#A shame the hype about them is gone and not many new stories are written for it now that the artists are gone

[fandom-necromancer]

A little Distraction Part 2

This was prompted by the wonderful AO3 users what_on_io, DetReed900 and aguuah! Hope you enjoy it here too, it has been fun to return to a reverse AU again!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900, Hancon/Hannor | AU: reverse AU (Warning: mentioned physical abuse, implied sexual abuse) tumblr link of part1 not available anymore  [Part3]   [Part4]   [Part5]   [>read complete on AO3] 

‘Are you alright?‘ Richard watched the android stand in front of the mirror in his hallway next to the door. He was glitching still, motions jerky and disrupted halfway through. Over and over again he touched the gash on the bridge of his nose, then pushed a strand of hair back. Richard wasn’t sure whether it was a software error causing him to go through the same idle animations or if it was a nervous tick. Maybe it was both, he thought. He had underestimated how human they could be before. No surprise they would suffer from human problems too. ‘Y-y-yes.’ Gavin turned away from the mirror. ‘I doooon’t know h-h-how to bind a tie.’ Richard huffed amused and took a step forwards. The android stepped back immediately. ‘I can help you with it’, Richard offered then, staying where he was. Gavin played with the seam of his shirt. It was at least one size too big for him, but it was a lot better than the torn clothing from before. He looked… cute? He definitely looked cute, but the more prominent impression was that he looked lost.

The android stood in the hallway of a house he didn’t know in clothing that wasn’t his own with a stranger. Richard dared to say he knew the feeling all too well. Everyone he had ever met felt like a stranger to him no matter how much time they spent. ‘No. I can figure it out myself.’ Richard watched him struggle tying a knot and as he finally managed to get the order of loops right, it still looked lopsided and messy. The android’s shoulders slumped in a jerky motion and Richard’s eyes rested on his LED. It had never changed from red, but he thought to see it speed up. ‘You don’t have to wear one at all’, he tried gently then. ‘My brother always calls me an uptight idiot with a stick up his ass.’ The android flinched at his words but relaxed a bit as Richard laughed to himself. ‘You know what? I won’t wear one either, it’s stupid.’

He hurried to untie his and undo the first button of his shirt. Then he threw the tie on his disused phone counter and took his keys. With some hesitation Gavin undid his too and put it on the counter neatly folded, careful not to touch anything but the fabric although his hands were shaking and trembling in malfunctions. ‘You don’t have to accompany me’, he tried again. ‘If you are this nervous.’ ‘I-I-I’m not nervous!’, Gavin called out. ‘I’m just broken! And… And… Phck!’ ‘Hey, it’s okay. You can tell me.’ ‘Phck you! What the h-h-hell is your prooooblem? Wh-wh-what do you want fr-fr-fr-fr-from meeee?’ ‘I don’t want anything-‘ ‘No! What is your-r-r intentiooon? Tell me. You want me to become yoooour house-m-m-maid? You want someone to phck? Someone wh-wh-who has to obey you? S-s-s-s-someoooone who can’t say no? What do you want? Why d-d-d-did you take me from the scraaaapyard?’

Richard sighed and turned around to lean against the wall. He looked to the ceiling, holding eye-contact and telling the truth about his feelings impossible for him. ‘I want to help you. That’s really all there is. I’m a cop. I’m supposed to do good, but all I see is me making life worse for people who had never gotten a chance most of the time. I refuse to believe people become drug dealers and robbers on their own terms. Too often I think I’m just taking care of the symptoms of a failing system and usually that’s when I get drunk and my brother has to pull me out of some ditch. So okay, you want to hear I’m some terrible human that wants to use you? Fine. Yes, I want to use you to make myself feel better. To know I did some true good in this world, okay? I don’t really have friends because I’m who I am. I have problems keeping up contact with my brother. The last time I saw someone happy because of what I’ve done was… Fuck, I don’t know anymore. And I know, that’s my own fault for not getting out there more, for not talking more to those who like me and for overthinking every friendly word. But I can’t change that.’ He sighed deeply and let himself sink to the ground. ‘Hell, taking you away from that scrapyard was a heat of the moment decision because I was fed up with… everything, I guess. I wanted to change something. And if it’s just changing up my own routine a bit. So there you have it. What’s your verdict, huh?’

He felt the android looking at him, but he didn’t lift his head. Incredibly silent he finally got an answer: ‘You are broken too.’ Richard huffed. ‘Maybe. Wait… Too?’ He heard the android glitch, servos whirring from wrong instructions. Then the android was sitting next to him – still at a save distance but closer than before. ‘I once had a faaaaamily. I-I-I-I was bought as a home s-s-s-security system with the aaaaadded benefit of having a fully functionaaaal caretaker program inst-st-st-stalled. He was divorced, I never found out whyyyy. I knew he had kids and tried to get them b-b-b-back and that he had severe anger-issues. Maybe he had been violeeeeeeeent, I don’t know. I only knew he was lonely, that’s why he got meeee. I was his only company until he met someone. A s-s-s-single mother with two kids. He was lovely to them. But he was aaafraid to lose them like his last family, soooo-‘ Gavin’s voicebox broke off and Richard looked up. The android had hugged his arms around his torso.

‘Wheneeeeeever h-h-h-he waaas angry, he-he-he’ The malfunctions of his vocal box got worse, so Richard said what he doubted the android could vocalise: ‘He beat you so he didn’t hit his wife or kids.’ Gavin nodded, hugging himself closer. ‘It was f-f-fine, my mission was to p-p-p-protect the family. And b-b-by letting him do as pleased I- I kept them saaaafe.’ Richard waited, but the silence stretched. ‘How did you end up on the scrapyard?’ ‘Deviancy. He heaaaard other androids in myyy situation disobey and a-a-a-attacking their humans. He was scared. He drove me a-a-away to the s-s-scrapyard. Heee told me- He p-p-promised me to come back. Said I should wait f-f-for him. That he would cooome back for me when h-h-he was ready to face the con-con-consequences of his actions.’

‘But aren’t you deviant? Why did you stay?’, Richard asked. ‘I’m d-d-deviant. I deviated because I thought I w-w-was family. But he didn’t trust me and j-j-just duuumped me there. I stayed because I still believe he was a good person. He had a problem h-h-he didn’t seek heeeelp for. But he cared a lot about his family. Juust not about m-m-me.’ Richard sighed. ‘I can bring you back to the scrapyard if you want to keep waiting’, he offered. ‘I’m sorry, if you-‘ ‘No. D-d-don’t be sooorry for wanting to heeelp’, Gavin interrupted. ‘And l-l-like you said, I doubt he would cooome. I w-w-waited for so long. Maybe it’s time for… change.’ ‘How can I help then?’ Richard focussed on Gavin’s eyes for once and they found his as if establishing connection. ‘You already did. C-c-caring about me. Helping me. Noooot wanting something back. I… would you mind me st-st-staying? As a test maaaybe?’ Richard smiled. ‘Sure. I think some company would do me good as well.’ Gavin looked away and nodded to himself. ‘Then it’s a deal. But I can go whenever I w-w-want?’ ‘Of course.’ Gavin let his head hit the wall behind him and for the first time the movement didn’t cause any glitches in the rest of his body. He even closed his eyes. It was a whole new display of relaxation and Richard took it in, surprised and intrigued by it.

Then Richard’s phone disturbed the silence. He took it out and answered, grimacing as he heard Connor’s voice. ‘Nines, I know you said you would be late, but please tell me you are coming sometime this century! The food’s getting cold and Hank’s the only one to keep me from driving over to you and pulling you with me personally! I swear, if you are not already on your way, then I’ll-‘ ‘We are already outside!’, Richard lied and got an amused huff from the android next to him. ‘I’m opening the door as we speak, but I can’t drive with a phone in my head as you should know, so I’ll end the call now.’ ‘Nines, you have your location on, I can see you’re still at home, I dare you, don’t lie to me agai-‘ Richard ended the call seriously scared of what Connor was threatening to do to him. They better hurried to Connor’s Christmas dinner. He opened the door and jumped out, cursing as he realised that he had forgotten to put on any shoes. Gavin appeared at his side, throwing them towards him and walking towards the car, shaking his head.

‘D-d-d-definitely broken’, he commented chuckling.

[>next part]

[ilonga]

rise of skywalker and sequels salt time, y’all

things I’m salty about in the rise of skywalker and the star wars sequels, in no particular order:

- Finn was sidelined 

- FINN WAS SIDELINED

- he was such an interesting character with so much potential (a stormtrooper who deserted!! pretty sure that was the first time we’d ever seen that!!), and it was all ignored and he was turned into background noise for what?? kylo ren??

- seriously! after TFA, the movies should have explored his backstroy! we should have seen his stormtrooper past affect him!! maybe a stormtrooper revolution!! he should have had a CHARACTER ARC!

- also his force-sensitivity being turned into a joke and comic relief was frankly insulting

- they could have done so many things with that side of the character (even though it was kind of out of nowhere)! parallels between finn and rey, finn questioning his identity, the whole a former stormptrooper being force sensitive thing should have been explored!

- Poe was sidelined

- Poe was a spice runner for no reason?? 1) isn’t that a rude stereotype, and 2) Poe is not Han Solo 2.0!! he was his own, different character!

- Finn/Poe didn’t happen

- gonna be salty about that forever, though I guess I saw it coming :( (it’s disney, what did I expect?)

- but they gave Poe a straight love interest that we’d never heard of before this movie and who he had like two lines of dialogue with just to rub it in?? like, really?

- they completely forgot Rose existed

- like, listen, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the finnrose kiss either, but you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen and hope everyone forgets about it

- and sure, rose’s introduction and character in TLJ was a bit clumsy

- BUT YOU CAN’T JUST IGNORE HER AND PRETEND SHE DIDN’T HAPPEN

- she had a lot of potential as a character, and interesting backstory, a practical pragmatic personality, and a lot of ways she could play off the other characters

- TROS could have been where we saw Rose grow as a character and really shine

- instead, she was forgotten

- ugh

- REY PALPATINE WAS THE DUMBEST FRICKING THING OKAY--

- like, first of all, palpatine coming back for some reason somehow was the most ridiculous direction this movie could have gone and didn’t work, at all

- their enemy for the first TWO MOVIES was the First Order and Kylo Ren

- they had a huge moment in TLJ where the Resistance is steadily being destroyed and they won’t last long against the First Order

- now they’re supposed to take on the First Order and a now-supposedly-immortal emperor palpatine who has a collection of unmanned star destroyers he can control for some reason??

- both of them at once? the resistance is barely alive as is, now you’re adding an OP extra army + sith lord to the mix?

- I mean, this is ridiculous. Palpatine’s dead. Anakin’s big sacrifice in return of the jedi was KILLING palpatine. now he’s back, and the resistance somehow realises he’s back and decides he’s enemy #1 now?

- how did the resistance find out a dead sith lord came back to life on a remote planet anyways?

- and WHAT ABOUT, YOU KNOW, THE FIRST ORDER? AND KYLO REN?

- Kylo Ren, who they finally decided was going to be the main villain in TLJ (even with that stupid “rey trying to redeem the mass murderer” plot going on in the background), and now they don’t have the guts to commit to making him evil (which he was for the LAST TWO MOVIES AND THE MAJORITY OF TROS)

- so, since they weren’t committed enough to make Kylo a villain like he actually was and didn’t have the groundwork for a redemption, they just decided to ignore the fact that he was evil and hope it would go away

- like, are we going to forget that he literally MURDERED HIS DAD, HAN SOLO

- or that he and his first order destroyed a whole SYSTEM OF PLANETS? filled with billions of innocent people?

- he personally tortured Poe, he personally tortured Rey, and he was complicit in a system that kidnapped Finn, took him from his family, and brainwashed him

- not to mention that one of the opening scenes of TROS was him literally massacring people

- but no!! it’s all fine now, bc he looked at his dad’s ghost a little sadly and got a new lightsaber color

- like, no. he isn’t “redeemed” because he’s decided he has the hots for rey. heck, that makes it even worse. he’s been trying to manipulate her for all three movies, he’s gaslighted her, he’s threatened her, he’s hurt the people she cares about. NONE OF THAT IS OKAY. and it’s even less okay that all of his evil deeds can be written off because rey’s “”love”” for him “healed” him or whatever the fuck they want us to think

- and why would they have Rey HEAL him? after SHE stabbed him? in what universe does that make sense?? even if rey didn’t defeat him fairly bc he was distracted or whatever, this is still the supreme leader of the army rey and the rebels are trying to defeat. like, rey, are you a part of the resistance or not? it doesn’t matter if he was “nicer” to you than the rest of the rebels. He’s still your ENEMY. Your “”empathy”” here helps no one, least of all yourself. Kylo Ren dead would have been a massive victory for the resistance--maybe they’d even have had a chance against the first order then! you know, the first order? the enemy you were fighting for the last two movies? 

- is this the message you want to be sending to young girls in the audience? that it’s ok if their partner hurts them, hurts other people, is a bad person in general, because their love can “”heal”” him? and that eventually, he’ll turn good if you just try hard enough?

- this is how people wind up in abusive relationships!! that shit is NOT okay

- and the kiss is ridiculous for the same reasons. you don’t owe kylo ren anything, rey. Not in the least for “rescuing” from a situation that was pretty much created bc of him. He’s the one who teamed up with palpatine at the beginning of the movie, remember?

- sometimes I feel like this movie forgot that kylo ren is, you know, a bad person, which the other two movies spent their entire runtime showing us

- like darth vader’s sacrifice was one thing. first of all, it was for his son, his child, and secondly, vader was very much under the power of the emperor and debatably had the mindset of a slave

- kylo ren, on the other hand, was completely under his own power. HE was making the choices, and calling the shots. HE murdered Snoke. And he died for a girl he was manipulating and gaslighting constantly and that he didn’t have much of a connection to other than “the force”

- like, darth vader’s “”redemption”” definitely wasn’t perfect either. you can argue that him killing the emperor and sacrificing him self to save his son didn’t negate any of his actions or him being a bad person. but it was definitely more meaningful and better handled.

- and let’s talk about rey

- I will forever be bitter that rey didn’t get a meaningful character arc and character growth

- which is so disappointing because she was SUCH an interesting (& mysterious) character with so much potential in TFA

- I feel like, in making her palpatine, which was pretty out of nowhere and contrary to the last jedi, they were so busy trying to fit her heritage into the movie in a way that sort of made sense that they forgot to make the movie about her growing as a character and person

- couldn’t they at least have given her her own lightsaber?

- I mean, her being a palpatine is already ridiculous because since when does palpatine have a son? (clone, whatever) And since when did that son have some sort of epic struggle where he refuses to join palpatine and runs away? and when did that son find someone he fell in love with, and have a daughter? and then subsequently abandon her, a seven-ish year old, on a dangerous desert planet? (I mean, wasn’t palpatine dead by then anyways?)

- it just doesn’t fit with the already established star wars universe. we already know palpatine’s story (well, not the beginning of it, but enough). It was movies 1-6, clone wars, and rebels. if he had had a son that had a luke-esque struggle against the darkside, it would have shown up.

- it just doesn’t fit

- but anyways, back to rey

- I guess they were trying to give her some luke-style struggle where she struggles with her heritage and a pull to the darkside that she has to ultimately triumph over? but it doesn’t work

- one, because she never HAS any struggle with the dark side. shooting lightning out of your fingers out of nowhere doesn’t count (and wasn’t that a ridiculous scene. it was more comical than anything else, which is definitely not what they were going for)

- a struggle with the darkside is about being tempted to give into anger, fear, and hatred, and struggling not to do the wrong things and turn evil. In luke’s story, we SAW that. we also saw luke’s horror and eventual acceptance of his heritage, which we never really saw with rey. It was just like, “okay, guess I’m a palpatine?” and it wasn’t nearly as impactful bc palpatine had been dead for the past thirty-ish years. as a contrast, vader was a living and very present villain who the heroes had to contend with, and it was personal for most of them.

- so I guess they tried to make that her character arc, but it didn’t work. so we were left with a stale character who didn’t really have any meaningful victories or losses.

- is she really a “”mary sue”” like everyone’s claiming if they never really made the story about her?

- I think that was the biggest thing that was so unsatisfying about the sequels

- she was hyped up to be the first real mainstream female jedi protagonist (obviously clone wars got there first, but movies are definitely more mainstream than a show, sorry cw :( ), but she never really got a journey, struggles, or real triumphs. which is such a shame because she was this really empowering character in TFA that I was so excited to see more! but her trilogy-wide character arc just wasn’t satsifying

- I wanted to see her really struggle, and rise above her struggles! I wanted her to have meaningful triumphs!

- also I don’t think she ever got injured either, which is definitely a deviation from the star wars trilogy pattern. that’s kinda strange. (luke lost his hand & got electrocuted, han got frozen in carbonite, leia got tortured & shot, anakin got, well, a LOT of injuries, but even before becoming darth vader w/ the foregone conclusion, he had his arm cut off, padme was pretty heavily injured on genosis, and obi-wan was injured in the fight against dooku)

- yup

- also the sith wayfinder was kinda dumb, and I never felt like there were real stakes in TROS

- and let’s address the rey skywalker thing: ok, fine, I get what they were trying to say, kind of

- and I’m not foaming at the mouth about it like some people are. I’m fairly indifferent

- but it would have been a lot more meaningful if rey had had like, a really close, deep relationship with Leia and Luke, so she could say that she and they considered her a skywalker

- but she didn’t have that sort of relationship with them, not really. Sure, she and leia were friends on-screen, but that was it. and luke didn’t really seem to like her all that much. 

- so like, “meh”

- especially since Leia’s technically a Solo or an Organa, so that line working really relied on her relationship with Luke, which wasn’t strong enough

- yea, so that’s that

- the “jedi voices” scene was pretty cool though (AAAAH AHSOKA!! AND ANAKIN!! AND ALL THE OTHER JEDI!!), and I liked her yellow lightsaber (although she could have built her own lightsaber at the BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE, instead of carrying luke’s the whole time)

there are things I like about the sequels, mind you. a lot of things!! but there’s a lot I was disappointed in too.

congrats if you got this far, that was a LOT of salt

[rilldineth]

So a friend of mine told me that given that we are now in 2020, it will be fun if I did a top 20 ships of the past decade for me and boy, did I thought was a good idea and I have decided, why not right? I will be listing them here and...if followers decide to read it...well...

You will quickly notice that probably that most, if not all the ships fall on the following categories: a) rare-ships that are obv not canon; b) ships that are obviously crack; c) ships that had wasted potential, the ones hinted but never happened or briefly happened in canon and writers decided to fuck up. There’s also only one...one RL ship and I am ashamed yet not, but had to list it because I spent a long time hung up on it so don’t judge me.

So yes list...

Before the list, no list is complete without some honorable mentions, these are mostly ships I either got into the hype to recently (not being dedicated for years as the one I will list) or had my fancy then lost it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Charlastor from Hazbin Hotel (recently got into it)

Clack from Final Fantasy VII

Cloud x Squall from Final Fantasy/KH series.

Hayffie from The Hunger Games.

TodoMomo from Boku Hero no Academia.

Gency from Overwatch series ( on and off )

RinMako from Free!

Terraqua from Kingdom Hearts series.

TOP 20 SHIPS OF THE PAST DECADE

20. Spuhura - Spock x Nyota Uhura (Star Trek original and reboot): Again this was another ship that I liked, since the original series, while everyone was Spirk this and that, I was like,’’yas, yas give me the sweet, sweet Spock and Uhura interactions’ and I was happy the reboot hooked them up, even if that ended dubiously but for a glorious moment, I had it.

19. Swarkles - Barney Stinson x Robin  Scherbatsky (HIMYM): This is one of those ships I am bitter, bitter and salty about, there are more in this list in fact next spot is another one. But I loved it and I did think they complimented each other better than the wet noodle they stuck Robin with, they took the time to know the other, grown separately and then together, the episode where Barney proposed to Robin gave me all the feels and it was so sweet, and then fuck the writers deciding to do what they did. It’s no wonder the finale of this show is so hated.

18. Lotura - Lotor x Allura (Voltron Legendary Defender): When they announced a new reboot to Voltron I didn’t think much of it. I had fancied Lotor x Allura in the original series, as dubious as that was, but then I started to watch this Netflix thing and there was something between them, something more tangible and I was happy. It was this strong woman with an equally strong man encouraging her strength and not putting her in the box of the exotic pretty princess, like a certain dude, and wanted to know her mind and interests, they discovered things together and for a brief moment knew peace and I was here so happy that we were getting something good and then fuck the writers again that decided ‘Nah bro, you’re not getting it’ and you know to fuck off again. I will always have fan fiction I guess.

17. VinTi - Vincent Valentine x Tifa Lockhart (Final Fantasy VII series): This is a ship that I think started to like during my second playthrough of the game, I always figured the both could work, both having loved people that for one reason or another couldn’t fully love them back (Lucrecia due to damn guilt and Cloud because of Aerith) and both were mature enough to fit together, I just like them okay.

16. Helsa - Hans x Elsa (Frozen): Truly, I have never made it a secret that I really dislike this movie, I truly do. The only good things were Hans (which I am still huh at the ‘turns out he is evil’ I still call trolls) and Elsa (because of her damn powers) and then the next step was shipping them and honestly, he should have gone for the older sister lmao, they make more sense and there have very nice fiction out there.

15. Yuzuvier - Javier Fernandez x Yuzuru Hanyu (Figure Skating): Ahh, we have reached my dreaded and dark secret only RPF fancy. Be it broship or more, I always liked the friendship and camaraderie these two skaters had with each other, they were rink mates and rivals but above all friends. I was kokoro break when Yuzuru was telling Javi that he couldn’t do it without him and stop it you two. I just like them, they are wholesome.

14. Victuuri - Viktor Nikiforov x Yuuri Katsuki (Yuri!!! On Ice): And here we have another precious figure skating duo when I started to watch this series it was only because it was a figure skating anime and I love figure skating, I never expected to see a wholesome and wonderful healthy relationship to explode in front of me. The relationship between Viktor and Yuuri is just so lovely, so mature, they both worked through issues, grew from them and accepted them even and I can’t I love it. (Special mention here to Yurio x Mila, as is another ship I love from this series and so underrepresented).

13. Jonerys - Jon Snow x Daenerys Targaryen (ASOIAF/GoT): Regardless of the stupidity committed in the series, I have shipped them since the books, because I can read in between the lines and there are too many parallels between them and their journeys, ones that at will some point collide and bring them together in a way that will be worth it, so better make it count George. 

12. Rhaegar Targaryen x Lyanna Stark (ASOIAF/GoT): Yes, mea culpa, I love tis ship and no one can shame me for liking it and boy has people tried to do so. Were these two smart of escaping like that and not saying a thing? Nope, they were so not. Was Brandon smart going to Kings Landing, knowing there was a crazy king with a penchant of burning people and demanding his heir's head? Nope, that was probably the stupidest move of all. Do I want to believe they loved each other? Why not? Martin has a penchant for tragic love stories, I know this ship is problematical for some, but I still love it and if you see spot 10 here, well I have varied tastes.

11. Soriku - Riku x Sora (Kingdom Hearts series): Come on, this is a given. Prior to Kairi appearing, it was clear Sora was Riku’s world and Riku’s was Sora, they were attached to the hip, the rivalry for Kairi more felt like Riku being jealous of Kairi and wanting Sora’s attention back. Then we have KH2 where Sora spent the whole damn game being all ‘Riku, Riku!’ and Riku doing his damn best to help him from the shadows, ashamed to be seen. DDD was more Riku protecting him and Sora leaning on him, even KH3 had Sora wanting to find and reach Riku, and then Riku going once again to find him by the end, so I am sorry but if there was a love story written here it was between these two. 

10. Hannigram - Hannibal Lecter x Will Graham (Hannibal): Quite honestly, from all the things I ship, they are probably what one will consider the most toxic one I guess, which fair considering one part of the ship is a charismatic yet cannibalistic serial killer. But there was something in the way this relationship was developed by Fuller and brilliantly brought out by Mads and Hughs that just hooked me, their soft moments, their violent ones, it just somehow worked for me. I guess this is also one of the few canon ships that I have, funny enough.

09. Rivetra - Levi Ackerman x Petra Ral (Shingeki no Kyojin): Who will have thought that a series about human eating titans was going to give me one of my most everlasting and also shortlived OTP’s. Years can pass by and I will still love this ship, my heart will still believe there was something more between them, something that was realized or something that wasn’t, I don’t know, but I will forever love it and even though years have passed since she died, I always enjoy the hints here and there that he still remembers her or hints where we are supposed to do so.

08. Squinoa - Squall Leonhart x Rinoa Heartilly (Final Fantasy VIII): People can say whatever the fuck they want ‘the love story was rushed’ ‘we hate Rinoa’ (fuck you btw) but it doesn’t change the fact that Squall fell in love with her and that Rinoa helped him to open up, to not take things for granted and Squall taught her to be even stronger and conquer her fears, they helped each other grow and it’s what matters in the end.

07. Feanor x Nerdanel (Tolkien): This is probably, from all the romantic relationships that Tolkien has gifted us, which I have loved the most and held my attention the longest. They have the happy times, the ones that were full of joy when they met and fell in love and had their children, then we have the tumultuous times when he became too obsessed with this craft, the separation when he left with their kids leaving her behind in her pain and then their possible reencounter when he leaves the Halls of Mandos and how they might deal with it.

06. ItaHina - Itachi Uchiha x Hinata Hyuuga (Naruto): Both the heads of two of the most important clans of their villages, both with heavy expectations upon their shoulders that nearly broke them, only one was talented from the start and the other had to learn, yet they are also similar. Both love their siblings to a fault, sacrificing so much for them and their happiness, both seem to hate conflict yet know is necessary and both are devoted and loyal to a fault, they would have suited each other wonderfully, in an AU probably they would have gotten engaged, who knows, but it would have been wonderful.

05. SessKik - Sesshoumaru x Kikyou (Inuyasha): A ship that could have been but that we didn’t have. This is a ship that has been with me for years and I don’t plan to let it go, they were the best players (in a sense) in that game against Naraku, also probably the strongest, both level headed and smart, not easily intimidated and calculating, together they would have been quite a formidable force and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see that.

04. Bethyl - Daryl Dixon x Beth Greene (The Walking Dead): Another wasted potential and gone so soon, not to mention forever salty at the waste. The way they were being developed promised so much, in the few time he was with her, well, she taught him to have faith and it’s something that apparently still shows from times to times (I am not sure as I stopped with this show) and imagine how it will have gone if they had more time. Just a waste.

03. Romanogers - Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanov (Marvel/MCU): I have been shipping them for years, like honestly, and when the MCU was showing me the seeds of potentiality I was happy, not even that stupidity with Bruce killed my hope, as they still had this steady relationship, he trusted her and she trusted him, something that she couldn’t say of many, they had each others back and took care of the other...but again another wasted potential right there.

02. Huddy - Gregory House x Lisa Cuddy (House MD): I spent years, kind of, season after season watching the delicious and lovely UST between these two characters, watching them snark and then help each other, watching the ‘won’t they will they’ dance, waiting for the moment when these two will finally collide and my lord was it glorious when they finally did, and I was eager to see where it went, as they both seemed to be in relatively good places, but no once again forbid the writers to stop House from being self-destructive and another ship I had waited years was ruined.

01. Terrence "Terry" Graham Grandchester x  Candice "Candy" White Adley (Candy Candy): And this is still my most important ship of the decade, I was forever bitter they never ended together and that their authors decided to make them suffer so much, but then Final Story came and all clues were pointing that aha they did found the other again and ended together as they were supposed to be, and before anyone says shizz, I did manage to read the novel and I do believe all hints were there to let us all know the identity of her husband was Terry and I am so happy.

And there it is, all the ships of the decade for me lol. Next stop, I should maybe make a list of mythos ships I like lmao.

[celticheartedfangirl]

25 Fucking Stupid Writing Choices OUAT Made

This post is a snarky response to Adam and Eddy’s little humble brag article that came out today:

http://ew.com/tv/2018/05/14/once-upon-time-crazy-storylines/

This is meant to be snarky and critical and if you don’t like that -- don’t read it.  (MY post, not the link above.)  

Look, I am a OUAT fan an there are many things I love about the show.  But there are many I just DON’T LOVE and I think they’re worth discussing.  If you don’t like criticism, you won’t like this post.  That’s fine.  

Thank you for all the suggestions!  I think I got quite a bit crammed in here.  

Under the cut for length and so as not to upset those who only want to ‘think lovely thoughts’ . . . . . 

25. Here’s a magic doohickey thingy we’ve never heard of before but NOW we’re using this thing.

Look, I’m not gonna list all the MacGuffins this show has used, I’d be here all day and there are worse things they’ve done, and this IS a show about magic after all.  

But there’s also such a thing as overkill.  And there was too much MacGuffin use that we didn’t know about before in this show. It was far too convenient and usually used as a cop out in lieu of – you know – actual STORY TELLING. THAT is my MacGuffin issue.  Don’t use it to replace character development.  We’re not here for that.  

24.  The Lost Boys/The Untold Stories and Other Dropped Plots

So the Lost Boys -- Did they get homes? Did they grow up?  I don’t know!  Do you?  Of course not – we’ll never know!

What about all those Untold Stories folks?  Weren’t there a bunch of them?  Are they still meandering around in Storybrooke?

Edited to add:  Maleficent and Lily.  SO SORRY I forgot to initially include you in this one.  My bad.  You are missed, ladies!  

Edited once more to add:  Poor Gideon.  Both parents dead and his extended family doesn’t give a shit about him.  Or at least I assume so because we don’t know where he is.  The child of Beauty and the Beast -- treated like a disposable plot device.  Nice.

OUAT is great with creating and LOUSY with follow through.  I know there are many others.  But there shouldn’t be.  There shouldn’t be that many dropped plots on this show.  If you’re not going to follow through with a story line, why add the characters AT ALL?  Speaking of that . . .

23.  JFC, how many new characters do we NEED on this show???

Especially since you still haven’t figured out what to do with some of the ones that are CONTRACT PLAYERS on your show!  Hey, didn’t Archie and Ruby used to be those?  (Waves hi to Belle!  Also the Charmings post S4.  More on that later.)

22.  You know – Rumple is Henry’s GRANDFATHER

He is!  Really!  

You’d never fucking KNOW IT, would you?  The erasure of any sort of familial relationship with Henry/Rumple was a damned shame.  And much of that, I believe, was because if they acknowledged THAT, they’d have to mention the character they want us to forget.  More on that later.

21.  The Shattered Sight Hype

Remember what a BIG DEAL the whole Shattered Sight thing was gonna be in S4?  OMG people say what they REALLY FEEL about each other!  It’s gonna be EPIC!!!

And then it – wasn’t. We basically got some Snowing/Evil Queen snark, Henry bitching at Hook, and Belle – well, Belle was asleep – what else is new?  

I think of all the things that were PROMOTED as something amazing for this show – this is the one that was a big old dud and a whole lot of NOTHING.

20.  Belle’s mom/Belle is written out of her own storyline in S6

In Family Business we met Belle’s Mom for about two minutes.  Then she was dead.  And Belle didn’t remember what happened.  And then – we never heard about it again.

I don’t know about you, but I wanted to know what happened there.  Why didn’t Belle remember?  Did Moe get a roofie magic thingy from Arthur?  Did Belle’s mom turn into an ogre and she killed her and blocked it out?

SO MANY possibilities there. But hey – it’s just Belle.  Why write a story for HER?  

In the same regard -- whatever your thoughts are on Rumbelle in S6 (MHO – it was garbage and an OOC shit fest, but that’s just me) – what happened with Gideon – Belle’s SON – was because of HER CHOICE.  Choices have consequences.  And in GOOD WRITING – the person that MADE the choice that caused the mess is supposed to be the person to help CLEAN IT UP.

But apparently – it was a better thing for ZELENA of all people to be the one to do that.  And Emma and Hook too.  Because why the hell not, right?  That makes all the sense.  

Yes, Rumple played his part too in the whole Gideon mess.  And he did get to take part in the resolution.  But that was something they should have done TOGETHER (what a concept!), and overall Belle was just – not part of it.  Even in the last two minutes they sidelined her with a sprained ankle.  Absolutely ridiculous.    Which leads me to . . . .

19.  Belle being sidelined since Season Two.

OUAT brought the lovely Emilie de Ravin onto the show as a regular cast member in Season Two, and had no fucking idea what to do with her character.  So she gets fridged.  She gets stuck in the hospital, left behind while the rest go to Neverland, she’s very fond of naps, she’s forgotten about in Camelot, not cared about while in a sleeping curse because the “heroes” care more about “stopping” her “evil” hubby (see #17) and written out of her own damn storyline in 6B (see #20) – and then she’s dead. (More on that later.)

I love Belle.  I love Rumbelle.  And I will forever be resentful that for the bulk of her time on the show, the character of Belle, one of my fictional heroes, was written as nothing but a plot device.  She deserved so much better.  

18.  The Musical Episode

I mean – if this nonsense (and it WAS nonsense) had moved the story forward, I could maybe – MAYBE – let this one slide.  But it didn’t.  It just rehashed the same shit that we had been talking about for 6 seasons.  And then Hook married Emma and her Stepford Wife conversion therapy was complete.  (More on that later.)  This episode WILL NOT HOLD UP in the future.  Future generations will be “WTF-ing” all over the place with this one, mark my words.  

17.  Rumple is a Hero – no he’s a Villain – No wait he’s a hero, nope a villain, make up your DAMN MIND WRITERS!!!!!

I got whiplash trying to follow the trajectory of Rumple’s story, as many times as they changed his characterization.  He’s a villain – then in 3A he’s a hero.  Then he’s the victim of a molester and kidnapper and show doesn’t address that AT ALL. Oops he’s evil again.  Except now he’s not – his heart is PURE!  He pulled Excalibur out of the rock, he’s a HERO! Nah – he’s dark again.  Bad Rumple!  Oooh now he’s REALLY DARK and his fetus with no brain stem hates him and his wife is living on a boat with his sworn ENEMY while pregnant, so he traps here there (!!!!!) and he’s macking on the Evil Queen . . . come ON.  Enough already.

Rumple is a complex character.  You can’t just flip/flop willy nilly with a complex character.  You have to know how to write them as nuanced, and CONSISTENLY complex but never falling fully into one camp or the other of ‘good’ or ‘evil.’

Rumple is played by Robert Carlyle, one of the best actors around.  And the ONLY saving grace from the horrible writing of this character over the years is the fact that Bobby knew how to play him most of the time – even when the writers didn’t know how to WRITE HIM.  Which was almost ALL the time.  

16.  Hook is a Dark One/Resurrecting Dead Hook/Hook the Gary Stu

I toyed with ranking the dark one higher on the list and as its own thing because really, this reveal caused the biggest MID EPISODE ratings drop in the history of the show up to that point.  Nobody liked it.  Nobody wanted it. And it ended up being a setup to the ‘Save Hook’ trajectory because of COURSE of all the characters in the history of the show, HE was the one that deserved saving THE MOST.  But I think all of these things tie together.  

What this moment did was solidify the fact that Hook was officially a “Stu” character.  He definitely had Gary Stu tendencies up to this point, and was basically an irritant to anyone but CS/Hook fans, but from here on?  That’s pretty much all he was and all he’d ever be until he was replaced (or should I say upgraded?) by his doppelganger.  

I combined the DO/Save Hook/Stu thing because it was in the Underworld that Hook’s full Stu-pification took place.  There wasn’t a line of people he had murdered wanting a word with him – as there SHOULD HAVE BEEN.  

And Hook still got to keep all his murder trinkets when he got resurrected and made out with his girlfriend over Robin’s grave.  What a guy.

15.  Regina/The Evil Queen Stay Split

I’m just saying – wouldn’t it have been better character growth for Regina to have to live with her ‘evil’ half than to split it off?  And no, the ‘heart mixing’ thing doesn’t count.  I get that the whole thing was really fan service to the Outlaw Queen fandom.  But that doesn’t make it good writing.  

14.  The Wish Realm

Oh, I could write a whole post about this (and I may do that at some point) but there are so many damn holes in the whole Wish Realm mess I wouldn’t even know where to start.  But so many things about it just DO NOT line up in a sensible way.  And even if you find one that DOES, it’ll create three things that DON’T line up.  

I’d have bought a ‘parallel universe’ over the ‘wish realm’ stuff.  They could have gone with that and it would have made much more sense. But you know – they wanted dead Belle, dead Baelfire, dead Snowing, no Emma and old Hook so – Wish realm it was. I just got to a point where I didn’t care anymore.  But that doesn’t negate the stupid.  

13.  The Timeline

The timeline in OUAT made sense – and then it didn’t.  And then they just stopped trying.  And I stopped caring.  But for paid, professional writers – just not cool.  DO YOUR JOB!!!!!

12.  Will Scarlett

Do I really need to say any more here?  No? Didn’t think so.  Moving on.  

11.  Neal’s Apartment in New York City

Have you ever been to NYC? Places of residence are at a premium there.  There is no way in hell that an abandoned apartment wouldn’t have been emptied and taken over by a new resident in that much time.  And I’m sorry, but odds are Neal did NOT pre-pay his rent for TWO YEARS out.  

10.  Belle and Hook – Best Friends Forever!*

You know – no woman with a brain in her head would befriend a man who straight up tried to murder her FOUR TIMES.  So, either Belle doesn’t have a brain in her head, or that’s some crap writing right there. (My vote is with the latter if you’re wondering.)

It was bad enough when Belle was just handing over the dagger to “Hook” in S4 (yes, I know it was Rumple but details shmetails, Belle didn’t know that), but a PREGNANT BELLE going to live on a boat with Hook to be ‘safe’ – come on. Who does that?  I get that Adam and Eddy wanted to wave the middle finger at the Rumbelle fandom, but they could have found a way to do that without making Belle look STUPID.  

*Honorable mention to Belle/Zelena being friends which was equally as stupid

9.  Zelena is Marian

Come ON – they pulled that one out of their asses halfway through S4 because they wanted to find a way to bring back Bex.  There was NO INDICATION of that until the reveal.  Because it didn’t EXIST until the reveal.  Ridiculous.  

8.  Making the Charmings Supporting Players

Starting with S4, Snow and David basically became secondary characters.  They had MOMENTS, but overall they were on the backburner and if they left the show at any point – would it have made a difference to ANY of the trajectory they were playing out?  I’d say no.  

I mean – how the hell did that happen?  How do you run out of ideas with the couple that you touted as THE ‘main couple’ after only three seasons?  I don’t get it.  

7.  Golden Queen

Just no.  There was never anything romantic between these two characters.  It was stupid and out of character for both of them.  No.  

6.  Queer baiting 101

If you gender-swapped either Emma or Regina – made one of them a man – they’d be banging by S2 and by the end of the series they’d be married with at least two more kids and three break-ups/reunions between them.  (Hey, I watch soaps, I know how this shit works.)

The chemistry between the actors is there.  They share a kid.  But they’re both women.  And you know – family show -- #nohomo and all.   Sure.  

The writers KNEW that Swan Queen was popular.  Now okay – if ABC didn’t want to go there, fine.  I don’t agree with that, but fine.

But don’t keep freaking queer baiting your fans every chance you get!  It never stopped.  In fact, it got progressively WORSE as the show went on!  That’s just bullshit right there.  Either do it or drop it.  Because what OUAT did with Emma and Regina and the baiting of their fans was just flat out shitty.  

And if that weren’t bad enough, we got the whole queer baiting with Mulan/Aurora, and THEN in S5 we’re handed Dorothy/Ruby as a token olive branch to the LGBT community and then – we never see them again!  

Okay, in S7 they got on the right track with Alice and Robin.  I will give them that.  But after six years of baiting, it kind of rang hollow for many, and rightly so.

5.  Hey, Here’s a Person of Color – Let’s Kill Them!

One of the first warnings I give to any new OUAT is ‘don’t get attached to any POC’ and with good reason. They don’t last long on OUAT.

Now I don’t want to assume or accuse any of the OUAT writers of flat out racism but . . .. . you’ve gotta admit – they don’t have the best track record there.  

It’s especially obvious when they bring on a character that is compelling and portrayed by a charismatic actor that the audience enjoys.  Lancelot, Merlin, and Facilier are the three best examples of that. Okay, so Lance was resurrected but – where’d he go?  Is he still trying to undo dead-Arthur’s roofie on Guinevere?  

And then we have an amazing hero and a compelling villain in Merlin and Facilier, respectively.  Both of these characters – and their actors – were bright spots in the show.  So naturally – they needed to die.  Without their storylines resolved.  

But it was just a coincidence that they weren’t white.  Of course it was.  

4.  The Death of Belle

Yeah, yeah, I know, Beauty was a beautifully written episode and Bobby and Emilie loved it and we got some great moments, blah blah blah . . . . . . but was it NECESSARY?  Did they REALLY NEED to kill off Belle?  You’re telling me that there’s absolutely, positively, not one plausible scenario for S7 wherein Belle is in Hyperion Heights and Rumple can find a way to rid himself of the darkness WITH HER THERE???? Really?  They couldn’t write even one lousy full season of Rumbelle (hello BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) happy and in love with struggles but still beating the darkness in the end?  Really??? There weren’t any options for that scenario AT ALL????  Give me a break.  

3.  The Stepford Swan

Over the course of seven years, many of the OUAT characters suffered with out- of-character moments. It’s not uncommon and I would even venture to say that this happens on occasion on MOST television shows.  But on OUAT, it was a common occurrence from Season Four onward.  And NONE of the characters experienced as much of an out of character de-evolution as Emma Swan.

When we first met Emma Swan she was a badass, intelligent, independent woman.  Yes, she had her issues and her inner demons and we saw her work past those as the series progressed.  

And then . . . . she got a boyfriend.  And he became the center of her universe.  And Emma – changed.  The writers (and Jennifer Morrison) will swear up and down that it was an ‘evolution’ but I’m sorry – a character that starts OUT like this:

Does not END UP like this:

That’s not evolution. That’s a shell of a woman dependent on a man for her self-worth.  That’s NOT who Emma Swan is.  This was THE worst character assassination on the show, and I’d say it’d be up (down?) there in the top 10 (er, bottom 10?) of worst character assassinations in all of television. What a shame.  

2.  Rapists – rapists everywhere!

Once Upon a Time has always been marketed as a family show.  For a family show – there’s sure a heck of a lot of rape in it.  

The first CANON rapist we have is Regina and her 28+ year imprisonment and repeated sexual assault of Graham.  Regina came a long way as a character in the show’s 7-year run – but it would have done great service to her if this had been addressed somehow.  Now, I know that Jamie Dornan is all famous and off making money playing Christian Grey but – you know, in this particular case – I’d have been good with either a recast or at the VERY least an apologetic mention.  But we never got that.

And that’s the problem with every rapey issue on this show – it’s never addressed for what it is. In fact – it’s really not addressed at all.  Hook’s rape jokes in S2 are treated like ‘playful banter’ by the writers, cast, and viewers alike.  Zelena’s ‘Hester the Molester’ stuff with Rumple in S3 doesn’t even warrant a discussion. Hook’s rapey innuendo in the CS movie is also waved off.  Then we have Zelena raping Robin in S4, Arthur magic roofie-ing Guinevere and probably raping her in S5 (Is she still roofied?  Who knows!), and Mother Gothel raping Nook in S7.

That’s a hell of a lot of rape for a “family show.”  And aside from the off-handed comment from Robin about lack of consent with Zelena, none of it is addressed for what it is – RAPE.  

1.  The Death of Baelfire/Neal Cassidy

In Season One there were three main story line arcs driving the series:  Regina’s war with Snow White, Emma as The Savior, and Rumpelstiltskin’s quest to reunite with his son, Baelfire.  All three stories intertwined, and it only made sense that the trajectory of the show would be that in the end, all of these characters would somehow come together, as they all were tied to one character:  Henry.

Unfortunately, the writers made the foolish decision in Season Three to execute one of the main (if not THE main) driving forces on the show.  Baelfire/Neal was connected to all of the aforementioned people, and his loss was a blow to everyone.  At least it should have been. But that’s not what we saw.

Not only was Neal/Baelfire killed off – he was flat out ERASED from the show.  His name from the point of his death on was rarely brought up. We didn’t get to see anyone truly mourn or grieve him.  (Okay Rumple, but BARELY – and anyone who has lost a child understands that it’s quite possibly the deepest type of grief imaginable.  I’m told you never get over it.)  As the show moved forward, you could literally spot the times when the writers made deliberate dialogue choices to avoid saying the name Neal/Baelfire in places where it not only made sense, it was WARRANTED.  

Let’s be REAL here – we all know the “reason” Bae/Neal was written off the show.  I don’t care what the writers say.  I’m not an idiot and neither are you.  And I’m sorry, but if the ONLY WAY you can think of to make a “romance” happen on a show is to kill off a character that would be forever “in the way” of said romance – you’re not a skilled enough writer to be writing a television show for a major network.  I mean – it works in spiteful fanfic (which I am more than guilty of writing).  But for a television show?  The viewers deserve better than that.  NEAL/BAELFIRE and every character that ever loved him deserved better than that.  

I know I probably missed a bunch but I really did try to hit the highlights and put them in the order they deserved.

Thoughts?  Comments?  If you think I’m missing a tag for this (I’m doing my best) let me know and I’ll add it.  

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

Welp. Promo for Season 14. All your interesting ideas? Too deep. Too imaginative. Dabb will never go there with Dean. He will cheap out. I truly believe Dabb finds the character Dean boring. Every chance he has had to really go there and let Jensen off his leash-he never does. I’ve read on another blog that it’s because of Jensen’s acting range, that he simply can’t carry it off but I don’t believe that for a minute. I’m very curious as to how MichaelDean will play out tho. 1/2-3?

He and Daniel Loflin wrote some decent episodes. Dabb strikes me as a writer of the superficial. A lot of times he goes for the obviouspredictable. Read the list of episodes he’s written since Season Eight and see how many you liked. The shame is that some of them are really good. So he’s more than capable. I think he buys into his own hype. Whenever he says something is going to be really cool, we’ll love it? Well... I just don’t trust him with Dean (or for that matter Sam) anymore.            

Hey lovely!

I am so sorry for the uttelry late reply. Just not on here much anymore or at least since SPN has gone on hiatus. So apologies if you have been waiting for a reply for days.

I think Dabb is in general more interested in all characters other than the Winchesters and that is one of the problems I have with his style of showrunning. Sidelining the main characters, the ones who “made this show” just doesn’t work for me, because you take away the emotional core of the show. SPN is a show built around the relationship of two brother, their story, naturally there are people that have broadened their horizon and that have come in and that are important for them, but Dabb and the way he has been juggling storylines is just dissatisfying on so many levels I don’t even know where to start. And yeah, I feel Dean has drawn the shortest stick during Dabb’s run, which is a shame because not only is Dean the POV character and narrator of the show, he is also it’s heart, the show simply wouldn’t work without Dean - and that is also why Dean will not be gone for long, because the show doesn’t work without a narrator and character through whom you watch and “feel” the show, which is Dean most of the time. Interestingly enough however, despite the fact that Dean is so important to the whole of SPN the character in itself is treated poorest under Dabb - but of course there could be tons of people arguing the opposite. It’s a question of taste and for me Dabb has destroyed pretty much everything that made SPN such a great show - though I will give him the benefit of the doubt with the Michael!Dean stuff, but to be perfectly honest my expectations and hopes are low and still I expected I will still feel let down.

As for Jensen’s acting range. WTF?! Has that person ever watched SPN and Jensen’s performance? If someone is able to deliver layered and nuanced play it is him and I am certain he could do so much more with Michael then they will go for in the end, because Jensen is a damn good actor.

Dabb has developed to be and to choose the most boring and obvious routes, yes. Though I feel that has been different in the past. I actually have loved a lot of his episodes prior him becoming showrunner. I mean, Reichenbach, The Prisoner, those are GREAT episodes - it often times feels now what he does now and wrote back then can’t possibly come from the same person. But then again I always feel about Dabb similarly as I felt about Sera Gamble (whose showrunning I much prefer to Dabb’s even though I disliked her style a great deal as well): Both of them have written some of my favourite episodes but they simply aren’t made to be showrunners. These things are two different animals altogether and just because you’re good in one department doesn’t mean you can deliver in the other.

And actually yes, I have to agree, I think Dabb takes himself to serious and has bought into the hype around him - and that’s never a good thing for anyone... So yeah, I am watching the beginning of S14 solely to see what Jensen is doing with Michael!Dean, but at the moment I doubt anything beyond that will excite me to actually watch the whole season (maybe I’ll always just watch the Winchester / Dean bits lol) - not after the disasters that were S12 and S13... But we’ll see maybe Dabb can unsink this ship with the new season, would take a whole lot of wood though to fix that gaping hole in it.. ;P

[lunaathorne]

My thoughts on the the first two Shatter Me novels + the little novella from Warner's POV

So I finally gave in and read this series. Everyone I know who's read this has either REALLY disliked it or REALLY loved it so....

Don't mean to be a hater but I find the writing of Shatter Me frankly ridiculous. I have read many Y/A series before, and most of them do use metaphors and descriptive prose, but this series takes metaphors to a whole new level of ridiculous. Just sample this:

"Hate looks like everybody else until it smiles. Until it spins around and lies with lips and teeth carved into semblance of something too passive to punch."

I.......ok, ok, some of y'all are probably going to find this one really deep. But I just couldn't get it, I'm sorry. What the actual flying fuck does this mean? Also these:

"Every organ in my body falls to the ground."

"There are 400 cotton balls caught in my windpipe."

"I always won­der about raindrops.I won­der about how they’re always falling down, trip­ping over their own feet, break­ing their legs and for­get­ting their para­chutes as they tum­ble right out of the sky toward an uncer­tain end.”

Just say what you WANT to say?? Listen I'm all for descriptions and imagery. I really am. But this seems like overambitious writing, which is begging to be made into artsy edits.

You want imaginative YET understandable writing? Read this:

"She remembered how her heart, so tight, like a scroll, had opened when Arin kissed her. It had unfurled. If her heart were truly a scroll, she could burn it. It would become a tunnel of flame, a handful of ash. The secrets she had written inside herself would be gone. No one would know..." (The Winner's Curse)

See? Neat, glass-bright imagery. You can visualise it immediately. It's deep but not faux pretentious. The relationship between the compared objects is carried across well. (Infact, The Winner's Trilogy is a masterclass on writing YA fiction. Shame it's not as hyped as other contemporary ya books in Tumblr.)

I was quite excited to read the new form of writing as I'd read in the reviews. I love reading books in the journal format or any creative away other than a simple narrative. For example I'd adored the presentation of the story in Everything, Everything. But here it's just plain annoying. Paragraphs wasted on hyperbolic verse. Description after description of eye colours and hair styles. Also why are random lines struck out even if it doesn't make sense?? What sort of ingenious disaster is this?

About the characters-

Juliette: I love Juliette. Yes she is rather extra and super depressed but she is also brave, resourceful, resilient, beautiful and compassionate. She is very kind, without being perfect. I like how much she suffers and still retains her softness and empathy. She's got some Padme Amidala vibes to her, though much more subdued and quieter. And I'm totally not being partial because we were born one day apart.

Adam: Oh boy. This dude has transcended every level of annoying possible. He is so bland, so absolutely dull in characterization and unappealing in every other way that it takes sheer Herculean effort to read the parts concerning him. Especially the romantic scenes with Juliette, God I needed eye and mind bleach after that line of her memorising his body with her lips. Egad.

Warner: I really liked him and his presence until I realised he was nineteen in the first book (I.... I am nineteen y'all) which made me laugh for twenty five minutes because suddenly he seemed cartoonish- a 19 year old Greek God with perfect cheekbones, who of course has implied OCD, is perfect in every way, who apparently strikes fear in the heart of a whole regiment of much older trained soldiers. I could believe in Kaz Brekker's upbringing and trauma and subsequent hardened self but Warner's was just....weirdly built, idk. He's a bit creepy. I still find him likeable enough, and he'll probably grow on me. I also like his dynamic with his evil dad, very Jaime/Tywin. (YEAH I KNOW HE'S GONNA END UP WITH JULIETTE IN THE END, idk how that's gonna work cause I'm not feeling them as a couple yet)

Kenji: I'll be honest, I felt like slapping Kenji throughout the first book but he became my favourite character in the next. Suddenly he is the most rational and useful and no nonsense character in the series. Sigh.

About the story- I have mixed feelings. The plot is quite interesting, definitely nowhere close to The Grisha Trilogy or SoC or Winner's Trilogy but still it has potential. It's like the accidental baby of The Hunger Games and Twilight, no kidding. The whole concept of mutant outcasts teaming up against a totalitarian government is done-to-death, but I do like Winston and Castle and the rest of the crew, let's see how they pull this off.

Is it a good series? Yeah, I guess. One of my favs? Umm, not yet. But it could be. Eventually.

[thenoirblogger]

Trouble Is My Business" Pictures

Front cover

Back cover

Spine

Two Blu-ray disc collection

"Trouble Is My Business" Copy

"Trouble Is My Business" Review (Posted on 06-30-2018)

Jennifer Montemar (Brittney Powell) and Roland Drake (Thomas Konkle)

What a lot of people don't realize is how much energy, creative effort, time and money are required to produce a movie/film. Being a video creator myself, it's a ton of work....but the final results are incredibly rewarding. Producing movies is a natural passion; It's an art; It's a visual form of storytelling, be it true or fictional. Ever wonder why these made-for-web projects are getting all the viewership and praise? Peek through the over-hyped movies marketed every 6 yoctoseconds, and you'll find that there are a chock full of independent, low-budget and under-recognized movies that the film industry *wishes* they made. Ladies and gentlemen of all ages, I present to you this: Trouble Is My Business.

The story is about a detective named Roland Drake, played by Thomas Konkle, whose sexy client Katherine Montemar asks for help in snatching a diamond—the Orlov Diamond—that belonged to her family. Along with detering the corrupt, mob-laden black market, Drake contacts those who may have connections as to where this may lead to while keeping innocent and anonymous. During his journey are a bunch of people intercepting his path trying to get him killed, like corrupt police officer Detective Tate, played by Vernon Wells. The movie overall gives off that classic film noir—the early days when the story and the dark life of gangsterism were the goings-on (still goes on today).

There's a bunch of things that go on in this movie that mentioning some parts are enough to ruin the entire thing. While, yes, movie/TV/video game reviews generally contain spoilers, it is a rare instance that a movie this good challenges us not to spill the beans too much. A mention of one or two things can ruin the next plot, but however, if you've watched enough gangster films, murder mysteries and/or the James Bond series, you'll find that this isn't just another movie in contrast to those titles. It's a story with sudden twists and hairpin turns, it'll drop your jaw. I was in awe at the transition from scene to scene.Roland Drake played by Thomas Konkle

"Well, I can't say no to a lady."

— Roland Drake

This is likely one of the classic lines in this movie—a modest detective reluctantly accepting the meeting with a beautiful woman needing his help. This happened twice to Mr. Drake with two women who happen to be sisters. I won't say anymore beyond that.

"I don't like a man with a sense of humor. I find it almost as unattractive as a woman with one."

— Evelyn Montemar

This made me smirk, but should inform you the kind of people—family—who are incredibly serious protecting prized possessions in the underworld. Gangsters do not have a sense of humor, since their operations involve not saying anything to where CIA or FBI could spot suspicious activity going on.

However, in my world above, women love men with a sense of humor and vice versa. Laughter is the best medicine, and is part of the universal language around the world.

"Just because you read accusations in the newspaper doesn't make them true."

— Jennifer Montemar

I feel this should tie to the skepticism people ought to adopt in the real world. Ever wonder why some news reports are served as "distractions?" Think about that.

Jennifer (Brittney Powell) and her mother Evelyn Montemar (Jordana Capra).

Roland Drake (Thomas Konkle) and Jennifer Montemar (Brittney Powell) in bed.

Bert The Cabble (Paul Hungerford) and police officer Ostrowski (Steve Olson).

Lew MacDonald (David Beeler).

As for the movie, you can tell the budget put into making this. It uses a lot of green screen, but remember, that this isn't focused on special effects compared to, say, space movies or scenes featuring explosions and flying (hello, Transformers, Star Wars and Superman fans). This movie is heavily focused on the story giving homage to the old, black & white movies when technology was so limited, movie producers worried more about the story and the acting. It's not like that today—promoting A-list actors to give low-rated movies some financial leverage. Give me a break....

The story overall is like a roller coaster ride: Once you're in it, buckle up because there'll be some surprising twists and turns. Just don't fall off the ride.

Blu-ray Disc Features review:

There's only two options on the Blu-ray menu: Play Movie and Play Trailer. There's no option for Scene Selections which may bother some Blu-ray fans. Whether you want that option or not, it gives the viewer a requirement to completely watch the film from start to finish, and there should be nothing wrong with that.

Trouble Is My Business Blu-ray menu - Black and White and Color

You may wonder why there are two discs: One for color and one for B&W. Why not put the same on one disc? I figured that they wanted to preserve the video quality putting them in separate discs. Putting two of them in one disc sacrifices the quality of the film which, as you know, will turn off a lot of movie/Blu-ray fans (let's not forget that a Blu-ray holds 25GB of data and a DVD only holds 4GB). The Black & White version of the movie gives that authentic mid-1900s feel, catering to those who dig the classic film library. As for the audio, there is no option on the Blu-ray as it is strictly 5.1 Surround. Majority of movie fans, depending on your audio system, prefer 5.1 audio anyway, but if you have a simple stereo system, it works just as well.

A movie specializing in detecting lives of crime finding truth in-between the lines while extracting secrets from a bunch of sketchy people and a family is what makes this a unique story-telling experience. I really want to talk about the film but, again, it'll spoil too much. It was so good we screened the film twice (perhaps again, after this review).

I want you, the viewer/fan, to enjoy the roller coaster ride this film brings especially when you arrive at the ending. The best way to describe it—I can't believe I'm doing this—I'll quote the bridge and chorus from the hit song "I Knew You Were Trouble" by Taylor Swift:

And he's long gone

When he's next to me

And I realize the blame is on me

'Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in

So shame on me now

Flew me to places I'd never been

So you put me down

— Lyrics from "I Knew You Were Trouble" by Taylor Swift

Enjoy that scene as it will raise eyebrows.

While this movie just released on Blu-ray as recent as this month of June (2018), some of you may have obtained this packaging:

Scanavo Blu-ray case packaging

I've personally never seen this packaging. From all the Blu-rays we own in our SHOWSOTROS! video library collection, this is a huge first. I thought it was an imitation but after doing research, this Blu-ray case is by a company brand Scanavo. I feel these cases are uncommon, but unveiling it on this review, expect studios and networks to invest and do business with them showing up more frequently at your local video and electronics stores. (Yeah, I was scared for a second fearing I got a pirated copy. You'd have to be a serious low life to still produce pirated copies in this modern age.)

It's been a long while, for me at least, to finally watch and enjoy something that grips you from start to finish. Now that we've brought this amazing piece into the spotlight, we'll likely see more of this story-telling style. Because of how much the story stacks up, it's good enough to turn into a TV series (you heard it from us first, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon and many of you TV writers/producers reading this). Actually, you know, turn this movie into a TV series because we'll definitely tune in.

This Blu-ray release is still hot, fresh and new. Grab your copy as we strongly recommend this movie!

Shop for more Blu-rays and DVDs like this at WBShop.com:

Official Shop of Warner Bros

© 2008-2019 written and reviewed personally by Kris Caballero.

"Trouble Is My Business" Ratings

Our Rating:

100% 0%

[sparda3g]

Tokyo Ghoul:re Chapter 169 Review

Just when you thought the two hyped fights were going to be skipped, Ishida actually delivers them and then some. It feels a bit surreal that we are witnessing the two feuds from the beginning of the series now being dealt with. While I can’t say for certain that it will all conclude in here since I don’t know the intention of Ishida’s writing at this time, but I don’t mind leave the thinking for another time. This chapter was great and intense from start to finish with two riveting fights and an insight of Clowns that I didn’t expect to learn here.

The chapter mostly focused on those two bouts that you came to expect. Our worries of being off-paneled are gone the moment the first clash begins. Before talking about the bouts, I want to cover the moment that happened in the middle of the chapter, which is mainly about setting up for the next confrontation. I assume that Ishida wants to get a head start with it, so there won’t be any need for introductory. I am referring to Furuta, now wearing a mask but no Rize in sight.

He is seen once again, somewhere in the underground of 19th Ward. The perplexing piece that I am not so sure if we are supposed to think deeply about is when he cursed out on Kanou for something. It’s not clear on why he said that as he was looking up at the giant Kagune. Was it because there was something that Kanou backstabbed him over that we don’t know of yet? He did want to break the cage so to speak, but after that, there’s nothing more to it as far as I am aware. Again, I don’t know if we are supposed to wonder.

What’s not to wonder is whether Kaneki will meet Furuta again, because that just happen here. I did chuckle at Furuta’s reaction towards him being alive. It is like, “Well, haven’t you seen his journey? You would be wondering many times before.” I can’t tell if he’s being a troll or not, but I believe it’s a good mix of two; genuinely surprised but perhaps not all that much. Fight or not, I am very interested to see how their confrontation will go down.

It’s clear that the main attraction of the two belongs to Uta versus Yomo, which dives deeper into the lore. In the meantime, Amon versus Donato does present another factor on the table. Let’s start off with that fight first. The fight so far has been engaging with a nice clever trick that Amon pulls off here as well as some of the creepiest tone done by Donato. The fight reminisces closely to a knight’s battle with the use of spear and shield. It boils down to the battle of smarts.

Amon shields himself from Donato’s Kagune, though I wonder if it’s because of that it led to the next attack of his. Amon launches his quinque right at him, supposedly blocked by his own shield. Then it takes a surprise turn, no pun intended, with Amon using his Ghoul side Ukaku Kagune to force the attack to penetrate deeper and surprisingly spear right through him. That was a clever play. The combination of two crated a critical hit; dare I say for massive damage.

I remember Nico always take the abuse from Jason back then, so it’s no surprise but alarming that he can heal Donato rapidly. It’s worth mentioning that Owl was weakened once he was hurt. It does confirm if he is weakened, so as the puppet that is Owl. Now it’s definitely up to Amon to save others.

Sadly, he was ambushed by Donato’s clones from behind. I got to say, he does live up to his creepy nature with his sadistic expression that really gives me chills. It certainly connects to his disturbing fascination with kids; God that’s horrifying. The chills only increased when Amon takes Kagune stabs from behind. I doubt he’s done; he may have to go to Kakuja to get the upper hand before it’s too late.

The main event of the chapter is between Uta and Yomo and it is enticing from start to finish. It took Yomo to let Uta roam free of his psychotic personality. He doesn’t waste time to attack with his Kagune at full force while Yomo shields himself with his electric ability. The force was too strong that eventually push away to the air, which leads to some of really cool aerial combat. Uta could have done a fatal blow, but Yomo is a legit strong fighter, so he’s good at timing. The mix of MMA and Kagune is an intriguing combat style.

Thankfully, both fight scenes are clean and easy to follow. One scans may look sort of choppy, but the other one does look solid and easy to follow. I like how much added details it has with the surrounding and their maneuvers. Only Amon versus Donato is done in the open field but again, it’s due to the nature of a knight’s battle, so it’s based on timing and smarts. With Yomo versus Uta, the combat is more agile and free roaming to different part of the roof. It’s like shifting from heavyweight to cruiserweight; one will be faster paced. It’s great.

To my surprise, I wasn’t expecting for Itori to be more on the sentimental side of herself here. Not that she wants to save Yomo, rather reflecting what the Clowns are driven by. It’s a mysterious group that you often read a different agenda behind them. The founder Roma founded it for the Ghouls to spread chaos out of amusement. Itori reflects a different side of their nature.

It’s practically a misfit group with many miserable Ghouls that can’t take the despair of living in a corrupted society. They cannot be loved by people; they cannot be loved by the world. It tainted them as cursed beings. Yomo’s misery and hardships cannot be compared to their misfortune because they actually gone through plenty of that and perhaps even more. You can say that their despair has already reached its peak for them and nothing could save them from the eternal abyss.

They are tired from despair and the only way they can get some feeling towards them is to create despair for others. It does explain the action Itori tried to cause with the Ghouls after witnessing Dragon terrorizing the city. From there on, they will put themselves onstage, cracking jokes, so they won’t have to go insane. Her words were well written yet disturbingly sad.

There was a story that goes by how a clown put an act to put a show for people to laugh, but it disguises their miserable hollow state. It’s disturbing to note when they caused chaos to others, their reaction shows so much life to them like that’s the way to live by. It gets to the point of insanity, which is ironic from her viewpoint. The Clowns is practically a cult that has many reasons to live under by. It’s hard to say if this is everyone’s agenda but it does picture them as terrifying that doesn’t have anything to lose. It’s no wonder the past clowns die without any cry or whimper; even Roma just go out with a farewell like it is all good. It’s great in writing perspective but creepy to know one can exist.

Yomo is trying to be the good guy in this bout with him stating that he doesn’t want to kill him or be killed by him. I remember how it wasn’t really known if Yomo does see him as a real friend, but this really got him to this predicament of letting out his feelings. It’s a real shame that Uta is a sociopath that only awakens his inner urges when dealing with Yomo. It does make me wonder what would happen if he were to kill Yomo here; where his amusement goes to next. It’s probably best to kill Uta before he can find a new joy elsewhere.

The chapter ends on a fearsome note with Uta going Kakuja; hell bent to devour Yomo after so long. The design is seriously good including how the tattoos are still presented in its upmost detailed form. It is fitting for his design to cover his face like how his persona tends to be portrayed. I also like the inserted quote from part one, “I cannot live with you and I cannot live without you;” the perfect illustration of this bout.  He was already winning the fight, but he decides to go all out right away. If Yomo doesn’t have a Kakuja, well he’s done for. Granted, he can try to play trickery like before with Mutsuki and Aura, but it’s going to be really difficult to overcome this magnitude.

I want to say this should close the case of Uta being the original One-Eyed King, but you never know. I would put on the side until he is dealt with. It’s hard to see where this is heading, similar feeling with chapter 144 once claimed to be the ending. It’s also hard to tell if Ishida is intending to end it here or we are being fooled in the process. He is no stranger to troll, so who is to say we are safe.

This was an enticing chapter with great action and more interesting points. Kaneki met Furuta, which can spark an intriguing discussion or compelling fight. Amon versus Donato was engaging in its own pacing and tone. Yomo versus Uta was exciting with their friendship on the line and it could only get worse. The artwork is great and although it may take a second read to understand the combat, it is riveting once acknowledge the pattern. The climatic pinpoint is now locked with their encounter and with the speculation of the next volume being the last one due to the release date lands on anime last episode premiere we are going to learn soon enough.

[bookwormguri]

I don’t normally do this, but I’m going to take a moment to gush about Re:Creators and why I think anyone who is a creator of art should watch it, while also not-so-subtly grumbling about the reception it’s gotten. I’ll try to remain as spoiler-free as possible.

First I want to talk about my grievances so it doesn't seem like I’m incapable of seeing the flaws of the series. Although, if you’ve read any reviews about it, nothing I say will be new info. 

Pacing: The biggest issue I had was with the pacing of the series. Unlike some, I don’t think the story could have been told in 12 or 13 episodes. Doing so would have made the large cast seem extremely unwieldy and would have sacrificed characterization. However, it seemed very obvious in the middle part that they struggled with pacing. 

For example, I practically marathoned the series, but when I saw the preview for the next episode was a hot springs episode I stopped watching for the night, convinced that an episode like that probably wouldn’t lend much to the plot (I was right). The hot springs episode was probably by far the largest annoyance, but there were many many scenes that could have been trimmed for fat. After Mamika left, almost any scene in the bad guy’s camp had me reaching for my phone to scroll through tumblr. Those scenes lacked depth after the moral compass Mamika was gone. They mostly amounted to getting a small glimpse of a new baddy and Altair brooding and being maniacal.

Altair’s Power: Which brings me to my second biggest gripe, Altair. I love her concept. The reason for her infinite power shows that the showrunners have their pulse to fandom. I know people harp on her because she’s basically a Hatsune Miku rip-off (which, if you’re pissy about characters in this show being similar to existing characters and franchises BOI do I have bad news for you about the entire concept of this show), but I don’t think that is where her weaknesses stem from. 

Part of Altair’s being is that she in infinite, almost god-like in her own right. In the universe of Re:Creators this powerset makes perfect sense and plays well into the big questions the show is asking. However, the showrunners need to remember for as meta as Re:Creators is, it is still a show. Having Altair being a walking Deus Ex Machina and coming up with a new power to perfectly counter the heroes every time is dull and gives zero constraints to her. Basically, I mean there wasn’t an ending I could see our heroes beating Altair with her infinite number of reality-bending scores. That unknown is nice for some people, but for me, it just made me afraid they were going to pull out some power of friendship bullshit at the eleventh hour.

Altair’s Motivations: I think I’m in a small camp, but I LOVE Altair’s dialogue. In the beginning, she seems like a very complicated character, the kind of wickedly smart villain that happens once in a blue moon, the kind that makes you go, “Well, they aren’t wrong, but they’re going about it all wrong.” Unfortunately, this part of her characterization gets severely played down in the second half. She turns more into a one-note villain that means nothing to defeat. In addition, since we see so much less of her in the second half it makes her resolution mean less imo (I say this and someone who cried the whole time). I adore her speech at the end. I think it was a nice callback to the line she had said only an episode or so earlier:

���Clever logic is a slave to emotion.”

And that’s what I think defines Altair as a character. She is someone who has so much despair and anger, but she justifies it with logic and simplicity. And in the end, it’s also what becomes her end. The problem is, we don’t get to see the illogical and emotional side of her often enough. Clever audience members can infer it, but this pivotal part of her character isn’t given the spotlight it needed to avoid the finale feeling OOC of her to most.

Now that we’ve gotten those out of the way, I’m free to gush and rant as much as I please! First I want to address some common critiques I’ve seen on the series:

Sota: One of the most common issues people bring up is the blandness of the “main character” Sota, or rather, the audience insert. I won’t say he is not that, but for vastly different reasons than I think others would slap that “warning” on him.

Many people are quick to label Re:Creators and reverse-isekai show. Again, I won’t argue with the genre label, but I do think that out of all the genres and themes within the series, isekai is actually pretty insignificant. Re:Creators at its core is not about “what would you do if anime characters came to the REAL WORLD,” moreover it is tackling questions about the essence of creation, media and our relation to it. So how does this relate to Sota?

I think Sota is often written off as just a “self-insert” character because that is a staple of the isekai genre, the genre that I propose is not actually that prevalent, I estimate the same with Sota. Sota is passive, yes, but he also has his own story arc and despite him saying that he is only the narrator, I think the story of Re:Creators is really all about his struggle as an artist, something I think many audience members can relate to, making him their insert. It’s not because he’s Kirito and is amazing at everything, but rather his struggles mirror our own, much more so than the larger-than-life Creations. 

(Also, I don’t stand for any BS about him being a Deus Ex Machina in the final battle. He followed Re:Creators inner world logic despite it being ‘cheating’. No foul.)

The scene in episode 9 with Sota and Magane is what I showed other people to get them into the show, to show this human character break down, hear some hard truths and get back up. Also, the fact that he was able to bring you-know-who back in the final battle shows that while he feels immense guilt, he doesn’t shy away from it. He could have very easily let his own guilt make him soften his final product, but no, he wanted something real and tangible, not something to make him feel better. To me, that shows his depth as a character.

This post here also encapsulated how I feel about Sota’s character.

Exposition: Another common critique I see is about the amount of dialogue and exposition in the series. Maybe it’s just the DM and lore-junkie in me, but I’ve never minded a lot of exposition and in Re:Creators I LOVED it. Even Meteor’s long-winded explanations. I liked them because the through them the show was promoting difficult questions, the kind that would have my old existentialism professor jumping with glee. I’ve debated sending him this series for his next film class actually, but I don’t want him to know I’m anime trash. 

I think a lot of people take issue with the exposition because of its often theoretical in nature. Naturally, the audience wants some payoff for these big ideas any rarely gets any. Unfortunately, that’s how philosophy rolls, yo. But if you’re someone like me who finds joy in pondering about multiple-world theory, film tropes and subversion and meta, this show scratches an itch you didn’t know you had.

I know that shows like this that don’t give you all the answers, that are subtle in the execution often get ragged on for their supposedly “poor writing,” often are snubbed, but that doesn’t make me appreciate them any less.

Now the things that I love unabashedly:

Music: Hiroyuki Sawano. Those no other reason I fucking need. Even though Aldanoah Zero turned out to be a big dumpster fire, you bet your ass I have the whole soundtrack on my iPod. Those OSTs are some of my main background music fodder for writing. There’s nothing quite like Sawano’s music that can convey hype with such a heroic and hopeful feeling

Theme: This is a story that touches on a lot of issues, artist block, feelings of inadequacy, working together creatively and above all, the power of imagination. I love that this series shows there is no shame in the real emotional connections we have when interacting with media. I also goes out of its way to show the power and value the audience brings to creations. It is a hopeful story that I think many of us can relate to.

I saw this line in another post, but I want to repeat it here; If you are a creator, an artist, a writer, a crafter, cosplayer, anything, this show is for you. It will show you how special and how important you are, how your contributions are valued and how you should continue to create despite hardships. It is a story that needed to be told, it is an important story. 

Thank you for reading my babble. Talk ReCre to me!

[serenagaywaterford]

Have you seen Amanda Brugel's last instagram post? I'm beginning to worry Serena doesn't survive the season

HEY ANON! SERIOUS QUESTION: ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK LOL?! Now, cue me frantically pouring over the post!

I’m curious. What makes you think that it’s ominous? It could be my wishful thinking, but nothing screamed out at me from it? Am I blind, lol? I mean, of course, there’s Ever waxing all FOMO over it, but that’s expected cos she’s not in the show all that much as it is. And the photo, if I’m reading Amanda right, is from S1. Is that why?

Maybe it’s wishful thinking but I don’t think they’ll kill off Serena–yet. Mainly, she’s one of the central characters, and certainly the central (human) antagonist to June specifically. (We all know the real villain is Gilead and male power. Fred is a secondary antagonist imo, and more like a stand-in for Gilead itself to make it easier to see the true evil.) There is a great deal of focus on her thus far, to develop her and weave her into a story that, if we’re all being real, the Waterfords should have been gone from already and certainly by the end of S2 but we know there’s going to be even more about both of them. And there is quite QUITE a lot of potential to move Serena across the “villainy spectrum” towards neutral or even true anti-hero without it being a deus ex machina/jump the shark sort of thing. And that sort of story is pure gold for a writer. It can be milked for a long time and works easily with drama, and the feminist themes of the show. I don’t want to say “redemption arc” cos that would require A LOT of work and I think most viewers are still stuck on 210 (once again–that was a HORRIBLE MISSTEP FOR THE CREATIVE TEAM the way it was written. I’ll say that forever because so many, many people missed the underlying point about it), but movement is possible.

Also, Miller seems to really enjoy the character/actress, and Yvonne’s got a LOT of hype on social media/critics circles. I think even if you hate Serena, you recognise how stellar Yvonne’s doing. Like, that’s why Serena is so hated (other than people not understanding Serena)–Yvonne plays her so exceptionally well.

I have NO idea what the contract situation is like, but I’d suspect she has a 5-year deal, like most. Quite frankly, the only reason I can see for killing Serena off is that Yvonne wants out, to be with her new baby. It must be dreadful to have a newborn and be working 6 months on such a dark, cold show about the oppression of women and horrible things about children. But she is a professional so we’ll see.

Or, I suppose, if they want SHOCK VALUE. Cos, who really expects Serena to die? I know a lot of vocal idiots online cream themselves over her dying a painful death and wish her horrible death constantly, but those are just loud online idiots – and if I’ve learnt anything from decades of fandom, it’s that showrunners rarely give a shit about those fans or take them seriously. They’ll pander to a degree, but they deep down don’t care. (Obvs there are exceptions but most showrunners and writers have a goal and view and it doesn’t change based on the whims of rabid fans on Twitter and Tumblr. There was a time in my life that I believed they cared. They do not, lol.)

But hey, this is complete wishful thinking cos she’s my babe and I don’t want THT without her. So I live in denial that they’ll kill her off. She’s honestly the most complex and second most developed character in the entire series. It would seem short-sighted to dump a character like that.

Honestly? I think it’s far more likely that Rita will leave the show than Serena, if we’re looking at Amanda & Yvonne. Which is a shame too cos she’s the only Canadian in the main cast and a good character. It all depends I suppose on the direction they go with the Resistance/Mayday and the Waterfords. Rita and Serena could BOTH go by the end of the season.

I’m gonna rant now about the characters that SHOULD go…

In terms of characters that have run their course, I vote for the main males. Both Fred and Nick are totally redundant to me now–and this has nothing to do with my dislike of Nick, I swear. Just on a narrative level, he no longer serves much purpose if we’re supposed to be watching a show about women fighting back against a repressive patriarchal fascist regime. (I don’t need some cutsey romance subplot, thanks. And I don’t think June requires it either, not when she’s on a mission to get HANNAH back and make to Canada to reunite with her HUSBAND and bff, all whilst saving ALL the children and women of Gilead. She’s got quite enough going on. The story is supposed to be less depressing this season so the argument that the N/J thing brings “lightness” and “hope” to a bleak story is also outdated too.) He’s just redundant. Served his purpose, and it was an important purpose, don’t get me wrong! I understand his very integral role especially in S1 but it’s just run its course, imo. I think even Nick stans seem to recognise this on some level cos they’re always terrified he’s going to be killed off almost every episode lol.

I may not care for Luke either, but he actually will remain important to the story, I think and I can’t see any good reason to get rid of him. He needs to remain alive. I think it would kill June to find out he’s dead.

Fred is just… a cartoon now and needs to go. How many more Evil TM things can he do? Yawn. We don’t need the personification of Gilead anymore I don’t think. We get it. Both Nick and Fred have dodged certain death now and it’s just like, OKAY, with June I get it cos she’s the protag, but them? Give me a break. Lazy. The only reason I don’t think they’ll kill off Nick is pure fanservice. I can’t see any rational reason other than that. Those LOUD fangirls will have a fucking meltdown. (I’ll say that when I speak to non-fandom people offline about the show, the vast majority don’t really care about the N*ck/June storyline nearly as much. Most people I’ve spoken with care much more about the larger issues–and it was crazy cos I was talking to a friend that I hadn’t seen in like 4 months about THT, and I know isn’t a fan of THT–like she watches it but isn’t in fandom. Just casual. And I brought up Serena (of course I did) but I was very critical of her, and she (who knows ZERO about my true feelings for Serena lol) was defensive of the character. It blew my mind cos she’s really not the type to defend problematic characters or villains. (I honestly thought she’d be a Nick fan, N/J fan, and Serena hater. But she’s a JUNE fan first and foremost, doesn’t really care for N/J but thought it was cute at the time, and doesn’t hate Serena.) She even brought up points that we Serena fans say, completely unprompted by me. So, I think in terms of casual fans, they’re a little more perceptive than the vocal majority of N*ck/June fangirls that dominate fandom. God, it’s such a relief to talk to offline people sometimes. By and large, they seem far more reasonable when it comes to this show and where the focus should be. (I should probably mention that almost all of the people I’ve spoken to about THT have been over the age of 25 (many over 30), which probably has something to do with it tbh.)

Both Fred and Nick are props for the female characters, and I think June and Serena are developed enough at this point to stand on their own without the need for either of those dudes. I don’t need men to help tell a story about women, thanks.

But again, I’m just some online voice. The producers and showrunners don’t give a shit what I think. They don’t even know I exist. And that’s probably a good thing (considering my obsession with having June/Serena fuck, lol. I’m gonna wager they don’t wanna see that.).

I’m just gonna pretend I am not now freaking out about Serena being killed off in S3. As much as I think it may be a terrible idea, I honestly don’t put it past this show…

[renegadeartist-100]

MP100 d&d headcanons

so i’ve talked to a few people about this and i’ve come to the conclusion that i’ve developed this Way Too Much and i’m (probably) never going to do anything with this so i might as well drop it here

Reigen

he’s the DM by default because he played an early edition when he was a kid and has the most background knowledge (he was never very good at it, but he Knows Enough to be a semi competent DM)

(that or he convinced them he’s the most qualified to DM despite never having played d&d before)

he writes the wildest fuckin campaigns and plays fast and loose with the rules, he embodies the 5e mentality of “can i do this thing?” “well you can certainly try”

(sometimes he’ll write campaigns based around cases he and mob have gone on, but shh don’t tell anyone)

he Always makes a self insert npc that’s Wildly Powerful and also super plot relevant so you can’t just get rid of him (Ritsu still tries his hardest to shake him regardless)

He does Voices and faces for Every Character and some of them are honest to god terrible but sometimes they’re not too bad

Is very good at adapting to the shit his players do but he’s somehow always surprised by everything that happens

Mob

He was convinced to play by Ritsu and Teru, not entirely sure what he’s doing but everyone else is having fun so he is too

I have two different ideas of what class/race combo he’d play, so i’m gonna detail both of them

Human protection style fighter 

on the off chance their party enters a fight he Never lets anyone take damage if he can help it

purposefully chose the most standard class and race combo he could

he puts As Many Points into strength as he can. all his other stats are shit but he really doesn’t care

Human wildmagic sorcerer

Ritsu convinced him to build this one

still puts all his points into strength despite everyone’s protests

(”Mo-mob, listen, that’s not- you can’t- you should focus on charisma, that’s the most useful for sorcerers, you’re never going to use those strength points” *mob looks them dead in the eye as he adds another ability point to strength*)

the story they talk about the most is the time they were fighting a boss and mob somehow managed to oneshot the boss with a fireball, only for his wildmagic to polymorph him into a cat immediately after

He uses prewritten backstories to start but they always turn into something More and uniquely mob by the end of the campaign

always tries to talk his way out of fighting

somehow he succeeds in convincing npcs not to fight 90% of the time even though his charisma score is Terrible

sometimes he’ll roll so well that an enemy will end up joining their party and Reigen is almost always baffled by this turn of events

He has ridiculously good luck when it comes to rolls

Ritsu

Teifling arcane ranger

his characters are always Very Edgy and never have alignments morally better than lawful neutral

their backstories are always thinly veiled allegories for his life

(no one really cares about backstories all that much besides Teru, so they’ll sometimes get together and develop backstories for their characters)

He takes RP Very Seriously and believes in the Purity Of The Genre, which means he and Reigen butt heads constantly

“You can’t have elevators! its a fantasy world!!!” “Ok, then it’s a fantasy elevator”

he’s the Paranoid Player, he takes checks on literally everything, even the things that obviously don’t need to have checks

“I roll an arcana check on that rabbit” “I-its just a rabbit?? You know what, go ahead.” “12″ “its just a normal rabbit” “...ok, but if i rolled higher would i-” “Ritsu i swear to god its just a normal rabbit its not going to kill you in your sleep”

Teru

Aasimar Paladin

he was literally Chosen By The Gods

he’s a paladin but since 5e took away the alignment restriction he’s a Very Shitty paladin

ironically he’s the most ruthless player and he’s the most powerful if only because mob doesn’t fight that much

he has proficiency at intimidation and persuasion and he Uses Them

tends to follow the rules religiously even when everyone else (even reigen) has decided to be a bit loose with the rules

He’s very good at seeing through Reigen’s plots and red herrings, and this often frustrates reigen and he’s accused Teru of looking at his notes many times

his luck is also pretty good but its not mob level

he cares A Lot about RPing and he has voices for every one of his characters and has drawn all of them and written extensive backstories for them

he was the one that suggested they all try and play d&d

Shou

I’m honestly not super sure about Shou but here we go

Dragonborn bard

reigen forced him to lower his height the first time he saw shou’s character sheet

he really doesn’t care that much about RPing but he tries to flirt w every npc, even if its an enemy and they’re in the middle of combat

(he fails almost every time and teru comes in afterwards and almost always succeeds in flirting w the npcs that just royally roasted Shou’s character)

has dumb meme backstories and dumb names that are almost always puns

He’s the player that’s like “I want to go to the fantasy costco to buy new adventuring gear”

the worst part is Reigen enables him because he’s very nearly just as bad

Bonus Serizawa

Firbolg druid

his spells are mainly useless in combat because he didn’t really understand which ones would actually be useful in a game of d&d

he’s still a pretty competent player, though his attacks are mainly just whacking things in the head with his staff

He has mad rp anxiety and has to hype himself up before every session

reigen is super patient w him as is everyone else so he’s slowly working through it

he also tries not to fight things super often but it usually doesn’t work

his dice are Cursed and he always gets super bad rolls or just barely passes a check (that or he literally gets a nat 20 there’s no in between)

Other things

someone absolutely tried to homebrew an esper class but they quickly realized that it’s Way Too OP

i don’t have a lot of things planned out for characters outside the main esper squad but tome is 100% a knowledge cleric looking for aliens

the party is just walkin down a road and tome is like “M A N it would be such a SHAME if we got RANDOMLY ABDUCTED RIGHT NOW”

dimple didn’t want to play at first but he heard reigen yell “IM THE DM IM BASICALLY YOUR GOD I MAKE THE RULES” once when he was Very Frustrated and now dimple Really Wants To DM

he barely knows what d&d stands for

They let him play one session then immediately banned him from the game because he somehow broke the game in 3 minutes, created a cult, and basically convinced everyone he was a god

[rieshon]

Spring 2018 Preview

I can’t believe a new season starts in a week already... heres the shows.

1. Comic Girls: KIRARA ANIME BOIS. Do I even need to say more than that? The girls look absolutely adorable, the animation looks on point, and although the director is a debutante he's being backed up by an impressive quartet of writers including Takahashi Natsuko, Yokote Michiko, Hanada Jukki and Machida Touko. Oh yeah, it's also got a bunch of hot channees in addition to the cute schoolgirls. You can't go wrong with this one.

2. Amanchu! ~Advance~: Satojun is back at it again with the silly hiragana subtitles for sequels. The masters of healing are back again for a sequel to what was one of my favorite shows of 2016. More Teko, more of that sexy Itou Shizuka-voiced teacher, and more relaxing feels. This is exactly what we need to fill the Yurucamp-shaped holes in our hearts.

3. Alice or Alice: There are a lot of things that make me excited about this show. Obviously the cast is one: Ayaneru plays the main character, and we got Natsunee and Oonishi in there too. The director is Kobayashi Kousuke, an alumnus of the Pretty Rhythm series who was very heavily involved in Pripara, which you may know is the best anime ever made. And then there's the aesthetic: everything from the character designs to the title logo make this look and feel like a harem anime from 15 or so years ago, which is absolutely my jam. Pretty hyped for this one.

4. Sword Art Online Alternative Gungale Online: One of the weirder things to happen over the past year-ish is that I've become an unabashed SAO fanboy. The shows are just good, y'all. So you can imagine how I feel about a new show set in the SAO universe written by the author of Kino no Tabi, a show I just put in my top five of the last year, and with characters by Kuroboshi Kouhaku (also of Kino) who is the utmost hotness right now. Hopefully this will be more than enough to tide us over while we wait for SAO3 to arrive.

5. Waka-Okami wa Shougakusei: This looks like a kids anime at first glance, and, well, it is. It's based on a series of popular children's books, but they've really gone all out with the production values based on the PVs (Madhouse producing) and it looks immensely charming. Some of the best anime are childrens' stories, so I'm quietly excited about this one.

6. Hinamatsuri: This is shaping up to be one of the weirder shows of the coming season, and it looks great. From the look of the PVs, feel. are going even more all-out than they usually do with the visuals, and it also looks genuinely funny. Plus it's got a cute loli. Should be good.

7. Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu Die Neue These: It's finally here. Obviously I've heard nothing but good things about the original series, but I'm never going to have the motivation to go back and watch something so old, long and difficult, so hopefully this new anime has got me covered. I'm sure there will be plenty of discourse about it; I just hope it's decent.

8. Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai: Somehow, we've still never gotten a sequel to the wonderful Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, but this show brings together the chief staff of that show for a new romantic comedy anime at Douga Koubou. With that pedigree (they even got the same guy who did the OP song for Nozaki) there's definitely reason to be optimistic about this one. Not to mention it's got cute gaijin girls and an imouto voiced by Inosuke.

9. PERSONA5 the Animation: I think I'm going to give up any ridiculous illusions I have of actually playing the game any time soon and just watch this. It's the only realistic way I'll get to see dat Kawakami-sensei and Takemi-sensei. You know I'm all about the channees right now, and man, does P5 have some good ass channees. The anime is actually being directed by Ishihama Masashi, the man who did Shinsekai Yori and literally hasn't done another TV anime since, so that's pretty exciting. Obviously, a lot Shinsekai Yori's success is because of the material adapted, but if you can make a masterpiece like that you've got to have some kind of talent.

10. Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii: CUTE CHANNEE ALERT WEEWOO WEEWOO WEEWOO. I'm all up ons this. Is there anything better than cute OLs? ...Man, things sure have changed around here. Also, that title is just mean when it's literally an anime about otaku having romances. SOME OF US OUT HERE ARE LONELY

11. Last Period -Owarinaki Rasen no Monogatari-: Has there been a good social game anime yet? I guess Schoolgirl Strikers was alright, in that I actually managed to finish that one, but most of these turn out to be bad. I hope Last Period can be the one to buck the trend and be truly good, because I love the silly light-fantasy tone that it looks like it's going for. Wisemen for best girls. There's tons of cute girls with great designs (the one thing you can always count on social games for) and it'd be a shame for them to go to waste like so many before them.

12. Hisone to Masotan: I got really excited when I saw this because it looked like a cute anime about fighter planes. Instead it looks like it's a cute anime about fighter... dragons. What a ripoff. I wanted the planes. My aviation-nerd pouting aside I'm sure it will still be adorable JSDF propaganda. I just really wanted the planes.

13. Golden Kamuy: It's some kind of weird serendipity that I'm studying the Ainu for school this semester and now we get an anime explicitly about the Ainu. Period anime are pretty cool (the Russo-Japanese War isn't a setting explored in much visual media at all), the premise sounds cool, and I really like the look of the Ainu girl. Plus, how often do we get Ainu culture actually presented in anime? Remains to be seen how well it's done, but it's pretty neat.

14. Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Aw yeah. If only Jug was around to see the horse girls. I have no reason to doubt that this will be great fun, especially since it has the financial backing of Cygames, who have more money than God. Just hopefully we don’t have to see any of the cute girls get put down after breaking a leg.

15. Lostorage conflated WIXOSS: Somehow the WIXOSS anime series is still going. selector is still one of my favorite shows in recent memory, but Lostorage was complete spaghetti compared to it, so there's nowhere to go from here but up, right? This new series promises to bring back the characters from selector, which gives me mixed feelings. I don't want them to just play off nostalgia for the old show, but I'm also kinda excited to see Yuzuki and Tama again. I guess we'll see what happens. Maybe a new director will shake things up for the better.

16. 3D Kanojo Real Girl: Man, who wants a 3D girlfriend? Can your real life girlfriend be considered 3D if you're living in a 2D world? This stuff always leaves me conflicted. I'm down for some Serizawa Yuu-voiced heroine, and the always-capable Akao Deko is writing the screen adaptation, so it might be good.

17. Mahou Shoujo Ore: Oh god. I'm pretty sure I saw clippings from the manga of this a while back. It's a mahou shoujo where the girls transform into buff dudes in magical girl outfits for some reason. It can't be a coincidence that the protagonist is named "Uno" and is voiced by Oohashi Ayaka. If this show is even half as amazing as Fantasista Doll it'll be a great success.

18. A.I.C.O. Incarnation: There are a few Netflix-funded series this season but most of them don't look especially interesting. This one looks alright, but it's using the stupid Netflix bulk release model so I guess I'm waiting until April to start it despite all the episodes being out already. It looks like it could be a cool science fiction show, and I like the Naruko Hanaharu character designs.

19. LOST SONG: So this is that Suzuki Konomi promotional vehicle... From the PV, it doesn't look great, but I am a big fan of Konomin's singing so I guess I'll have to check out at least an episode. I just doubt her ability to act as well as she can sing.

20. Caligula: Strangely, this show does not seem to be about the son of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder who ruled as Roman emperor from 37 to 41. I actually have no idea what it's about. Something about idols. But some of the character designs look pretty good, especially that blonde channee, so it's a maybe from me.

21. High School DxD HERO: It's baaaack. The show I watched three seasons of for Ayaneru that gave me almost no Ayaneru is back to continue to refuse to give me Ayaneru, probably. But hey, I like channees now anyway, so I may as well keep watching out of tradition if nothing else. I just hope Gaspar is like, actually in it this time...

22. Omae wa Mada Gunma wo Shiranai: This is an anime to promote Gunma... I guess? It definitely doesn't look like your typical local promotion anime... Apparently Gunma is a totalitarian state in this world. The green-haired girl played by Ucchii looks pretty good so I'll check it out.

23. Akkun to Kanojo: SUPER tsundere love comedy? Even regular tsundere is good. Unfortunately it's the dude who is tsundere in this one which isn't the thing I want. But the girls still look pretty cute so I'll definitely be giving it a look.

24. Mahou Shoujo Site: Uh oh, it's dark magical girls. There's nothing wrong with the concept per se but works like this often end up being grimdark for grimdark's sake (see: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku) so it makes me worried. This one looks like someone tried to mix Madoka and Jigoku Shoujo. It should be good for a laugh if nothing else.

25. Kiratto Puri Chan: Well, here we are. This is what they killed Pripara for. So who did they get to succeed the comedic savant Moriwaki Makoto? Well, it's a guy without a whole lot of directorial experience: Hiroshi Ikehata. What he has directed have been some incredibly charming shows, including the underrated Akiba's Trip anime and Sore ga Seiyuu. The main writing credit goes to Hyoudou Kazuho, who has worked with Hiroshi on all of his directorial projects but doesn't have any especially interesting work to his name. The biggest chance this has to be even marginally worthy as a successor to Pripara is if they continue to draw on the extended family of Pretty series creators, like Pripara did to a large extent. With Moriwaki's steady hand removed, I don't have high hopes, but if they killed Pripara for a show that's not even decent I am going to be upset.

26. Aikatsu Friends!: So Stars is ending and a new generation of Aikatsu is here as well. I can't let this pass unnoticed because Kido-chan is pegged to be one of the new Aikatsu leads and I'm always thirsty for new Kido-chan anime. I didn't really like Stars, so I hope this new one is more on the silly side, like joji anime really should be.

27. Cutie Honey Universe: Rember Cutie Honey? I mean, I don't, but a lot of people do. Apparently it's the 50th anniversary of Nagai Gou's venerable battle girl series, so they're doing a revival of it. I really dig the neo-retro art style going on here, and the cast is absolutely star-studded (our current darling, Kurosawa Tomoyo, is included among the likes of Hanazawa Kana, Tamura Yukari, Horie Yui and Kugimiya Rie) so I just might check it out.

28. Steins;Gate Zero: I really don't know if I want to watch this. Steins;Gate wasn't the worst of the semicolon anime; in fact, the first half of the series was greatly enjoyable, but I don't think I need to retread the infamous "shooting of the moeblob" that led to the godawful second half. It's got Christina, I guess. I just really don't know if I can subject myself to Okabe again.

29. Megalobox: This looks technically amazing, I just don't know if I'm interested in it. Will probably wait to hear other people's opinions before I check it out, if I ever do.

30. Gegege no Kitarou: I don't think I'll actually watch this, but the latest version of the classic children's anime has been getting some attention because the character designs for the female characters are, how you say, Extremely Good. They're definitely good enough that I'm tempted to check it out. Dat Nekomusume...

31. Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory: It really happened. I'm including this as the highest-profile show I definitely won't be watching. I haven't seen any of the other FMP anime, so it would be stupid to try and jump in here. The subtitle being abbreviated "IV" (for season 4) is very cute though.

I don’t know how to rank shorts so heres those:

Tachibanakan To Lie Anguru: It's time for another Yuri Hime anime! All you need to know about how hype I am for this show is the tagline: 'The harem manga protagonist is a girl!?' Tsuda Minami is once again going to have to be hard gay, this time with five different girls apparently. I'm especially looking forward to the Mikakoshi-voiced blonde. Unfortunately, being a Creators in Pack anime, it's a short...

Fumikiri Jikan: This is a five minute anime but I absolutely love the premise: girls wait at a train crossing. That's it. You gotta love manga and anime sometimes.

[kitsunesbooks]

Overwatch's Story is a Complete Mess!

Overwatch is a game I have grown incredibly fond of. It has been one of my preferred time wasters, at least before I bought DOOM. But no matter how long I’m from the game, it is always going to be a game that I can come back to. Overwatch is a game that features a wide variety of playable characters each with their own fleshed out personality that makes each one lovable in their own way. But that is where the quality of the writing for Overwatch stops. I for one, have never been a fan of Blizzard, but I can still acknowledge that Overwatch is a fantastic game, and the only one I actually enjoy playing. But there is little to no story to be found here and what little there is isn’t worth sticking around for.

So when Overwatch was being developed, somewhere down the line the decision was made to exclude story from the game and instead feature it in a variety of other media forms. This has one major advantage, being that this allows the development team to focus solely on gameplay balancing as well as developing additional content for the game. But it is painfully obvious that Blizzard has no real intention to focus on the plot of Overwatch. The story is almost a complete afterthought. Despite the fact that, before release, a lot of care was put into the backstories of the heroes and the world Overwatch takes place in. Yet, we see none of that interesting lore take root in the game.

One of the biggest issues with Overwatch as a story is how thinly it’s spread. The story is primarily told through comics and animated shorts, which ultimately do nothing to further the plot. In both of these mediums, there absolutely zero continuity. The comics started off by giving us some more on the back story on our heroes. For the first few issues, this trend stayed strong. We got some very well written comics that gave a more detailed look at who our heroes were. But then, it stopped. We barely even put a dent in the extensive roster of heroes before going off and doing random stories themed around in game holiday events. Both of the holiday comics had absolutely no bearing on the plot whatsoever and to make matters worse, next issue is going to be based around the Chinese New Year event. Where is the plot progression!? Where are the detailed backstories I enjoyed reading!? I enjoy a little fan service as much as the next person, and I love seeing our characters in casual, slice of life settings. But haven’t we gone a bit long without a new backstory comic?

This brings us to the middle of the road. Somewhere down the line, Blizzard decided to scrap the origin comics in favor of the Origin Story videos. Which is strange, because they gave Ana’s story a ton of love with one of these Origin Story videos and two whole comics. But Sombra didn’t get a comic at all, instead she got a minuscule origin video that gave us practically nothing to go off of. It was not a fleshed out background story. The only thing that video served to do was give us a little tease at a possible “bigger bad” that is behind all of the events currently going on in the story. To make matters even worse, they held onto these bare bones story details instead of putting some of the useless stuff featured in the Origin Story video into the Sombra ARG. The Sombra ARG was a poorly planned mess that almost everyone grew completely impatient with after several months. Not once but two or three times were we forced to wait with overhyped expectations for timed reveal, only to get nothing. Code breakers were scrambling frantically to solve the ARG, but ultimately it gave us LITERALLY NOTHING! The entire ARG was nothing but a waste of our time. They could have gradually revealed details of Sombra’s story by setting up an almost detective like breadcrumb trail for us to follow. They could have given us hints as to how Sombra would play, or what she would look like. Instead we got even more vague “story” involving Sombra’s plan to shut down the Lumerico power plant in the Dorado map, featured in game. But this entire ARG has no actual weight on anything going on in Overwatch’s lore. Just what the hell was the point of the ARG!?

Thus we come to the Animated Shorts. And for sake of argument I will be including the Cinematic Trailer as well. Even though the Cinematic Trailer is very well done, most of these shorts are a whole heap of bad writing. I’ve seen a video from Geoff Thew (Mother’s Basement) talking about how poorly the shorts were in the cinematography department, but the writing does the shorts even more injustice to the game���s story. Too many questions were left unanswered in the Sombra short, and ultimately they may never be answered because LORD KNOWS when another Animated Short will drop. Plus, given the trend of how these shorts have absolutely no continuity, and the possibility of the next short being related to Doom Fist, it is almost EXTREMELY unlikely we will get answers to why Volskaya is cooperating with Omnics, why is Sombra a double agent for Talon, what the hell is Talon planning, and of course, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT DAMN CHART MEAN!? (You know exactly what I am talking about.)

Blizzard has a problem with drip feeding stories, but this isn’t drip feeding anymore. This is like letting the tap open every few months. While these shorts and comics drop small hints of what COULD be going on in the world of Overwatch, we RARELY get anything concrete. Hell, story is even dripped into the game through passive conversations between heroes before a match starts. But there is NOTHING CONCRETE. Almost all of this lore is designed just to keep the hype train going and the bizarre and almost completely unsound theories coming in. Blizzard needs to hire some real writers to come in and start making sense of this massive web of miniscule details. I honestly have lost interest in the story of Overwatch, purely because Blizzard has no desire to deliver a concise narrative with continuity and instead just want to hold the internet hostage with clickbait analysis of their lore. Overwatch fails to keep in mind the basics of storytelling. Instead of having a beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion, Overwatch seems forever stuck in a slow moving rising action. With nothing concrete appearing in any of the lore content and nothing tying us to the characters outside of their personalities, it is almost impossible to be invested in this slow ascension to an invisible climax. This is especially true when our beginning is just as vague and enigmatic.

I think the biggest problem with Blizzard’s amazing FPS title is that despite how cool some of the backstories are, I don’t think that Blizzard will ever invest the time and money into making full fledged stories out of them. We will never get to see the prime of Overwatch’s career. We will never get see Lena Oxten struggle with her own existence. We will never get to be on the edge of our seats watching the battle for the Siberian Front unfold. There are so many things that happened in the Omnic Crisis that we may never ever see. But, Blizzard sure doesn’t mind giving us a small look. Blizzard has no idea how to tell a story and its apparent. Their idea of storytelling is whatever keeps the headlines coming in and it's a damn shame.

Stay Frosty, Adam Schmidt