#(he's a villain protagonist & it happens offscreen)

[knockknockitsnickels]

There's a part of me which wants to get more into Mouthwashing (tragic scifi horror, I love that) but a lot of the discussions in the fandom come uncomfortably close to real life rape apologia to the point where it's genuinely upsetting to read

[erasso]

chapter 46 thoughts

long!!! I think this chapter is great!

I didn't really like many of the kamunabi designs originally but when given personality and more focus here they seem much more lively, I can't complain

the blood test... I hope it'll lead to us learning something about chihiro's mom. I really wouldn't want some kind of kunishige not being his dad reveal. I can see how that might play into the drama of upholding your father's legacy to find out the guy you thought was your dad wasn't your dad at all, and all the "found family" themes at play, but I really don't like it. yep. that's my whole argument about it.

hakuri is so dumb and cute. going into this big important trial meeting with tissues stuffed up your nose... and then we have chihiro shouting his name when he passed out earlier and him ready to go all out if they hadn't gotten interrupted. and hakuri just being all yep. gonna follow my samurai everywhere. straight into the gates of hell. when hiyuki says chihiro has him on a leash.

I hope hakuri gets to build himself up more over time though. relying on chihiro and letting chihiro rely on him is great, but you're more than a tool, hakuri!

it doesn't seem like the kamunabi have that much info about the storehouse. the sazanami guarded the secret even from their own strongest family members, so I wonder how many people actually have any idea of how it works? they seem to underestimate and not take hakuri all that seriously which is. also good! it's kind of a continual theme with him so far and I want him to get to show off. he's so cool aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I don't think hiyuki or tafuku saw him use isou, so they don't know he has multiple kinds of magic either... he's in a dangerous position. if people understood what he could do, who wouldn't want him on their side? and I feel like the hishaku would be all too happy to kill him

I wonder how old hiyuki is? her comment about chihiro only cutting down evildoers makes me wonder if this is going to be a theme at some point. we know chihiro is really emotionally sensitive, he's going to face off against some grey villains in the future, right? he couldn't even bring himself to kill soya originally.

and usually while the protagonist might have some more sensible friends... hakuri is much colder when it comes to killing but he doesn't really seem pragmatic, and if chihiro wanted something, I'm not sure I could see him arguing against it as he is! please get stronger both mentally and physically, hakuri...

thinking back to chapter 1, this was always something going on with chihiro. he wanted to try to negotiate with the yakuza before he saw bodies strung up and realised they were scumbags

then we learn that chihiro wasn't born and raised in the mountain home we saw in the intro, but that he was brought there by his dad instead...

but, he could be lying. he immediately continues by saying that he's never met any of the kamunabi council before and that's obviously untrue. and it's clear that most of these council members don't know anything about chihiro, many of them didn't even know he existed and most of them don't believe him right now, so I'll have to see how that goes

I really love chihiro, hakuri, hiyuki, tafuku...

I like the asshole kunishige hater guy, too. there's no way shiba didn't kick his ass in the past, right?

I'm sad the onsen episode didn't come to fruition. please let them rest hokazono... this episode seems really dangerous. neither chihiro or hakuri seem to ever get the chance to heal, and, since they're being controlled by the kamunabi now, it doesn't seem like they could go and get char to heal them (if she's even recovered enough to heal them)

it would be nice to see shiba doing something offscreen, or if hiyuki and tafuku also feature in this rescue mission (hiyuki is the only one with the power to rival the blades, so I think she might come?) but I'm looking forward to meeting the swords master and seeing what happens next. hakuri and chihiro working together... waaa

[spinningbuster98]

You know the funniest thing about N!Isaac's influence on the macroplot of NFCV?

You can have a story told by multiple POVs, some of which less important than others. I'm thinking of Sonic Adventure. Sonic is basically the core of the macroplot, Tails and Knuckles assist, and Amy, Big and Gamma are doing their own thing, only marginally tied to the story.

Gamma is probably the character that I can compare to N!Isaac the most, as his story is largely about his development and breaking free of Eggman's programming, having very little to do with the threat of Chaos - a character-driven story, not an events-driven one.

And yet. And yet Gamma does more for SA1's plot than N!Isaac does in NFCV. He takes Froggy to the Egg Carrier, which eventually leads to Chaos reaching his sixth form. He frees Amy from her cell. The scene where Amy pleads Sonic to not kill him is crucial to make Sonic realize Amy is more than a silly fangirl, but someone to be trusted.

N!Isaac's only contribution to the story is being such an arrogant cock that he allows Carmilla to do as she pleases, leading to Dracula's demise. Then I suppose he kills her too, but as Deats revealed, the story would have worked just fine without that fight - Carmilla didn't kill herself for him, she was insane anyway. (same with Lenore's suicide: despite what some fans believed and what she whines about, it was not about him keeping her in a cage, it was because she didn't want to go insane like Carmilla.) And that's not mentioning how Carmilla herself didn't matter to the macroplot, because the protagonists never learn about the existence of the Forgemasters and Styria as a whole.

N!Isaac is not just less relevant than Gamma. He's less relevant than Big the fucking Cat.

I cannot contain all these bruhs man.

Well you see that's because SA1's story, despite its own issues (coughknucklesgettingtrickedagsincough), was still written by folks who actually cared about the material and wanted every character to feel like they mattered to an extent with no real favoritisms

NFCV was written by an arrogant asshat who couldn't give two shits about the series and was only in it for the paycheck, and supervised by immature fans whose idea for a story is, at best' "hey wouldn't it be super cool if this happened?" and who are more in love with their vision than anything else

I'd actually argue that the closest analogue to Isaac is actually Knuckles though: the only things he accomplishes in the story is getting tricked by Eggman and rounding up six of the Emeralds so that Chaos can later steal them. Basically he only exists to further the villains' plans. To top it all off the story does next to nothing with him and Tikal's flashbacks, which makes his story just feel hollow: he's only there because the Master Emerald contained Chaos and Knuckles is its guardian, so inevitably he was gonna get roped into things, otherwise he's literally detrimental to the plot as his actions literally make things worse for the heroes

The big difference is that Knuckles is not a misanthropic, hypocritical asshole, who constantly sounds like he wants to give himself a blowjob over how awesome his supposed offscreen character arc is, so he's instantly far better than Isaac, because even a whole lot of nothing is better than utter garbage sometimes

Y'know I realise that NFCV has dealth with a lot of time constraints due to Netflix being shit, and that's not their fault...but how come SA1, a similarily rushed product, was able to keep a far tighter leash on 6 parallel plotlines, while the big deep show couldn't handle 4 of them?

[shitpostingkats]

Yu-Gi-Oh Review Roundup: GX!

Favorite main character: Chazz Princeton

The Chazz. The yugioh rival who, barely five episodes into the first season, gets fed up with being in the show, sails away on a yacht, shipwrecks, is rescued by card game playing russians, gets adopted by said russians after beating all of them back to back in a 50 man gauntlet, and returns to the main plot triumphantly riding a submarine with an entire crowd of slavs chanting his name.

In, uh... *checks watch* episode 25.

Chazz is one of those yugioh characters who’s just always doing the most he possibly can, and you gotta love him for it. And unlike some prideful anime rivals, he actually has the skills to back it up. Skills you actually get to watch him build himself, from the ground up, after having his fall from grace/russian sabbatical. Which just makes it even more satisfying to see him tear into duels, because his archetype of choice, and his whole arc in general, is about using the most unintimidating, unwanted, and least powerful monsters. It’s like the pokemon trainers who threaten to beat you into next week, and then bring out. A magikarp.

Except he then absolutely trashes you with said magikarp. And clomps away in his big goth platforms, loudly proclaiming that magikarp are annoying, and stupid, and he definitely doesn’t like them. Nu-uh. Ignore the maxed out friendship stat.

Up until the heavier plot kicks in in season three, Chazz has hands down the best character arcs of GX. His fight to break free of his abusive brothers’ control, his crabby assimilation into the Slifer Squad, his brief stint and subsequent escape from a Literal Cult (yeah that happens in gx don’t worry about it). Chazz is such a charismatic and well developed character that, when he kinda vanishes for like a dozen episodes, only to reappear, having won an entire tournament offscreen, being heralded by banner-bearers, and carried on a freaking PALANQUIN

I stood up and CHEERED.

Favorite antagonist: The Dark King

The most stunning of trope subversions in a season chock-full of them. Yes, Yubel may be a more threatening and complex villain, but they have so much going on between the dub vs. sub battle, they may get the final save-the-world card game at the end of the season, but the Dark King is such an equally nuanced and menacing antagonist.

Because he’s the protagonist.

 The dark king is every concept I loved about the Yamis in DM, the idea that parts of ones soul aren’t wholly power of friendship goodness, the idea that you can still choose to be an anime protag even if there’s darkness living inside of you. Because being kind is hard. And the act of pursuing it hits so much harder when we see how much it costs to turn down the other path.

Again, I’m a sucker for any character arc even remotely analogous to mental illness. If you see a pattern in the way I review media, I wholeheartedly claim it. I am a simple creature.

But the Dark King also functions so fantastically as both a metaphor and a subversion because we’ve seen the trope of a Superpowered Evil Side before. The show is betting on that. The twist comes in that the Dark King is not some malevolent, foreign entity. That it’s Jaden. Just a scared kid, lashing out at the world and forced to deal with the consequences. And he’s not evil.

Whereas Marik shows with dealing in the part of yourself that wants to commit atrocities, Jaden takes it the next step, and has to accept that you can’t just get rid of it. You have to live with it. Rein it in. But be kind to it. Because it is you, and it just wants to keep you safe and it may be wrong and a base impulse but punishing your worst instincts is not only self harmful, it is impossible.

You may have instantly internalized any negative emotion out of shame, and yes, you may somedays even be controlled by it. But do not fear it. Learn to work in tandem with your rage. Do not let it possess you, but do not imprison it either.

The Dark King is one of those stories that I really think I needed to hear as a kid, but even now, consuming the series as an adult, doesn’t make that message any less impactful.

Favorite side character: Tyranno Hassleberry

Back in the early days of 2021, before the first season of yugioh dm was even a passing consideration of a thought in my mind, I decided to poll my online friends and determine what they thought the Best Worst Name in localized yugioh.

These were people that had never watched yugioh, never so much as glanced at the card game.

We started with 32 names.

After five rounds of voting, only one was left standing.

Tyranno Hassleberry beat Maximillion Pegasus, and thus was crowned the ultimate champion of Best Bad Yugioh Name.

Some might say this championship gave me a bit of a preemptive bias towards the funny dinosaur man.

They’d be right.

Imagine my delight, however, when this already-primed-for-stupidity name got a face, and we learn that big, dumb, real himbo of a yugioh name is attached to an equally big and dumb himbo of typical yugioh absurdity. I mean, truly, Tyranno Hassleberry is everything I love about yugioh worldbuilding, personified. In a series that takes an up close examination of the partnerships between man and monster, and the terrible psychological effects thereof, Hassleberry stands as the shining example of a character so full of love and stupidity that he is immune to the horrors.

While Jaden “What is attraction” Yuki is off getting ptsd from his partnership with a dragon demon that hyperfocuses on relationships so hard that it has put people into comas, Tyranno is also there. Just vibing. Hassleberry, do you have such a strong spiritual connection to your ace monster that you might be genuinely inhuman? Do you also have special anime eyes and mild superpowers? How’s that going? Good? Good!

The world of yugioh not only can provide rich, nuanced explorations on mental wellness and the very idea of identity, it can also provide a man who is half dinosaur and it is only ever lightly remarked upon. Apparently, the solution to surviving an ever expanding universe of unreality and cosmic horrors beyond your imagination is just. Be kind. Be happy. Talk about dinosaurs.

Favorite duel: Yubel vs. Zane

A masterclass on how non-plot-relevant duels can still contribute SO much to the show and its characters.

Zane is a funny little weirdo. The walking personification of Gifted Kid Burnout, this dude graduated valedictorian and then immediately proceeded to get kicked in the ribs by the realities of non-academic living, causing him to sink into a deep and self harmful depression spiral, obsessed with pulling others down to his level and proving to them that happy go lucky positivity is only a naive shield in the face of true adversity and cruelty.

*Laughs a bit too forcefully* What a funny dude!

Zane has basically been on a downward slide in mental wellbeing since season two, and at this point, seems to have reached a natural stopping point in his corruption arc. Tired, washed out, and pessimistic, but at least comfortable in his status quo of being An Absolute Mess. He’s teamed up with Aster as sort of the token chaotic neutrals of the party, the only ones edgy enough to do things like casual torture and murder, but he’s attempted to reach out to his brother, and has even begrudgingly been roped into protecting the gang as they make their final stand against Yubel. He seems to be operating under the belief that while he no longer has to try so hard to rid the highschoolers of their delusions that the power of love and friendship will save the day, he’s still a depressed snot rag wrapped in a black leather overcoat.

That fantastic bit of ex-villainous personality gets to go head to head against the current villainous personality, and it is a treat. Yubel and Zane carry entire scenes through sheer force of presence, and seeing them snark and attempt to out edgelord each other is a delight.

But it also is a very pivotal point for Zane’s character because, for once, he is not the most mentally unstable person in the room. That honor goes to Jaden, newly traumatized, and about to start rolling down the same hill. Zane recognizes those self destructive behaviors, even attempts to warn Jaden that refusing to acknowledge his actions will only lead to further harm, but before he can properly sit down and explain to Jaden that self harmful behaviors are bad actually, and that electrocuting yourself to feel any semblance of emotion is actually a massive holy shit red flag, Yubel interrupts them.

So now, Zane, Failure Big Brother Extraordinaire, has to come to some semblance of peace with his own emo demons, while battling Jaden’s for him (both literally and figuratively).

The sheer panache of two of the most wonderful anti-heros of yugioh, the emotional turmoil of Zane’s inner conflict, the realistic portrayal of how we process trauma, plus the absolute YUGIOH MOVE that is choosing to die of card game induced heart attack. Honestly, I could go on about this duel forever.

Favorite arc: Quest for the Rainbow Dragon

I mentioned previously that I started watching yugioh as something to have on in the background, usually while I sewed. The Quest for the Rainbow Dragon is the arc that made me put down my needle and actually devote my full attention to watching the show.

GX is a show full of subverting audience expectations. I have my own opinions on the prioritization of shock-bait over consistent plot writing, but I also can’t deny that when Adrian Gecko just shrugged off his shirt and engaged in freaking fisticuffs, I was speechless for a whole five minutes.

In between one blink and the next, GX went from a weird early 2000s merchandise advert that occasionally had character writing and the oh-so-rare taste of legitimately serious writing, to a full on survival horror anime. The surreal, empty desert environment of the spirit world, the main cast slowly whittled down and frequently split up, the eerie monologues of Yubel and their legitimately unnerving horror visuals; all contribute to this claustrophobic feeling of dread. The panic of the students feels real.

And QftRD, despite being the first entry in GX’s much darker and grander second half, makes wonderful use of smaller scale episode plots. Entire episodes are devoted to the struggle of moving from one room in the school to the next, or negotiating for enough food to survive just another day. Every main character gets to shine in aspects that we’ve only seen hints of in their lives of status quo card games: whether it’s Alexis’ natural leadership, Hassleberry and Axels’ military skills, Crowler’s actual want to protect the students’ well being, or Jaden and Jesse just finally getting to explore their connections with duel monster spirits. Heck, even the unnamed students get to shine, using their knowledge of the school to navigate through hidden passages.

It’s such a shock to the system, after two and a half seasons of decidedly not small scale apocalyptic survival. The transition from Saturday Morning Cartoon Weirdness to PTSD War Crime Hours is very jarring and unexpected, even if you know it’s going to happen. But the duel zombies arc goes a long way to make that pivot feel deserved, to give actual weight to the sacrifices and choices the characters are about to make.

Also, I somehow managed to write this entire thing without realizing this is my second time my favorite arc in a ygo show has been the one with the word ‘dragon’ in the title.

Greatest strengths of the series:

The slow burn from shonen cartoon to cosmic horror trope subversion.

Truly, I can only compare GX to a handful of other shows that have ever come within the same ballpark of a viewing experience. The closest I can get is maybe relating it to Red vs Blue: One of my favorite shows of all time. And one that it’s absolutely impossible to get into.

See, with both GX and RvB, they’re shows that start out silly, unconnected, and (don’t worry, I love both of these shows with almost my entire heart), bad. Now, an impatient viewer might be tempted to just skip to the point where the show takes off, where it quote unquote “gets good”. But the problem is, if you attempt to cut out all the chaff, you lose what fundamentally makes the sudden spike in writing quality so compelling: the unexpectedness of it.

GX grabbed my attention by the throat in Waking The Dragon, because, up until then, I’d been using it as chill background fodder. Jaden felt so real to me as a protagonist and a person, because I’d spent fourty hours watching him be a normal protagonist/teenager. The previous episodes might not have done much to advance in terms of the plot, but they delivered something equally important: A status quo.

And when that status quo is broken, it feels much more powerful to the audience because it feels so fundamentally wrong. Just like it’s insane to watch in real time as RvB goes from being a bunch of outdated loosely strung together skits to a military drama waxing poetic about morality, GX spins on a dime from “Saturday morning cartoon” to “Cosmic horror meta tropefest”, and every episode you want to look up from the screen and go “How. Wh- Who let them just... do this?” Who let them set out to write one kind of story, and then not bother to correct them when they started doing something completely different? And why is it so good?

That is a very rare feeling in media, I think. To be so truly and utterly thrown off guard by a change in story direction, yet having more fun than you possibly could with some so-called “good” stories. And I think it’s a feeling worth cherishing.

Weakest points:

The slow burn from shonen cartoon to cosmic horror trope subversion.

The other reason I compare GX to Red vs. Blue is the fact that they are both shows that I cannot in good conscience recommend to friends.

“Here’s this show I like,” I say.

“Oh, cool, I’ll check it out!”

They return, minutes to hours later.

“So, I started that show you like and uh. Are you aware it is? Bad?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, it gets better-”

“Oh, sweet, cause I was really worried-”

“-Just give it a couple seasons!”

“I, uh.” They tug at their collar. “Can I skip the bad parts?”

“No. :D”

Hours and hours of time sunk into a mediocrity on the off-chance it “gets good” is a tough pill to swallow for most people. It’s a tough pill to swallow for me, and I willingly aspire to watch every yugioh anime. Add on top of that poor production quality,  bloated plot bunnies, and some writing that has aged like milk, and you have. Well. A benign watching experience, at minimum.

And like I said, there’s good ingredients to the final storyline buried in all that early stuff! Just skipping directly to the middle in a hope to reach “the part everyone talks about” fundamentally waters down the experience, leaving you struggling to understand what has fans going bananas.

Why does the show hit you on the head 200 times with a hammer? Cause it feels so good when it stops!

Now, I’m not your parent, and you can watch tv shows however you want. If you only watched seasons 3 and 4 of GX, then by god, you watched GX, and you are welcome at the discussion table. Get in here, amigo. Your opinion matters just as much as mine.

GX is very difficult to review, in comparison to all its other sister shows, because the aspects some people praise are the very aspects others could never really get into the show because of. Its greatest strength as a story and its greatest weakness as a show are one in the same. It’s sort of this weird child of the family, unable to be talked about without a lot of contradiction and conversational backtracking. Is GX the best show of the three? Maybe. Is it my favorite? No, with an asterisk. Is it some people’s favorite? Absolutely.

If you changed it, made the plot tighter, the writing more concise, had a planned narrative from the beginning and slowly worked in elements of the larger endgame, would those same people still like it, in the same fervor?

I don’t think so.

Most yugioh moment:

YA SEE, A FEW YEARS BACK, ON A ROUTINE DIG FOR DINOSAUR FOSSILS, A LANDSLIDE BROKE OUT AND NEARLY BROKE MY LEG IN TWO. THEY HAD TO OPERATE QUICKLY, SO THEY USED THE DINOSAUR BONE I FOUND TO SAVE MY LEG. EVER SINCE, I'VE HAD WHAT THEY CALL DINO DNA. THE DOCTOR SAYS IT MAKES ME STRONGER THAN THE AVERAGE JOE.

[tarakaybee]

My Dad forced me to go and watch Madame Web with him at the cinema. I told him explicitly that it wouldn't be good, but going in with that mindset freed us from the urge to be negative about the film, we had a lot of fun with it and even found a lot of things that we like in spite of ourselves.

My highlights include:

In order to facilitate a character arc where the protagonist becomes compassionate, she starts off as being inexplicably, comically rude and/or awkward to everybody and seems to dislike helping and talking to people, despite being a paramedic.

In the process of rescuing three teenage girls, the hero directly causes the deaths of a minimum of five offscreen innocents. She steals an ambulance and prevents it from helping somebody in need, causes a nearby car to explode in the process of ramming the ambulance into a villain, uses her EMT connections to summon a helicopter, fires off a load of fireworks at random to try and kill the villain, one of which hits the helicopter she summoned and explodes. Also one of the fireworks hits her in the face and blinds her.

Her superpower is actually quite interesting. Instead of having the same powers as the villain like every MCU film, there is a massive disparity in the combat abilities of the hero and villain, she can see the future but has no combat skills and he has the powers of Spider-Man. The final confrontation manages to stick in my memory a bit more simply because it's not just a generic fist fight on a rooftop but a culmination of Cassie's ability to factor in random elements.

The fact that Cassie's way of combating the villain involves using her future knowledge to cause random objects to collide with him makes the film very funny if you imagine it from his perspective, where he keeps getting hit by cars and debris and fireworks no matter where he goes.

The film is a weird period piece that takes place in the early 2000s, this is communicated by the use of Toxic by Britney Spears as the motif of a certain scene, where Cassie uses the presence of the song on the radio in a vision to pinpoint the precise moment it happens. The film alternates between subtle exposition like this that defines limitations and establish stakes without being intrusive, and the other times Cassie just talks out loud to her TV or a nearby stray cat in order for the viewer to learn things.

She figures out that she can see the future whilst watching A Christmas Carol in the middle of summer, when Scrooge is talking to Christmas-Yet-To-Come and asking if the future can be changed. As mentioned, she talks out loud to the fictional character Scrooge for the purposes of getting this exposition across.

Cassie becomes a wanted fugitive after appearing to kidnap the Spider-Trio, she parks her stolen taxi at the airport and buys a plane ticket out of the country and somehow manages to not get flagged down. When she returns from abroad, her stolen taxi with the ripped of licence plate is still there waiting for her.

The villain's plan involves killing the Spider-Trio, who will one day kill him in the future. The way he comes to locate the girls is by using advanced NSA technology to download an image from his dreams, making a random guess when in the future it takes place, de-aging the dream images by ten years, removing their masks from the de-aged dream images by using software to reconstruct their faces, and then running it past facial recognition. He sleeps with an NSA agent and steals her password, and then is somehow able to continue using these login credentials for a full week without getting investigated.

[rigginsstreet]

Sometimes I get so mad that Billy antis watched season 2 where Lucas stalked Max and then he, Dustin and Mike got offended and angry when she told them to stop then watched Billy while he implies to Max that his dad beat him for having of color friends and warned her not to hang out with Lucas after he watched Lucas follow her for an entire day (I would also tell a younger sibling to not hang around with someone who yells at you for setting personal boundaries and makes out that you're a bad person for not wanting those boundaries violated but that's just me) and decided that Neil isn't racist and Billy is? I don't see any of them complaining about the fact that Lucas was made a villain for half of season 4 or that someone tried to murder him with their bare hands or that a guy was sent to r*pe and murder Erica. No one called out Mike for his racist jokes in S1/2 they don't complain about the fact that Dustin is often overly rude to him or how they thought he was weird for taking what happened in s2 to heart and changing how he treated Max offscreen. Why didn't we get to see Max and Lucas' relationship develop but we get Mike losing it over Eleven developing interest in being something other than the girl locked in his basement. No Billy yelling at Lucas after he accidentally helped Steve kidnap Max and pretending that he would run over him is the worst thing anyone has ever done to Lucas. We all know the Duffer brothers doubled down on Billy being a racist after everyone called them out for Lucas's storylines and how they made him behave in season 2. It wasn't exactly subtle timing. Sorry for ranting.

i dont know that anyone was out here tryna rape erica. granted i did not watch season 4 but.... i dont know that that was what was happening

but regardless of that, its lack of media literacy on the audience's part. everyone has failed english and fully bought into the notion that so long as a protagonist says its correct, then so it shall be. like this is precisely why so often old media is looked back on and we're like "oh, hey, this was kinda fucked up actually". its perspective. and the stranger things audience lacks the hell out of it.

contrary to popular belief, the writers are not god. and you actually have to take into consideration WHY they chose to frame things the way they did. billy is a character thats written because they needed a villain. they literally said themselves they wanted a "human villain". and it was supposed to be steve but that failed so they created billy. and thus decided to put all this shit on him, despite it actually making no narrative sense and you dont need a microscope to see it. like its laid out plain as day. there is such a lack of follow through and blatant contradictions between how billy is meant to be viewed and what is actually taking place in his interactions with other characters. antis are just willfully ignorant. must be nice going through life that stupid but i dont share that experience so fuck me i guess.

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats | Blue Ice (Marshak, 1985)

This is another film in the Film Noir genre that I watched because it’s Noirvember, the month in which we watch films in the Film Noir genre, but I have to lean less heavily on technicalities because this is a lot closer to the real deal in that there’s a genuine private detective element, plenty of sinister characters and even a femme fatale. As far as the protagonist goes, Herschel Savage ranks below my favourite porno private dicks, lacking the streetwise swagger of Wade Nichols in Punk Rock and sarcastic charm of Ras Kean in Expose Me, Lovely. But he has a nice reactive quality to his performance, looking convincingly weary and dumbfounded to the insanity around him. The fact that he isn’t especially forceful as a presence works in his favour here.

As far as sinister characters go, this one has Nazis as the villains so it does pretty well in that department. You get Helga Sven doing a pretty good knockoff Ilsa routine, and some non-pornographic help from the likes of Reggie Nalder’s pockmarked face and Richard Bulik’s teeth gnashing. And as far as the femme fatale goes, you get Jacqueline Lorians playing varying degrees of mysterious and sympathetic to keep you guessing. A lot of the narrative potency of the movie depends on her specific allure, and I must say that the movie cheats to make me like her by putting her in a cape, although it undoes some of that goodwill by cutting to newsreel footage of Hitler. This is directed by Philip Marshak, who also directed Dracula Sucks, and while both movies have similar levels of production values, this hangs together much better as a genre-inflected porno. There’s some pretty nice style here, particularly in the later sections when we get some frosty and hazy lighting, as well as the blue phantasmagoria of the conclusion when the movie goes off the deep end. It definitely delivers on the title, is what I’m saying.

And as a porno, while this is shot on film, the visual style feels informed by the SOV productions that were taking over. I’m thinking in particular of the scene between Herschel Savage and Danielle in a sauna, where the handheld camerawork has a looseness and fluidity that feels closer to something you’d get with a video camera, not to mention the use of dissolves. And as far as the sex goes, I will put it delicately that the Boingoingoing factor is quite strong with this one. The Nazisploitation element lends itself to certain exploitative framings, but for the most part it eases off the sexual assault, and the particular dynamics of these scenes, with male and female characters teaming up on another female character, on top of the fluid visual approach, make them feel more, uh, dynamic than these things often can be. It’s a credit to the strength of the first of these scenes that the cutaways to Reggie Nalder reaction shots don’t undo its power. It probably helps that Helga Sven is rather forceful in these scenes, although I did find it weird that the one act of explicit sexual torture she performs is giving a handjob and blowjob to Paul Thomas, who for some reason is covered in bloody scars. Maybe all the really bad stuff happened offscreen, but it wouldn’t have killed the movie to throw in some whipping.

The only bad sex scene here is the one where Savage’s sex worker roommate Shanna McCullough is raped by Ron Jeremy. There are the obvious reasons why it’s unpleasant (rape and Ron Jeremy are two terrible flavours that go terribly together, although the movie at least acknowledges how off putting Jeremy is as a presence). But even on a narrative level if feels totally superfluous. If you wanted to throw in a rape scene, there are more organic ways to do it in a thriller (and indeed, the movie has a similar such incident later, even if it doesn’t actually show the rape). There’s an interesting character moment after the scene concludes (which includes not just the rape but attempted karate by Ron Jeremy; this is not the first Ron Jeremy karate scene I’ve witnessed), but I think the movie would have been better off without it.

[spiegelgestalt]

Raging loops third route is such a disappointment that it spoils the game for me

So i finished the darkness route. In the end our MC considered killing little children and gets killed by sheep. The game tries to play it off with a laugh. And Haruaki says: - "What happened in the darkness route stays in the darkness route" and moves on.

Here is the main difference to umineko/higurashi: Some wild shit happened in those games but it always took the emotions of its characters seriously. Thats why higurashi/umineko don't need the perfect mystery (even though it had some really good ones)- because you loved the characters and wanted them to succed.

Rage under the cut

So i had still hopes for the end of darkness. Iwanted some soul searching. Some regret. I kept hoping that he would kill himself in regret - saying something like - even if this ends the loops, i don't want to end the loops that way - something, anything to start rooting for him again.

But no - instead an evil Monstergod (TM) appears and he is crushed by sheep in a.fucking.joke.segment!!!!!!! after that you could not take anything what that game does seriously again. Imagine if Keichi at the end of onikakushi suddenly met a monster and than was crushed by sheep and we were supposed to find this funny! Or if Rika just went: Guess this time i'm the bad guy. Lets kill everyone! Kekekekekek (wait that's just bernkastel, right?) and then gets crushed by a giant sheep (Okay that is something what lambdadelta would do but my point stands)

The worst thing was: the giant evil god provides an external motivation for Haruaki to not kill again as a wolf when he fucking should have an internal one: the cute girls his relationship to the people in Yasumizu. That should make him special. I break the rules until i find a way without killing.

I really had high hopes for key number 20. I really hoped that then some remorse would start but no- just a throwaway line - oh yeah i became the worst kind of villain and nearly killed a child but that's not important right now. And then we moved on. God forbid Haruaki be sorry for one minute or be emotional vulnerable (even though that is IC at this point. I just hate it)

And to add insult to injury

all the boundary pushing i wanted to see was apperently done by chiemi offscreen (BTW she was the better timelooper as i predicted)

God is a delusion of haru (who just happens to be able to read minds, i guess??? Or is really good at spotting time loopers?)

Mochi stays completly boring and irrelevant (would it kill to see some emotions from him other Hehehe i'm so random Hehehe) i really expected him to at least try to kill Haruaki in the end. Show some of that aggression he had during his wolf run. But alas! It would only made the route longer so i should count my blessings i guess.

And now we are supposed to ship Chiemie/Haruaki again because she happens to be the woman who gives him attention. How long is that gonna last? Until Haru or Rikaku show up? Why not throw Kaori in the mix? Or Mamiya? [And i'm not angry because it's a harem - Keichi has a harem and it works for him. It's because even here there is no emotional agony, no i love these two women at the same time, i'm loyal to both of them...which had potential for really juicy drama just: what happens in 1 route stays..]

NOPE!

In my world Haruaki was hanged in the darkness route and just never came back to life. He blew it. Someone else solved all the mysteries and ended the loop. Or not. i don't care anymore. The answers would probably only enrage me

Haruaki turned out to be the worst of the wet blanket protagonists

The edgy evil kind.

And i just don't have the emotional energy for that. What a fucking disappointment.

Dropped!

P.S. (the sad thing is: the characters were all excellent and route 1+2 were great: Nosato, Chiemi, Haru, Rikako; Kaori, even Tae-chan and Kanzo, the journalists ... aahh! what could have been)

[youtube-arc]

So...I saw your post and it gave me an opportunity to yap about 34, 3 and 4 as characters and SMG4 as a show...I yapped alot, sorry if its annoying

The short answer is: yes and no, they are queer, are attracted to each other, flirted in some occasions, but they are not a couple

Long aswer below, I'll try to be as spoiler free as I can

Since 2011, when SMG4 was just a SM64 machinima channel created by a twelve year old, heavily inspired by other SM64 machinimimists like MarioMario54321, and with a bunch of influences from Youtube Poop, theres a bunch of hints of 4 and 3 being queer, mostly for jokes, it's the early 2010's

Early examples below

Hobo is generally used as a male noun in SMG4 (from "Bowser and The Nightmare Stone", 2012)

Not the only joke where the punchline is 4 going to gay bars/clubs (from "Problematic Pipe Problems", 2014)

There was this recurring joke of 3 being a Justin Bieber fan, something used to say that a character was gay, lame, evil or all three at the same time, again, it was the early 2010's (from "Crystal Funhouse", 2011)

from "Join the Evil Side" (2012)

And those hints never really stopped, nowadays is very clear that 3 is mlm and 4 is seeing as bisexual by almost everyone

Recent examples below

Every time SMG3 appears with a body pillow, is of a male character (from "Mario's Spicy Day", 2020 and "SMG4 & SMG3 rank SMG4's characters", 2024)

This is the biggest "this guy is bisexual and polyamours" ever lmao (from "The New Castle", 2024)

I would say that they remaining queer today is a result of the gay jokes from yesterday, instead of them removing this aspect of their characters, they leaned into it. The same happened with smg4!Luigi, who is canonically bisexual

smg4!Luigi reading a gay magazine, I really don't remember from which video

Hints of 3 and 4 being attracted to each other dates back to 2013, exactly to the episode "The Mystery of the Missing White and Blue", Mario implies during the whole ep that 4 and 3's rivalry actually has gay subtext, and 3 never deny it, he actually seems to confirm; it's obvioulsy played for laughs

from "Mystery Of The Missing White and Blue" (2013)

And this joke reachs it peak in Snowtrapped (2016), an episode where they have sex with explicit conset, this is not an exageration, it's actually what happened

from "Snowtrapped" (2016)

I'm trying to be as spoiler free as I can, but when 3 becames and actual threatening villain (before he was most like a Team Rocket-esque kind of bad guy), he still has some gay jokes with 4

from "I Can't Believe It's Not SMG4!" (2020)

I would say that it gets even more explicit when they become allies, since it's when the "It's not I like you or anything, baka!" joke started (yes. 3 is explicitly stated to be a tsundere)

from "10 year Anniversary" (2021)

They also develop a lot together during their ally era, both as characters and as a duo

When 3 starts to appear more and gain main cast status (I would say he is one of the four protagonists nowadays, alongside SMG4, Mario and Meggy), those kind of scenes happen more often, and they have a loooot of character development together, it's pretty sweet actually

Gay jokes to me are just a plus, their relationship and them being two sides of the same coin, life and death, yin and yang are what makes them extremely compelling to me

this video discuss their roles in this universe. this is what I can say without entering in spoiler territory

They kissed offscreen once, in a video that can be considered non-canon

from "Mario Attempts TikTok Challenges" (2022)

Also, we have an event centered around Snowtrapped lmaoooo, and it ends with them watching the sunset together, a pretty romantic scene if you ask me

from "War Of The Fat Italians 2023"

One of the writers/machinimists already confirmed that at least him make them flirt on purpose (he uses the phrase "flirtatious remarks")

He actually says "flirtatious", but you know how the automatic subs work lmao from "I've been helping edit SMG4 videos for over 4 years so lets talk about it" by Mediexcalibur2012 (editor, machinimist and writer on the series)

They also stare at each other foundly a lot

from "Trash Friends" (2024)

All that, and they are not canon, and I don't know if they ever will lmao since it doesnt look like something the Lerdwichagul Brothers want to do

Sorry for yapping a lot in your post, I just really love talking about them

You ever poke your head into a Fandom you faintly know the original media of but it's been years and now you're okay "OKAY ARE THESE BITCHES CANONICALLY GAY BECAUSE I REALLY CANNOT TELL."

[artbyblastweave]

I’ve expressed, at least twice, the idea that Steven Universe is as effective as it is because it shifts from an unironic children’s adventure show to, late in the game, an examination of the destructive psychological and interpersonal effects of being the protagonist of a children’s show, and this gives it a punch that it wouldn’t have if it was about those destructive effects from the word go. This was notable to me for being basically the only series I could think of that does this.

Recently, though, I thought of another one- it’s very possible to view Batman’s arc in the DCAU through this lens.

You have the four seasons of his own show- foundational to the animated canon- in which he’s unironically superheroing, having adventures, gradually expanding the size of the Batfamily, the Rogues gallery and the supporting cast. Crucially, one of the structural things I liked about BTAS was that it leaned in hard to the idea of a comic-book status quo; the idea that these weirdos are doing things and having adventures offscreen, Lots of adventures that springboard from other adventures, a lot of episodes predicated on the weirdness intersecting with the lives of everyday people, a lot of episodes predicated on the idea that the supervillains are sufficiently around and organized to have developed a nascent little subculture. This was a very earnest show!

Then you get the Justice League animated series, set later in the timeline; you see Batman as part of a team dynamic with equitable cape peers; you see how his mannerisms bounce off the others, you see his tendency to buck what the other capes are doing and go his own way, with good and bad effects; you see his martyrdom complex emerge at certain points, like when he attempts a suicide run on the Thanagarian force field generator; but you also see how is insane stubbornness and willingness to roll with any situation, no matter how ridiculous, is an asset, like in the episode with Dr. Destiny where he just starts chugging Coffee by the gallon to stay awake when he’s the last man standing, or his willingness to break into the pentagon and start walloping generals when everyone else stands down to keep the peace. You see his charming emotional constipation, the stoic mask that occasionally drops. This is the peak of his career.

And then you get to Batman Beyond, which is... predicated, actually, on the logical endpoint of traits he showed in Justice League that were quirky and charming in an ensemble dynamic, but in the long run kinda ruined his life.  He’s got strained-to-destroyed relationships with the rest of the Batfamily. He’s outlived huge swaths of his peers. He never got past his (genuinely entertaining to watch!) emotional hang-ups; he never resolved things with Diana, or Selina, or anyone else; He kept going, alone, as long as he possibly could, until he was too physically destroyed to keep to his own standards of conduct, and by then he didn’t have much left besides a mopey hermitage. His villains aren’t doing much better; the where-are-they-now episodes revisiting old foes find all of them in bleak, bleak circumstances. Superheroism as a whole isn’t doing too well; the BB-era justice league has like six people in it, all of whom are legacies of serious die-hard capes plus Superman; heroism sort of implictly....fizzled out, and given the state we find Batman and his rogues in it’s really not hard to guess what happened to the 100+ other superheroes. They got old. They got killed. They never struck the balance, and things just kinda wound down.

Terry comes on the scene, and he’s a great hero, but his mentor presents this great challenge- how do I not wind up like the last group of people who tried this? How can I do this and be happy? Because none of what I’ve described above is really an attack on superheroes in general; it’s not even an attack on Bruce Wayne; it’s just an extrapolation of Bruce Wayne as he’s been shown earlier in this continuity. In the same way that Steven Universe Future’s “deconstructive” elements are really just an extrapolation of his traits as shown in the first five seasons. (Remember how this started out being about Steven Universe?)

So to round this out, this does feed into this idea I have, that Batman, more than any other hero, has a fun and compelling and necessary relationship with continuity; you need to show the guy, the same iteration of the guy, at many, many different points in his life in order to wrangle the full emotional mileage out of him. You gotta see him in year one, you gotta see him when he’s picked up a couple Robins, you gotta see him when he’s down a couple Robins cause they’re sick of his shit or dead, You gotta see him with some more Robins when he’s worked on himself, you gotta see him as a father, as an older guy, as an old guy. All the most interesting things about him are informed or enhanced or highlighted by the passage of time, the growth and atrophy of his network. You gotta show and establish enough of his status quo that you notice the development. The comics try for this, and are the source for this, with all those far-future Elseworlds and limited series like Year One and The Long Halloween highlighting pivotal events in his past. They’re like. A primordial soup of status quo from which meaningful character insights and developments are hauled out and momentarily examined, to the delight of all. And I think that we all have a sort of gesalt mostly-functional Batman-career timeline in our heads as a result of this. But I think the DCAU represents the longest-term, largest-by-runtime and most-involved depiction of a single iteration of Batman, flawed in my estimation only because it leaves out a lot of Batfamily characters like Jason, Cassandra, Steph, Duke, and others who have kind of become lynchpins in that gesalt interpretation of his timeline. I haven’t seen most of Young Justice, which was produced over a similarly long real-life timeframe to the DCAU and covers a long stretch of time; did that get close? 

[nellie-elizabeth]

Roswell, New Mexico: How's It Going to Be (4x13)

I can't believe it's over!! I'm so emotional, y'all.

Cons:

So like... here's the thing. I don't think this finale was "good", in a lot of ways. It's just that by and large, the ways in which it wasn't good were things I don't really care about, so it didn't bother me? The big one of course just being Clyde, the whole A-plot with him trying to get back to his planet. Did anyone else feel like the writing of this season literally wasn't sure what the stakes were supposed to be? Was the Alighting really just... this one evil alien dude going home and trying to be an evil dictator? I mean, sure, that wouldn't be great for Oasis, but it's sort of a paltry threat in the grand scheme of things, no? Were we really meant to think that Clyde was so menacing that his return to Oasis would spell disaster for a planet already apparently on the verge of death? It makes no sense, it was a weak-ass final villain for the show, I felt nothing about him, I'm glad Liz got to kill him I guess but I also just really don't care.

Structurally, this season had a lot of problems, and they definitely came to a head for me here in this finale, particularly in regards to the final plan to defeat Clyde, and how ultimately it was Liz's victory and trickery that lead him to his own doom. That's a cool idea in isolation, but when I think back over this season and what it was trying to set up, you've got Michael yearning for home, those moments when Clyde was showing him Oasis. You've got Bonnie's complicated and abusive relationship with Clyde. You've got Isobel's bond with Tezca, something that was way under-explored and felt pretty unmotivated to me, but still... and then in the end, Liz, who has no real personal thematic connection to Clyde, is the one who takes him out, just because he's the bad guy and she's the protagonist? Look, Jones also left something to be desired as a villain, but at least the final showdown with Liz in season three had emotional resonance to it, because the dude was literally a clone of her true love.

Before I get to the big flaw of this finale that's going to stick with me above all the others, a bit of lamenting over some little things I wish we could have gotten to see. It's pretty funny to me that Alex dying ended up just being something that was solved offscreen. I wasn't convinced we'd get a handprint, really, but I did think we'd get some dramatic moment of truth where Alex's life was spared in the nick of time. I feel like this was such an unforced error; just change the stuff in the pocket universe so that Alex is going to die if they don't escape, but he'll live if they manage to get out. That way we know Alex is okay the second they step through the portal, instead having to awkwardly say "oh, Kyle's taking care of him off screen." And if they wanted to stick with Alex being cured once they got home, at least show us a snippet of Kyle and Alex in the finale! They're supposed to be best friends!

Other things I missed: Arturo, who really should have gotten to be at Alex's wedding, come on!! Greg, the good egg, who also should have been around for his brother. Some sort of explanation as to why Tezca targeted Alex in the first place (this is a sticking point for me, I wish there was some reason why it happened to begin with, but nobody even questions it!). I also wanted more pod squad time, I really miss how much their sibling relationship connected with me in the earlier seasons, whereas here I felt a little distant from it, since Max, Michael, and Isobel haven't had nearly as much time together this whole final season. This finale, at the end of the day, in a lot of key areas, felt underwhelming. Not insultingly bad or absolutely unworkable, but just... yeah. Setting Michael and Alex and their love story aside, no other element of it felt epic enough to be a proper wrap-up for the whole show. And that's because they weren't sure it was going to be. And yeah, I am a little bummed about that, I won't lie!

Everything I've listed above falls entirely into the category of "yes, these are problems, but oh well, I don't really care particularly." There is one thing though, that's a little bigger, a little harder to brush aside and say this finale was an uncomplicated win for me as a fan of the show and that's...

Well, it's our girl Liz Ortecho.

I am pretty unhappy, honestly, with where the show left Liz as a character. This is in relation both to the romantic relationship with Max, but also just to her as an individual character on her own journey. What I realized watching that final scene, with the big final kiss for Echo, and the engagement, and all that, was that Liz didn't feel like the character I fell in love with back when I started the show. And I realized that that's been largely true for the entirety of season four. She just... reverted into old unhealthy patterns at some moments, and then just kind of passively behaved as the plot required in other moments, and I think back on the Liz we met in the pilot, then look at the Liz we got in the finale, and I just don't gel with it. I don't feel like she had a proper conclusion to an arc of growth, even though the writing tried to make it seem like that was what we were getting.

I'm here for Malex, they're my main squeeze, but when I was watching things develop, when I realized the show was going to end with Max leaving, I kept thinking about all the people for whom Echo is the main draw. It's the main couple of the show, after all, and while I know Malex is the wildly popular ship in the fandom sense, ostensibly there are still plenty of people who tuned in for four years mostly to check up on Liz Ortecho and Max Evans, and for those people's sakes, I've just got to say, yeah, this kind of sucked! This is not the final sendoff I wanted for these characters and that relationship!

The thing that kind of kills me about it is that for Max, this ending kind of works. I had some issues with the pacing of this whole season, as I've said, but if they'd smoothed out some of the rough turns, had Max's struggle with his powers and his identity a little more cohesively interwoven, the idea of him embracing his savior status and going off into Oasis at the end works quite well! I could be into that. It's bittersweet, but that's alright...

But where does that leave Liz? A full-circle ending where when this show starts, she was coming back to Roswell after years away, chasing some form of peace she could never achieve, and then... what, she builds that peace for herself, only for the show to end when her person walks away? Liz, a character defined by her assertiveness, her confidence, for both good and bad, being left on this lingering shot of her standing still, watching as other people go off to continue changing the world? Like, what are we left with, here, a Liz Ortecho who stays around in Roswell twiddling her thumbs waiting for Max to come back? Ostensibly she'll heal from her brain degeneration and keep doing her science, but we don't have a focus for her, we don't have something that feels like an accomplishment, other than that she got over her fears and decided to marry Max... but that's been a foregone conclusion since season three, hasn't it? I don't know, I just find myself wondering a lot about what a planned ending for Liz could have been. Maybe I would have been happier if she was going with Max to Oasis, or if there was some concrete scientific task that she was going to be doing on Earth that was going to aid him in his mission, so they could be partners, each playing to their different strengths.

As it is, while this ending for Echo certainly could have been worse, and we know that they'll reunite and be married someday, it still felt pretty dissatisfying as a note to go out on.

Pros:

But hey, let's stop being so negative and get into why this finale still put a big smile on my face overall! Obviously I'll have a lot to say about Malex, but first a few other notes:

Rosa and Liz getting a final sister moment, Rosa really settled in her older sister mode, where she's there for Liz and checking up on her, that really means a lot. I love that Rosa got to forge a path in life on her own terms, and the thought of her living it up and being an artist in New York really is just the loveliest final image for her character.

Kyle and Isobel didn't get a ton of time to develop as a couple, but I appreciated everything we saw of them here in this finale, leaning in close during the wedding, slow dancing at the bar, cuddled up together at the fire, Kyle asking Isobel if there's anything he can do to help her as she processes Max leaving... I just think these two are going to settle so naturally and beautifully into true happiness and I'm glad that the show was able to set them on that trajectory, even if I am mourning what we might have seen of them as a couple in season five.

Dallas/Maria? I don't hate it, y'all. I'm bitter because I miss my man Gregory Manes, and I felt like it was oddly clunky to have him brought up so Maria could be like "yeah, he's not it for me", I almost wish she'd just said "we broke up" during the first episode of the season, but whatever. Point is, Dallas and Maria's dance was super sweet, I loved their chemistry, and I felt like them separating each to explore their gifts and their own alien journeys was a much more appropriate milestone for them as a potential couple, than it was for Liz and Max, as an established one. Dallas has some exploring to do, he has a leap of faith to make, and he cares for Maria, but knows he can't start something new before he sees what else is out there. I'm comforted by the idea of Maria astral projecting, strengthening her abilities and forming a bridge to connect Max and Dallas with the rest of their family on Earth. I honestly think that Dallas and Maria got some of the strongest and most satisfying character endings in terms of leaving it open for further exploration, but still feeling settled with what we got. (Another bitterness point goes to Maria not really having any on-screen time to process Mimi's death; timeline-wise, this season happened over a couple of weeks, meaning Maria just lost her mother, y'all).

While I've expressed my overall frustration with Clyde as a villain, I did like that he sealed his own fate, that his desire for power and control led to him underestimating the humans. It felt appropriate, insofar as anything about this villain had thematic or narrative weight. It's nice that Liz got to give him his comeuppance, if only because I wanted my girl to have a little more to do in this finale.

And yeah, seeing the original Liz in the form of Allie Meyers, the two stars of these shows hanging out at the Crashdown, I definitely really loved that. She even put on the alien headband, which I'm sure was a real burst of nostalgia for all those fans of the older show. It felt very finale-like, in a way that several other things really did not. There was a sense of gravitas there, and I like that we see the hints of Shivani and Allie being able to heal and move forward as well. Shivani was a character I never felt really hit her stride, but I'm still happy to see her on a journey towards peace.

As I said, I don't hate the thought of Max embracing his savior status, and while I felt kind of conflicted about it, I also liked the final pod squad moment, with Max telling Michael that his destiny is to be with Alex and write their future story together, and him passing on the mantle of protector of their family to Isobel. That felt like such a good brother moment, like Max was incredibly in tune with both of his siblings and where they were at on their personal journeys.

And yeah, I've saved the Malex stuff for last, because of course I have! If someone were to come up to me and say "okay, so, the show is ending, and in the finale there's only time for one couple to get a big finale-like sendoff with all the cheesy romance you could want", I would have picked Malex. Of course I would. Sure, I can lament what happened with Echo, I can yearn for more Kybel, but Malex has been the draw of this show to me from minute one, before I'd even started watching it properly, and I've got to say, it was enormously healing and cathartic to get to send them off in proper style, knowing they'll live the rest of their life in happiness.

So much to talk about here: Michael being all nervous, his siblings bringing Sanders in to calm him down... maybe the best dialogue of the night was the "is it tequila?" / "it has tequila in it" moment, with the reveal being that it's Sanders, come to give Michael a handkerchief that belonged to Nora... they share a hug, and Sanders gives him a hard time about the copper wire, and Michael calls himself a work in progress... I just loved seeing Michael's giddy nerves, how much this day clearly means to him, how important it is for him to have this, for himself, and also as a gift he can give to Alex.

And meanwhile we got an Alex and Maria scene, and I was ecstatic! I love that they call back to Alex being against marriage, and now all the way here, to him literally wanting to marry Michael as what he thought was his dying wish, and now getting to do it at the start of a whole lifetime together, with his friends around him... he looks so handsome, and Maria looks stunning, and he says he knew he was ready with Michael because he followed his heart...

I know some people are probably sad we didn't actually get to hear the wedding vows but I'm okay with it: I feel like so much of what Michael and Alex have said to each other over the years have been vows already. We know their devotion, we know their love. Now we get to see them celebrate it in peace, with their family around them. It was so smart to have Michael play a song for Alex, but for them to back up and montage over the actual ceremony so we didn't have to deal with Vlamis singing and instead got to soak in the nostalgia of a '90s classic one final time... such an amazing and cheesy song choice, I'm kind of living for it. Michael and Alex both just had the most adoring looks on their faces, the biggest smiles, as they slipped the rings on... I am going to be weeping about it forever.

And it doesn't stop there! Literally every second of them dancing together is something I want branded on the inside of my eyelids. Alex taking Michael's last name?!?!?! Admittedly I kind of always liked the idea of Alex reclaiming the Manes legacy, so a part of me thinks maybe I would have gone a different direction with it, but at the same time, it's so fucking cute that I really don't mind. Michael has always wanted a family, and now he gets to give his name to the man he loves, so they can be each other's homes? Yes please. I'll take it gladly. Also Michael noting that he got to marry his high school sweetheart, Michael saying they're married now so he's gonna embarrass him on purpose, calling him "husband"... not to mention the way they were dancing together during the whole background of Maria and Dallas's scene, just swaying entirely in each other's arms, Michael's face buried in Alex's neck... all of this was so good it's making my heart flutter just thinking about it.

And they get the cutest little sendoff moment, Michael grabbing food from the Crashdown, Alex taking his hand, Michael kissing his hand, like what the fuck kind of high romance bullshit is this, my heart can't take it! Driving off with "Just Married" written on the back of Michael's truck... y'all, remember when Michael stole Alex's guitar in high school, and Alex found him in the back of that truck? Well now they're RIDING OFF INTO THE REST OF THEIR LIVES IN THAT TRUCK. It's been 14 years, I just... I cannot. I seriously cannot. It's all too good.

I'm going to give this finale a score that I feel reflects the cohesive truth of it, which is that it was a mixed bag, but also honors the fact that I personally had a blast with it, because I got exactly what I wanted for my faves. Let's put it at...

7.5/10

As is my tradition when I'm reviewing the finale of a show, I'm going to try and give the entire run of this series one final overall score. It's tricky when I get hyper-fixated on something like this, because my level of love for it isn't always matched by the objective truth of its quality. Is Roswell, New Mexico a "good" TV show? Well, to be honest, if we're going with my favorite definition of "good", which is "does this thing know what it wants to accomplish, and does it accomplish it well", then I'd say absolutely, the first two seasons of Roswell, New Mexico are good TV. They are fun, and soapy, and dramatic, and the characters have great chemistry, and the plot is ridiculous but the themes are actually cohesively explored and concluded. The character arcs are thoughtful, and examined in surprising depth. It's funny, the music is great, it establishes a great vibe through and through... it's overall some good shit. Seasons three and four I'd say overall are a lot weaker in terms of structure, but still contain plenty of content that I greatly adored, as a function of already being deeply invested by the time I got there. How to encompass my overall thoughts into a single number? Well, I'll leave off with this. I'm truly thankful I found this show, and I'm going to miss it a hell of a lot. I would have happily hung out with these characters for a long time to come, and I plan to write tons more about them moving forward. That's got to say something in the show's favor, does it not?

8/10

[sea-dwelling-wizard]

5.5/10 ⭐️

Terrible. Disappointed

review by guy67 👨‍🦱

The female character in the movie is extremely feminine. Pink hair. Purple eyes. Am I watching My Little Pony or a professionally animated movie? And bombs, nonetheless! Are we teaching little girls to be violent now? What happened to the power of love?!?!

The plot makes no sense. First we search for the protagonist's (who is a man and has long hair, mind you) 'friends' trapped in a trench?? Then this whole another plot gets thrown my way without any warning! Choose a subplot already!

What I did like was the shark. The villain's actually pretty crafty, built it out of scraps. Liked his lore and VA, interesting enough for a 14+ movie. The voice acting and musical number made me give this 4 stars. (ONLY for the villain. Didn't like the protagonist's voice. Protag was a meh)

A side character, Fomalhaut stays in the trench even though he has wife and children above. Can't he...... leave?? Like they're mermaids (or sea-dwellers whatever) so they can swim, right?? No logic. Hated the plot twist.

Overall, a good movie to watch with a 7th Grader who's obsessed with fantasy and magic. Show it to your 13 year sister or a baby or something.

There are a few swear words (shit, hell, damn) and I believe there's a cut off F-bomb. Of course, there's mild violence and blood. Lots of detailed monsters. A character gets killed offscreen.

Edit: changed it to 5.5 because its not that bad tbh

Critics have differing opinions on your story! Just like movies are constantly getting widely different opinions on Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxed, people are writing wild and weird reviews for your story!

I want to see them!

Write pretend Rotten Tomatoes scores for your story in your reblog! Write pretend Letterboxed reviews and post them in your reblog!

[hoodieimp]

BatDR Reaction/Liveblogging Part 2! (Feat. I Just Remembered How Bad I Am At Video Games)

ayy first audio log! I like how you can actually take them with you now instead of having to Stand there to listen

RIP Joey you will not be missed

oh boy Butcher Gang poster, immediately makes me think of that scene in Chapter 3 w the jumpscaFUCK

oh god he actually has 3D intestines hanging out now…and his arm stump has a bone sticking out of it..

(Ngl I’m kinda sad that they got rid of Piper’s plunger leg…the metal pegleg is cool n all but personally I feel like having that bit of silliness in his design actually Adds to the creep factor?? Like it reminds you that these guys are supposed to be cartoon villains, they’re meant to be “evil” in a harmless n goofy way, not mindlessly trying to rip you apart…but I digress)

BAD BUD LOUIS

Once again, BIG fan of how you can go back and view all of your collectibles in the menu, this is a massive boon for my ADHD ass who wants to know All The Lore but usually has to resort to the Wiki for transcripts n stuff

Am I tripping or does this layout feel familiar…?

IT DOES

Bird?? There’s actual animals in here now too?

HEYYY CHARLEY

ok that slow mo moment was actually sick as hell

sir brush your damn TEETH, I can smell your halitosis clear through the screen

I don’t trust like that, there’s only one way in n out of this room, where is he hiding–

AUDREY NEEDS SNACK

OH HEY WHO’S THIS

Gotta say the animations look a tad Off somehow but still IT’S MY GAL

“I have a wolf” ma’am I’m pretty sure that’s your husband 

These toons sure do love their offscreen teleportation huh

Holy WOW this place is an absolute MAZE, this little back hallway just keeps Going--

MY OWN REFLECTION JUMPSCARED ME HDKDJX

Oh Audrey...😭

Shrine? Bendy shrine?? Ah nvm it's just Willie Boy

Real "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING" vibes

ngl I totally thought Barley was opening that door to attack me and my dumb ass immediately did a 180 and jumped right back down the ledge to get away jklfgjdf–

OK JUST PUNCH THRU THAT SHIT LIKE DOOMGUY

Oooh upgrade time

God I hate this corridor, what’s with the Ambience and all the weird organic-looking strings(?) hanging everywhere–

EDGAR CUTOUT!!!

I want to see my little boy~~OH GOD NEVER MIND NO I DON’T

I’ve never heard of ami bourguignonne before but now I really wanna try it

Joey you cheap bastard lmao

Mmm trash can snacks

[Two hour break for dinner + (sparingly) watching letsplays bc I had No Idea where to go next n didn't realize that there's an open gate at the end of the room]

Oh NOW Audrey starts doing the Protagonist Monologue to herself jddkhxd

YUP CALLED IT, we gotta loot that guy's corpse for the Gent pipe (still not sure if they'll turn out to be Porter though)

MY GAME LAGGED I CAN’T TELL WHAT’S HAPPENING OR WHERE IT CAME FROM BUT IM GETTING MY ASS BEATEN

Oh I see. They’re in the ceilings.

Oh god I hate stealth in horror games

Time to crouchwalk Literally Everywhere

Is this guy…a health inspector who got inked? and he thinks he’s still doing his job?

OH JESUS THAT LAUGHTER-

DUDE SOUNDS WAY TOO HAPPY ABOUT BASHING MY SKULL IN

*cue me mixing up the Jump and Sprint buttons in my panic and unintentionally LEAPING over the counter*

welp I’m dead

……….so That’s what those Linker(?) pipe things are for. Grand.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

With Loki, I think we were promised crazy time travel shenanigans. While Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness promised multiverse shenanigans.

What we got instead: too many exposition scenes and rushed character development. Wanda becoming the bad guy in DSMOM would've worked if it her getting corrupted wasn't relegated to happening offscreen and was more gradual. Likewise, with Loki, that whole Kang lore finale with HWR would've been interesting if we hadn't come off all of these other exposition dumps that make it so the only thing has going for it is introducing the new villain. And once that shine wears off, there’s barely anything that stands out.

Yep, couldn't agree more. If you compare this to how they handled the Infinity Saga it becomes more obvious.

It took them 11 years and 23 movies to finish the Infinity Saga. Now with Phase 4 we've had 15 movies and shows in the span of one year (still one movie and two series to go before the end of 2022.)

They introduced Thanos in the GoTG movie, so the 10th in the saga, and he had an important role but it didn't take the spotlight away from the Guardians, it was still their movie first and foremost. Before this film and after Thanos would only be mentioned or shown towards the end of the movie or on a post-credit scene or something almost unnoticeable that let the main story of each movie flow naturally and would only mean something for the greater Saga story upon rewatch.

What's happening now with the new phase is that the "grand story" is not in the sidelines anymore, it takes center stage and it's more important than any and all the characters in the film or show. The Loki series didn't give a damn about Loki, the only thing that mattered was introducing the TVA and Kang. MoM didn't care about Stephen at all, it wasn't even focused on the Multiverse either, just needed a few explanations about incursions (the only thing that will be important moving forward) and anything else is just pretty filler.

In the past we would wait for the post-credit scenes to find out what was coming, now it seems the entire movie is a post-credit scene with info dumps on stuff that is not quite relevant to the story they're currently telling but will mean something in the future - and in the meantime the characters are left reacting to the things that happen to them instead of being the main protagonists of their own stories.

We watch these films as part of something bigger, just as we did with the Infinity Saga, but the main difference is that in the past they would still care enough to tell us the characters' story, now they don't care. Now a character having their name on the title means absolutely nothing, you might watch it and still learn nothing new or have the story focused on someone else entirely.

I've seen fans claiming this phase is just like phase 1.... and that is a big fat lie, it's not even close. If only!

[h50europe]

Why the myth about Steve's PTSD doesn't add up and other inconsistencies

In the last few episodes of H50, PL tried to sell us a mentally broken Steve suffering from PTSD. Only the whole thing came a bit too late. The clip you see is from season 4 and ended up - no, not in the series - but somewhere on the floor of PL's editing room. And why? after Kurtzman and Orci departed, along with their writers, PL took the helm and started turning Steve into a super-soldier. He stylized him into something that wasn't meant to be. Instead of developing the characters, PL began to incorporate more and more hair-raising action sequences into the series and then let Steve fight on the front lines. There was no mention of Steve's mental state, and a lot was explained by PL with: it just happened "offscreen." Yeah, sure. PL can't create a decent character. He can only produce stereotypes and one-dimensional beings. Like Adam. What potential would that character have had had he been turned into Five-0's antagonist? But no. So his role remained diffuse and monotonous. Sometimes even tragicomical.

Back to Steve. When SEAL Team started on CBS, PL also lapsed into SEAL mania. If someone who writes fanfiction were to produce as much garbage as this man did, he would be chased away from every writers' platform in disgrace. PL's Super SEAL also had to rescue his team members from a blazing inferno. Not man by man, no, he flew a helicopter right into the danger zone and lifted a whole cabin out of the burning jungle. If lunacy had a name, it would be PL. While the action became more and more exaggerated and unrealistic, the same happened to the protagonists. After the departure of Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, PL completely lost his mind. And please, don't blame the writers for the nonsense that was thrown at you. A series stands and falls with the showrunner. He dictates what he wants and passes it on to his staff.

And so, lovable Steve became a soulless robot who only showed feelings here and there. Danny diminished more and more into a sidekick. McDanno became a ship that drifted anchorless through a stormy sea and threatened to capsize again and again. From season 8, it became a reboot of the reboot. PL tried an ensemble show and failed more than miserably. Often the actors just stood around bored. At least that was the impression. The only highlight was episode 8.10. A feast for all McDanno fans. But even here, the outcome of "who shot Danny" was more than insubstantial.

Wait, there was something about SEALs... Oh, yes. Junior appeared on the scene and became Steve's lapdog. I really wondered when there was going to be an episode where he would fetch sticks for Steve. Luckily we had Eddie for that. And because he thought he was so clever, PL invented the episode speed dating. How many subplots can you squeeze into one episode at the same time? In some episodes, you couldn't even take a look at the bag of potato chips without losing the thread.

The case of the week became the yawn of the week. There were so many loose ends that PL then came up with something called retconning. That's what you do when you're no longer satisfied with what was once established in the series years ago, or it no longer fits. But PL went one step further and did the same with the characters. The more the series was dragged out, the more the characters deteriorated and became OOC. It means, often, they were not recognizable at all. And that's where we come to Steve. Because PL, in his desperation, didn't know what else he could do to Steve, and so he killed Joe White. He did it in such a cheesy way with a fake sunset that it made you sick.

Of course, one episode later, there had to be another gig of PL's favorite Barbie. He stuck a fake beard on poor Steve/Alex, so he couldn't even hug Danny/Scott properly. The episode also raised more questions than it answered any. And Steve? He still didn't suffer from PTSD, even though he had now lost Joe White and a fellow SEAL. Everyone is dropping like flies, except for Steve, who is standing like a rock. No matter what. He doesn't need in-depth talks with Danny, nor psychological care, nor any sleeping pills. No, he's doing great. He also opens a restaurant with Danny because apparently, the carguments are already getting on PL's nerves. Unfortunately, this plot device leads into nirvana. The idea was nice, but nobody thought it through to the end. And the merry-go-round continues. Until we get to season 10, where it gets even more absurd. Now PL is almost bombarding us with McDanno episodes, or at least it should seem that way. Oh well, he's already planning for season 11, so a new character has to come on board quickly. While in the beginning, Steve's mother, Doris, dies.

Alex was allowed to take on the subject. Of course, only under the strict eyes of PL. He then nullifies Alex's idea that Steve kills his mother. Because a good soldier and Super SEAL won't do that. Little does PL know. THAT could have been the opening of a PTSD scenario for Steve. However, apart from that, this episode would have had any potential for a multi-arc. Just imagine Steve chasing his mother across multiple episodes. Again, PL stepped in and butchered Alex's episode. You can really feel sorry for the guy. PL at his best or worse? He just can't help it. And then, on the very last meters of the series, he brings someone new, who is allowed to cruise around with Steve most of the time. Because Danny was kidnapped by Wo Fat's widow, PL also invented quite late to have some villain at his disposal. This wannabe mastermind must really have been living under a rock somewhere if she wasn't even mentioned by her husband or appeared earlier.

Because towards the end, PL obviously ran out not only of steam but also of ideas, everything culminated in a wildly illogical scenario. Steve has to live through a dramatic day with Eddie, who stands as a metaphor for Steve (as I said, PTSD was never a thing for Super SEAL), Danny bangs his brains out in a ladies' room with a complete stranger, who dies shortly after that in an accident with Danny's rental car. Apparently, there was no budget to turn the Camaro into scrap metal. Danny then also goes home alone, ignoring the incoming emergency vehicles. Everything remains open at the end of the episode. While Steve expresses his gratitude to Tani and Quinn and says, he would be just as lost as poor Eddie without the dog and all of them. The strange thing is that you never notice anything until that sentence. A few forced dialogues are supposed to make the drama visible, but they all happen way too late or are so poorly written that you miss them.

PL had decided early on to make Steve a Teflon hero. That also means he didn't need to put much substance into the character. Which you can clearly see if you compare the first three seasons to the rest of the series. But towards the end, PL wanted to turn the tide and forcefully rewrote Steve's past. There is a huge difference if you compare Steve from seasons 1 to 3 with Steve from season 10. It is only a sparse remnant of what made this character so great. This change in Steve's personality also affects his relationship with Danny. The witty, affectionate banter degenerates into a snappy, humorless bitch-fest that takes all the joy out of it.

The final two episodes could have been written for any other crime show. As mentioned, we have Cole, who even gets a book'em Cole from Steve, which can only be described as out of line. And it begs the question, was that what Lenkov originally had in mind? Danny out of the show and Cole in? Was the last episode, which mainly featured McCole, something of a test run? Did all the McDanno moments happen only to tear the two apart eventually? Was the real final scene the one where Steve and Catherine take Danny's coffin back to Jersey? Was Danny not supposed to survive? Was that the real reason Steve wanted to get out of Hawaii because he wanted to pay his respects to Danny? And would he really have returned to Hawaii later? Or would he have turned his back on Hawaii? To me, this ending is more plausible than what PL served us. Then, Steve handed over his credentials to Cole instead of Danny, his second in command. Honestly, you can't make the end of a series any more sloppy and dumber than that. And I won't even lose a word about the last 1:30 minutes because I think everything has already been said.

No PL, mission absolutely not accomplished. You created Teflon-Steve. You never wanted him to show any weakness. You turned him into a superhuman who can survive anything. Only to pull the rug out from under him on the last few meters to the finish line and spit on his legacy. How can you dismantle such a great series and its characters like you did? How much do you have to hate something to do that? In the final interviews, the showrunner didn't exactly cover himself in glory either. Everyone who grew up with the series from day one knows that its end was wrong on all the possible levels and that the showrunner is solely to blame for that. It takes a fair amount of egoism and carelessness to drive 10 years at full throttle against the wall. Not many people can do that. Whether you can be proud of that, however, I doubt.

My respect if you have made it this far. Each of you gets 10 extra brownie points for it.

[its-no-biggie]

i know i already talked a lot about characterization but its not just that. SO much of these first few episodes is really good storytelling, especially when compared to stampede. the difference is staggering

rem is introduced way more gradually- 8 episodes in and we still dont even know what she was to vash! all weve gotten is her name and a memory of her singing. but we do know that vash loved her and now shes gone and that a lot of his morality comes from her. which is extremely good to establish early on

vash being non-human is also revealed way more gradually- at first you think he might just be really talented or have Protagonist Powers but over time youre like. oh this guy genuinely might not be human (which obviously i knew going in but that means i can appreciate how subtle it is in this version). we havent even seen his prosthetic arm yet!

i also really like that so far NOTHING has tied back to millions knives. the closest thing weve gotten to any knives content is vash being cryptic about the origins of his gun. i really like millions knives as a villain and i understand that stampede needed to introduce him early to properly escalate in only 12 episodes but. having him be behind EVERYTHING did a major disservice to vashs character imo. so im glad hes taking longer to show up this time and vash can have his self-contained conflicts.

even wolfwood hasnt appeared yet! (he actually will next episode- i watched the preview lmao) i miss him but im glad he took longer to show up bc the pacing is working much better so far. getting us really attached to vash before throwing wolfwood into the mix is gonna be really good for my attachment to both characters and their dynamic

and like. a lot of this stuff boils down to the pacing. the latest episode i watched is a good example because theres a direct comparison i can make to stampede (unless there are two separate scenes in the original where a sand steamer gets attacked by pirates and the main characters have to defeat the pirates AND stop the steamer from crashing. i think its safe to assume these are adapted from the same scene, even though theyre surprisingly different). theres a few things this scene accomplishes in both adaptations-establishing that vash is proficient with lost technology, having vash defeat an unbelievable number of enemies while still refusing to kill any of them, and having vash put himself at risk to save the people on the ship.

the 98 adaptation flawlessly succeeds on all counts- 1) the lost technology is something vash had on him, and the kids reaction tells us not only about vash, but about the setting. "how do you have this?"- not only is he in possession of something thats apparently extremely rare and mysterious, but he also knows how it works. its subtle but effective. 2) vash not only avoids killing the pirates, but even bandages up the ones that he shot in a moment of /self defense/ (and the kid reacts extremely strongly to this- its a significant moment). him defeating them happens mostly offscreen but given how injured he is its still framed as extremely impressive even without putting too much focus on it. and 3) we are shown that vash is injured WHILE hes bandaging up his ENEMIES and he refuses to even take a moment to bandage his own wounds! he fights through the entire ship while injured because he doesnt even consider taking care of himself first. its not a grand heroic sacrifice to save the innocents, its just a clear demonstration of his priorities.

and while stampede DOES accomplish the same general goals, its a lot less well-crafted. 1) vash finds the lost technology in the ship, that the viewer didnt even know existed until they found it, and when he uses it he gets a shocked reaction but its a very brief moment because they need to get back to the action. 2) vash defeats a hallway full of pirates without killing them and all we get is a throwaway line from meryl marveling at his ability to take down so many guys- nothing about his refusal to kill (although there was more significant emphasis on vashs stance on killing earlier in stampede, so i wont necessarily fault it for skipping on that here). and 3) his sacrifice to save the ship is his prosthetic arm getting broken- it creates a tense moment for sure, and its certainly a reckless move, but theres a difference between sacrificing yourself in a life or death moment and intentionally neglecting to care for yourself for the sake of others. its not necessarily worse, but it has different implications about his character, and thematically i think the 98 version suits the story better.

those are the similarities between the 2 scenes. and the differences are startling- the 98 version spans 2 episodes while stampede crams it (mostly) into 1 while ALSO having time for a whole side plot about wolfwood and screen time for some minor villains who are associated with millions knives. like- the pirates have almost no relevance in the stampede version. most of the episode is focused on the villain from wolfwoods past and the guards hunting down vash and the crashing ship. its a lot at once.

so while the 98 version slowly builds tension and spends a lot of time on the characters like the pirates and the kid who has a whole character arc because of vash (that establishes the themes about repenting from sin extremely well, might i add), the stampede episode is all running! shooting! angst! lore! characters youve never seen before! its exciting and dramatic and certainly fun to watch, but thematically and tonally it may as well be a completely different story. it touches on repenting from sin a little bit, specifically in reference to wolfwood (cannot WAIT to see how wolfwoods whole "im beyond saving" judas schtick develops in 98 btw. given how much i liked it in stampede and how well 98 does at character development i have high expectations.) but again, its very fleeting and its one of the only times we get that in the show.

i know im kinda shitting on the pacing of stampede a lot in this, but i do wanna say- slower pacing isnt always better. the higher tension in stampede makes for more exciting action scenes and its what made me watch the whole thing in 2 days. it clearly set out to be more fast paced and exciting and it certainly succeeds at that. im even a little worried that as we start getting into more familiar territory, the pacing of 98 will be too slow for me and ill lose interest (like how i cant get past the first couple parts of jojos. i want to get into it but the action is so SLOW). i doubt it, because its doing a really good job of building intrigue, but it will certainly be slower going. the appeal of those big exciting action scenes just isnt there for 98 the way it is for stampede- and maybe thats more faithful to the manga, but if i had to guess i would imagine that the action in the manga is plenty exciting. i mean just look at wolfwoods fucking cross- you dont give a character a weapon like that and have them NOT use it. so anyway, the slower pacing is a bit of a double edged sword and as we get out of the introductory phase i may change my tune. but for now i think it really works

and while there are a lot of adaptational decisions that i believe do a disservice to the story, they did manage to cram all of that story into 12 episodes impressively well. that episode on the sand steamer is a great example- the fact that they managed to keep the bones of that segment while combining it with a wolfwood plotline and ending with the reveal that vash is a plant and it WASNT an incoherent mess is honestly super impressive. its unfortunate that so much story had to be crammed into 12 episodes in the first place, but skipping over characterization and worldbuilding for a remake is honestly forgivable, and much better than skipping important chunks of the story (which they may have also done. i dont know yet. but given the overall positive reception ive seen, id guess its nothing too heinous. other that the removal of milly, obviously, which is a crime punishable by death). i mean even fma brotherhood skipped over all the character introductions and jumped right into the plot lmao

anyway uhhhh stay tuned for the next update i guess. itll probably be soon because im sure ill have Thoughts about 98 wolfwood

it has been one (1) day since i finished trigun stampede so obviously its time to start trigun '98. thoughts so far

WAY better start. i was definitely right about the brotherhood effect- this version is easing you into the characters and setting way better, where stampede kinda assumes youre already familiar and just jumps right in.

this is ESPECIALLY true for vash. these first few episodes are way better at establishing just where he got his reputation- like, in stampede you really only see one town that gets ruined and blamed on vash, and then all the other stuff thats attributed to him happens offscreen. and then it turns out millions knives was behind all the thefts, which is what vash is wanted for in the first place. we HEAR that vash causes destruction wherever he goes, but what we see is really just him taking the fall for his brothers actions. but im only 3 episodes into 98 and vash has already destroyed 2 towns and been impersonated by multiple criminals. and they all seem to be unrelated incidents- he just gets mixed up in shit. he seeks it out. he CHOSE to be that billionaires bodyguard and he CHOSE to get involved in the bank robbery, because thats who he is. hes not unfortunate, hes MEDDLESOME. the characterization is completely different and so far i like the 98 version better (although admittedly the stampede version does play into the christian metaphor much better, assuming that millions knives represents "evil" or "sin")

additionally, the emphasis on how he doesnt live up to his reputation works a lot better when meryl just straight up refuses to believe hes vash the stampede lmao. like in stampede hes this kinda goofy and slightly airheaded badass pretty much right away, but in 98 hes so chaotic that even though all the evidence points to him she still refuses to believe he could be THE vash the stampede. like he seems straight up incompetent but hes NOT hes just less overtly badass. and just in general the slower pacing gives us a lot more insight into his character! its really really good and it adds a lot of much needed context to stampede.

also. milly????? milly my beloved???? my darling my sweetheart my babygirl milly????? WHERE was she in stampede. this is unforgiveable. the dynamic between meryl and milly is SO much more fun than roberto and meryl holy shit i fucking love milly

overall theres a lot more differences than i expected! im curious which one is more faithful to the manga but atm i would put money on 98. i can already see why a lot of the changes would be made to go from this one to stampede, to condense a huge arc down to 12 episodes and have it stand on its own. a more faithful adaptation isnt necessarily a better adaptation, and while i wish some of the really good stuff from 98 had made it to stampede, i understand that 12 episodes isnt a lot and within the context of a remake you can reasonably leave out a lot of character-heavy stuff. plus, since 98 was made before the manga finished, stampede will probably have better execution on things like foreshadowing and the major themes. overall im having a great time with both and im really stoked to read the manga (assuming the momentum will carry me that far..... adhd is a fickle creature lmao)