials even tho it’s a thousand degrees he looks good. and the shearling jacket in the death cure literally STYLIN... it’s very important that newt is the only british person in this whole thing i think. what’s up with that. i love it. he’s the most likely to think “wow this glade thing is kinda like love island” but the least likely to say those words out loud

[tanadrin]

hey *whispers* hey. hey. i saw your post in the wow tag. i would read THE SHIT out of your interpretation of wow lore. i have homework right now but i think i might just read through your blog a bit. the characters have always been such a high point for me (listen. i know knaak did a lot of shit. but you can pry Krasus from my cold dead hands he was EVERYTHING to middle school me) and i feel so conflicted over what theyve done to the characters - sylvanas, anduin, everyone. would love ur take

You might be a little disappointed, most of my blog isn’t about WoW (it postdates my WotLK raiding/RP guild phase, and I’ve only just recently got back into it with Classic). Lots of opinions on WoW characters below the cut.

I actually don’t hate Krasus as a character. He’s fine, he’s not a Designated Idiot Ball Carrier like some of the others are. In re: the dragons generally, I don’t like the simplistic thing WoW lore does a lot where one faction leader going bonkers turns the whole faction into baddies for no apparent reason, because all political entities are monoliths except when they’re not. I’m also not a huge fan of how crowded the, erm, metahuman bureaucracy on Azeroth has become in the lore–like, the Keepers and the Dragon Aspects serve similar roles, and the lore could have done fine with one or the other, and the dragons were here first (and Ysera and Alexstrasza are BAMFs), and so should get to stay.

Sylvanas is bae, obviously, and Sylvanas as Warchief was a terrific move plotwise. I think it’s a pity they had to kill Vol’jin to do it (because I am also very here for Warchief Vol’jin), but she is obviously the more interesting choice. Speaking of Warchiefs:

Thrall doesn’t have the Green Jesus Marty Stu quite as bad as some people think, but he does kinda have it, and I don’t see them grappling quite with the fact that he done fucked up. Like, not only did he install a Warchief who should have had all smart members of the Horde tugging at their collars nervously when he started his rule, Garrosh turned into a Sha-summoning Old God-corrupted, casual-atrocity-perpetrating maniac, not to mention all the bullshit on Old Draenor I do my best to forget about lest my blood pressure spike. We don’t really get a satisfying mea culpa from Thrall for that, and then his response is to fuck off to fiddle around with the Earthen Ring for a bit, before retiring to a farm in Nagrand. Keep in mind, one of the whole reasons the Horde came together in its current shape in the first place is because of the charismatic, hopeful figure of Thrall. It ran the very real risk of splintering under Garrosh for good (ESPECIALLY after the murder of Cairne, RIP Cairne Bloodhoof, you were too good for this world), and even the most unifying successor (which I think Vol’jin was) didn’t have Thrall’s inclusive, unifying vision. Sylvanas doesn’t, either, and even more, is sort of low-key hated by everybody else, so while I don’t think she’s a maniac like Garrosh who would recklessly divide the Horde, she’s also not, I am forced to admit, necessarily the ideal Warchief from a political standpoint.

Even if he didn’t return to the post of Warchief, Thrall had a moral obligation after the Garrosh debacle to try to help hold the Horde together and heal the divisions his negligence caused. At least to throw his support behind Garrosh’s successors, and not to pretend that Deathwing’s death meant everything was OK forever, job done. And if he wasn’t going to do that (and he has excellent motivations for not wanting to do that!), I think the consequences of that have to be explored. I think some people would blame him, and be justified in doing so. I think somebody like Varok Saurfang, who has had decades of experience with the damage bad leaders could do, would rightly be a little pissed, even as he sought Thrall out for help, that Thrall had let the Horde he built languish under subpar leadership. Thrall has been selfish–and that’s great, because he desperately needed some character flaws more significant than “cares too much” and “believes in people a lot.”

Anduin: better than Varian, still a little bland? Varian was a Professional Idiot Ball Handler, who seemed to do stuff not out of a coherent conception of his character, but just because the plot required a Generic Human King to do it. Plus there was all that stuff with the cloning and the kidnapping that never really made any sense. I like Anduin’s optimism; I like that he feels like a thoughtful, reasonable guy, who’s doing his best in often-impossible circumstances. I feel like they could show him being a little more frustrated sometimes, though, and a little pissed at people like Jaina who obstinately refuse to do the strategically correct thing even if it means setting aside their resentments for a bit. Disclaimer: I play almost exclusively Horde toons, they may address this better in the Alliance quests in WoW.

But oh man, besides the Draenei, I hate most what they did to Jaina. Jaina was that rare jewel, an optimist in a world whose setting demands perpetual chaos. Yes, yes, Theramore and the mana bomb, I’m not suggesting she should be made of stone, but it breaks her character to have her suddenly go from someone trying to forge a lasting peace between the Horde and Alliance in WC3–to the point where she would see her own father dead–to someone who now blames the whole Horde as one no exceptions for what happened at Theramore. Should she struggle with grief and pain and anger? Absolutely. But she should deal with them in more complex ways than “now I am become the mirror image of Daelin.” Nevermind that even if she did that she should at least regret not listening to him back in WC3. (Do they address that in BFA with the introduction of Kul Tiras? Idk, I haven’t played BFA at all yet.) It seems like Jaina’s role now is to be the Person Who Hates The Horde, and honestly, that’s a tired trope. It’s just not interesting, it has no nuance, it has no interesting outcomes. You could maybe get away with it with the generation of leaders from the Second War like Daelin and Genn who knew the Orcs only as the fel-corrupted servants of the Burning Legion, but it’s obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together than the current Horde is a very different animal politically and strategically, so even if you hate the Orcs with a burning passion, that is not going to transfer to the Tauren, nevermind onetime allies like the Blood Elves.

Gul’dan: oh my god the time travel plot was so stupid. Did the whole universe get duplicated in the alternate timeline? Since travel between the universes is cheap and easy that means there’s a whole nother Burning Legion with a whole nother Sargeras out there that’s still a huge fricking threat! Not to mention a whole nother Azeroth! Did just Draenor get duplicated? That doesn’t seem to match up with the fact a lot of the Burning Legion characters in WoD seem to be parallel universe versions of Burning Legion villains we already know, but it’s not directly confirmed or disconfirmed. Is it some sort of weird Bronze Dragonflight timey-wimey thing that doesn’t have its own independent reality? Ok, fine, but obviously this alternate Draenor has enough of an independent existence for us to visit it again and see what it’s like decades later, not to mention bring some of the people there back. Gul’dan was a fine, if one-dimensional villain but bringing him back from the dead was dumb, dumb, dumb, in a setting where death often feels meaningless and seems to be reversible at random. And the general incoherence of magic in the setting combined with the perennial incoherence of time travel plots (Gollum voice: *we hates them!*) really just reduced WoD to a quivering mess of plot holes, like febrile fan speculation made manifest.

Tirion Fordring: good example of a purely heroic character done well, which WoW has few of. I think because he actually has challenges to overcome, and he doesn’t feel like an idiot.

Bolvar Fordragon: Literally did not know or care who this guy was until the Wrathgate cinematic, but what they did after that with his character was terrific, 10/10.

Malfurion, Tyrande, Illidan: These characters all bore me to tears. My WotLK main was a druid, and I’m a big fan of the druid lore, so I wanna like Malfurion, I really do, but he’s just so dull. Partly because it doesn’t feel like he has any real limitations on his power, just whatever the plot demands he be able to do or not do at any given moment, partly because he just feels like a stiff-necked scold. Tyrande is even more one-dimensional. Illidan is pure 3edgy5me, and the demon hunters in general feel like they get to be too cool to actually traffic in any of the pathos of what should be their emotional equivalents like the Death Knights and the Forsaken. It’s like, “oh man, my life is so tormented, I have these bitchin’ horns and tattoos, and I’m, like, totally immortal, here, hold my rad sword thingies for a second.” At least with the Death Knights you get the feeling that being a Death Knight is a genuinely miserable experience, so there’s some genuine conflict at the heart of the class: sure, you play as a hero, but not the kind of hero you’d necessarily want to be. Demon hunters are just pissed they don’t get to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table, and Illidan genuinely acts like a giant asshole and then gets self-righteous and whiny when his friends and family are like “Dude! Stop being such an asshole!” There’s room for a prickly character, who’s a dick, but who’s our dick, and maybe that’s what they were going for, but Illidan is just the worst.

Azshara, Lady Vashj: The Naga were a giant fucking mistake. A symptom of the inability to let backstory stay backstory, to have to resurrect and retread the same events over and over again that plagues serials when lesser writers without original ideas get let loose on them. Settings like WoW (like Star Wars, like Star Trek, like Dune) are whole universes. You should be expanding the borders, making them feel bigger, more fine-grained, more alive, not beating the same major characters to death over and over again. The ancient Kaldorei are way more interesting as a lost past and a lesson in hubris than fish-snake-people who live under the sea.

Also, water levels are dumb and I hate them. This applies to coral-and-shellfish themed zones regardless of whether swimming is involved.

Cho’gall: I loved the “insane nihilist death cult” reincarnation of the Twilight’s Hammer Clan in World of Warcraft, and Cho’gall as the many-eyed crazed ogre mage with two heads was great. Would much rather have more Cho’gall than Guldan 2.0.

While I’m on Cataclysm: one thing you don’t often feel in worlds like WoW is the possibility of real defeat, because for extradiegetic reasons, it’s impossible to truly lose in any long-lasting way (or, in quests like Battle for the Undercity in WotLK, they just… don’t let you, which feels dumb as heck). I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, a world where the bad guys won, and all the worst things the good guys feared came to pass. I think this is one reason I loved the original interpretation of the Draenei so much, because we saw in Draenor what that really looked like. It was bleak, and it was poignant, and even though it was set within a silly melodrama, it actually moved me. Cataclysm did something similar with the postapocalyptic time-travel instance (time travel being used well for once in WoW!), where you saw that Deathwing’s victory wasn’t just an abstract possibility, but a thing that could actually happen. It made the possibility of defeat feel more real, and it gave you a taste of that same bleak, poignant feeling: this, it said (just for a moment!) is what failure looks like, an Azeroth without life, without hope, in which everything you ever struggled for was utterly in vain. And that motivated you to work even harder to prevent it.

Alleria, Turalyon: “You last saw us in WC2, and since then we’ve been fighting a thousand years (subjective) of endless war against the Burning Legion and been irrevocably changed by the experience” is actually pretty great! But if I were going to rewrite WoW lore, I would make that a thousand objective years and set the final victory over the Burning Legion in the future, at a time when the Alliance and Horde have made a durable peace, and Azeroth has moved on from decades of endless war. I think there’s a real problem with trying to make the player one of the heroes that brings down Sargeras for good because it’s *such* an epic battle, but it’s a massively multiplayer game. Making every player the grand master of their class order was bad enough, but when you are obviously playing out entirely different diegesis from everyone around you, even if you didn’t have problems like sharding and a glut of phasing and cross-server activities and instant teleportation to dungeons, it really feels like a single-player RPG with a chat function. I mean, conflicting diegeses is always going to be a problem with questing-based MMOs, but suspension of disbelief worked when you were plainly one person embedded in a larger effort, like in vanilla, BC, and WotLK. But “you are one of thousands of people who is the Best Warrior Ever and sole Leader of the Warriors, and who has the Only Artifact Weapon that somehow also has thousands of copies”… yeah, that just doesn’t work for me. I feel like I’m being pandered to, and not in a fun way, like with the Pandaren.

Sargeras: I like that they retconned Sargeras to have a better motivation than “demons made me nihilistic.” The idea of a void-corrupted titan being something so terrible a member of the Pantheon would shatter worlds to prevent it is interesting. But the Void gods still feel… kinda non-threatening? We don’t see them actively working to threaten anything we really care about, the Void is mostly a pretty passive abstract force like the Light, and in general I feel like the setting isn’t really dualistic, but er… trialistic? Is that a word? In that there’s a three-way opposition between the Void, the Light, and the Nether/Arcane, from the perspective of which each is the opponent of both of the others, but that’s never laid out explicitly anywhere.

[datoneidiot]

Sander Sides- Learning new things about ourselfs post

Are u ready it's really long plus trigger warning near end

(Don't know how to add a cut :// sorry)

Things needed to be addressed

-Virgil and Patton relationship, set in stone father son it's amazing lov

-Logan and Roman are the ones who have been fighting more often, unlike Virgil and Roman *does this mean bigger further problems?*

-we got angst from all, pattons is already known about and he's starting to be more vocal good for him, Virgil everyone knows about but it seems as though it'll never be fully address or fixed but that's ok, and Logan's scared of how the others make them look as a whole? How working together changes them, Thomas all together? He's scared of working and confronting these issues with them and Roman, we've all been getting theses little underlying throws at pride and his angst but Virgil just flat out said it, like he knew already and if other viewers hadn't noticed those little hints it seems like Virgil just threw it out there but he hits the nail on the head and *outloud* when they're scared to say anything about feelings Romans is just tossed out in the open. Did they talk about it beforehand? Virgil *had* to have found out/confirmed it for sure

-plus when he sang the "no one hates you" directly to Roman and looks at him (tears) he hits the nail on the head again

-also when Virgil starts and almost accidentally says (in his speech) "love-CARE for someone not much hurts more than they’re scorn.” and if I recall the speech was the jabs they take at him (Roman in particular) how he used to be the villain and he once again looked directly at Roman

-Pattons constant grabs for Logans attention, it's even clearer in this vid "Logan, it's Patton!!" And Logan just goes on without acknowledging him

-Virgil singing! Logan singing!!

-The whole "I don't want to be seen as childish I'm not", Pats always marked as he childish one, puppets, dad jokes, plus he usually gets ignored, spoken over, treated as less, like a child, Logan and pat underlying problems?? They never had fights like Roman and Logan or Roman and Virgil but there's something there for sure, and all the sides do it too, they do belittle him and usually don't recognize it. One of the big concepts is talking and thinking out feelings and none of them want to address it at first

-Virgil is definitely off, it's weird

-Random, could Virgil be Romans dark side? I dunno if u saw the theory but I found it interesting, when Romans like "ur not as bad as the others" and deceit would be Pattons dark side and anxiety usually shuns or messes with creativity but it does with Logic too, when we start anxious we don't think or feel straight so maybe he's not but he was definitely not apart of the main group before

-Virgil looks a lot at Roman but they don't really interact + we see less of Roman on camera by the middle/end ish. It's mostly Logan and Patton and Thomas and more Anx than Ro

-Roman does the same as Patton he keeps on bringing up Jokes and tries to cover his insecurities every time someone mentions it he kinda let it out a bit and said I'll address it more often but he doesn't even say he's insecure he says he's kinda better, he goes silent and just generally says he'll try and work on it

-Logan raged threw paper at Roman, it seemed like a rlly big deal, something underlying in this?

-Anx kinda follows the Count Dracula from Sesame Street but his old ANXIETY MUSIC comes back as the counts get more darker. Only at that part his old music comes back loud and clear and at the beginning when he was being heightened

TRIGGER WARNING

-Virgil's behavior is linked to those of people before they attempt suicide

Withdraw from social activities/islolation : He wasn't in the past two vids + at end from Pat

A sudden lift in mood such as a depressed person suddenly being happy/mood sings (anger) : hes really going ham on the father-son relationship with Pat, like it's all fine and dandy

-Logan dismissed Pat and he does it nearly every vid and I'm sure half the time he doesn't realize it but Payton's always reaching out and calling for his attention but Logan just goes on and usually doesn't even acknowledge him, then when Patton finally suggests something he usually mocks it in a way the whole puppets he shouts things for now reason he's condescending

-And Patton's been more helpful, in a sense where he comes up with the good ideas or brings up smart stuff and it impresses Logan sometimes

-He didn't use to do that, is he doing it for Logans approval? The whole Logan thinks he's better than everyone? And dismissing Patton the most

-Does the father become the child yearning for some of the "higher authority's" approval?

-Now here's two other things

-they've all been interacting with each other more, going across screens TWO CHARACTERS HIGH FIVING AND STANDING BESIDE EACH OTHER AND GRABBING THINGS FROM EACH OTHER

-logince/moxiety or prinxiety/logicality BC I've also been prinxiety/logicality mainstream but the latter seems to be working better rn

-plus with all this interaction it's proven possible for two characters to be beside each other, could potential ships occur? Unlikely but i like to have .000001% hope, Thomas definitely doesn't seem to be the type to create relationships off of these specific characters especially BC they're him and his

-"you got it pop star" on the second, to pat *AFTER* Patton gives him a cute lil nickname which he asks for Patton to not do at the end

-roman stops his arguing to question/acknowledge Virgil's appearance

-plus "they always do that" when Thomas refers to Lo and Ro bickering and u can hear bleeped out curses in the background, u think if someone could separate the arguing we'd hear a real argument? With *spicy details*?

-Ros definitely not ok, this angst has been building up for awhile and he barley let anything out. He still hasn't even acknowledged it out loud he says "yeah I'll work on it" and when they keep on trying to bring it up he'd dismiss the idea entirely, at the end he doesn't even respond to the "no one hates you" and at the very end he just acts as happy and cheery as usual after saying "that..helps.." and "I still don't feel good about it.." and the faces he makes

I don't think I covered a lot, the vids rlly long, but these are just some thoughts

[originaljediinjeans]

Avengers: Endgame (Spoilers) Reaction

Things I didn’t like:

Seriously Thor had to end up LIKE THAT? SERIOUSLY THEY REALLY RUINED HIM

Tony being “stuck in space” just wasn’t a huge deal after all, thanks a lot

Just...five years of trying to “accept” what Thanos did? They literally can’t do anything? That is just so wrong. 

Also REALLY BRUCE? Sheesh so tacky

Tony comes right back from space, settles down w/ Pepper and refuses to talk to anybody

First thing when he comes back he’s all like “Steve UR a liar and I hate you” Like he doesn’t want to go after Thanos bc deep down he’s like “Bringing back half the universe means bringing back your precious Bucky but I don’t think so” (he’s actually just bitter about losing to Thanos but you know me, I’m autistic, it’s all about Bucky) gosh

Wait, so the cosmos depends on the Infinity Stones existing? So Steve just puts them back where they came from, nothing is changed, what happens now that Thanos is no longer around, where do they end up? 

Or did they get destroyed?

So Thanos isn’t really dead? Neither are his minions? Someone can bring them back? They’re really just in the soul realm?

Everything about that one death scene. Like they used the exact same footage and imagery from Gamora’s death in Infinity War. 

About 30% or more of the movie is montages, I needed more actual scenes with dialogue and characters connecting! 

Also Thor taking off with the Guardians 2b a space bum forever. That is like...the worst. Who wrote that?

Things I am on the Fence about:

“Resentment corrodes. BTW you can have your shield back. Dad made it for you.” okay, guys, that’s great but this is a three-hour-movie, surely you have time to sit down and have a real heart-to-heart apology session 

Captain Marvel as 80% CGI and 100% goddess

Really? It was that easy to get the Aether out of Jane without the Svarthaelfen coming for it? Also Rocket what did you do to her? 

Steve Rogers ending: I guess it’s what the fandom wanted. Judging by Hayley Atwell’s smug face she may have written the scene herself. But I was kind of getting used to the idea of Sharon (even them just being friends), and Steve actually moving on...

Also I get that it’s more politically correct to let Sam be Cap, and that “poor Bucky has suffered enough”

TBQH I get why he’s okay just saying goodbye to Bucky and leaving him in the present. They grew up together in Brooklyn, so they had those happy years together, and now Steve has freed him from Hydra and Bucky can go live his own life so it’s all good. Steve only knew Peggy for 1-2 years so he needs the time with her, if he wants it

Heil Hydra: I know that this is totally a reference to that one thing in the comics. But dude, did you want them to think you were Hydra? Or you were just telling them you were onto them? Well, either way it worked. 

Things I Did Like

The Ancient One meeting Bruce Banner and serving him the tea, also his astral form is still Bruce Banner and this pleases me a lot

Tony and his dad afjlfakjfdsajhladfhk j

Clint and Natasha being space pilots can I get more of this please?

Tony being a selfish jerk and hiding from the Avengers and ignoring that the rest of the world is suffering...but at the same time being a dad and a husband and living his best life and taking time for himself and not suffering

And then Tony getting off his high horse

Natasha refusing to not be vigilant or give up even though everyone else has

Scott Lang talking to Tony Stark like, what up, dude! We need to take a chance!

PEPPERONY OFFSPRING IS A THING! BLESS!

STEVE DID THE THING!!!!!!!!!

Ebony Maw is back and he is uglier than ever

*cackle of laughter* Justice. Sweet justice. 

Thor having the talk with his mom 

Thanos over the course of the film slowly becoming a better villain, and finally attacking with all of his powers and deciding that benevolently destroying half the universe isn’t enough

Thanos real desire: to satisfy his own ego

Thanos is not in Endgame as much but by the end of it he is a 50% better villain than he was in Infinity War

AND THEN EVERYONE COMES BACK AND ALL THE PEOPLE COME THROUGH THE PORTALS AND IT IS AN EPIC BATTLE, A TRULY GLORIOUS FIGHT

Like everyone who got snapped and then some come out of those portals armed and ready 2 fight like they’ve been itching for this for 5 years

okay so their “souls” still existed in the Soul realm, good, I was afraid they were all disembodied particles floating in random

Captain Marvel showing up to the boss fight and smacking Thanos but him being able to smack her back, finally she’s not invincible!

Also her shorter hair --ooooh hair envy!

Rocket talking to Thor on Asgard and telling him to get a grip, that was good

“I am inevitable.” “I am Iron Man.”

4-year-old Nathanial “Nate” Pietro Barton, Cooper and Lila, Laura--Clint’s family--yeah if Clint had died it would have been devastating

Clint and Wanda’s moment after the funeral, demonstrating how she and Nat were also part of Clint’s family

Scarlet Witch versus Thanos, YEAH THAT’S RIGHT YOU SON OF A MOLDY CASSEROLE, YOU GONNA PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO VISION

FEMALE AVENGER BOSS FIGHT

VALKYRIE LEADING THE ASGARDIANS

“Avengers...Assemble.”  

I WAS LITERALLY CHEERING AND SCREAMING DURING THIS WHOLE SEQUENCE YOU HAVE NO IDEA IT WAS SO COOL

Just seeing Bucky again my heart afdskjfad;l

Just the epilogue and the funeral and seeing everyone together again as they should be, more or less

Steve and Tony going back to the 1970s--the whole segment is just great. Loved it. Steve’s undercover uniform is nice

I didn’t realize he could possibly run into Peggy until just before he realized he was in her office!

“Bucky is still alive.” Well, that’s one way to scare a body

Sam, Wanda, and Bucky at the funeral

New Asgard is a thing. This pleases me. 

Re-enacting Peter Quill entering the temple on Morag and then him getting hit over the head *points finger and laugh* like that was literally the only good thing about the time travel and revisiting the past

The GOTG staying for the funeral, that was nice of them. 

I have literally never been happier to see Spider-man in my life

Sebastian Stan’s face, that’s all

Steve and Bucky hugging goodbye, “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” OKAY NOW I’M HAVING FEELS

Also it’s really nice of Hank Pym to go to Tony’s funeral--did he go to Howard and Maria’s?

Things that Should Have Happened: 

Where the heck is Loki? 

Steve and Bucky should have had a scene together during the battle, fighting side-by-side

Bucky should have been the first person that Steve saw

Bucky carrying the gauntlet during the big hustle would’ve been a nice bonus

Loki stealing the Tesserract and disappearing--all that does is set up his Disney+ TV show. Shouldn’t that have led to more problems?

Like they seriously set up everything that could possibly go wrong but only one or two things do--well the movie was only 3 hours long, if they’d had five they could have made it more complicated

They could have made Thor a weepy alcoholic without making him a gross bum. 

More of the main characters dying besides the two that did. 

Tony and Nebula needed 10 whole minutes of relationship time. 

Just more of the 06 Avengers and Rhodey spending more time with Nebula and Rocket and their personalities bouncing off of each other

We should have at least been shown Tony and Pepper having a private civil ceremony, also her telling him that she’s pregnant

If Natasha needed to die at all, it should have been her going down in a fight, getting stabbed or something. Like someone could have showed up at Vormir, like Thanos sent someone once he got the intel from Nebula, and Nat and Barton had a boss fight at the top, and then Nat gets stabbed and thrown off

I was still actually expecting Tony to literally adopt Nebula

They could have done something about the fact that the Red Skull is the freaking Guardian of the Soul Stone(TM). Wouldn’t Nat or Clint have recognized him? Like the fact of his identity isn’t even relevant to anything--gosh, him meeting Steve must have been interesting

So Nebula didn’t kill Thanos. Hmph. Was there a way it could have happened, though? Is there a way she still “beat” him? Maybe by killing the past self that was still loyal to him? 

You had three hours to tell a great story and make the things we didn’t like about Infinity War better, and all you give us is beer-belly Thor and a lot of time travel gimmicks? sheesh marvel