#And built up a whole bunch of hype

[mintandcreme]

:)

[thethronezone]

Primarchs at the birth of their child

Mortation keeps trying to tell the midwives how to do their job. He's not doing it to be a dick but he really comes of that way. He's wearing those plastic shoe covers.

Fulgrim has the balloons, he's got the confetti cannon ready, he's documenting the whole thing. Probably has an artist in the room, making a commemorative painting.

Angron is pacing around the room and glaring at the midwives, freaking them out. Has to be escorted out so they can do their jobs in peace. Still pacing outside the room.

Magnus is so fascinated by the process that he almost forgets to comfort the mother of his child. Spouts a bunch of random fact about pregnancies, childbirth and the human body to distract them from the pain.

Konrad is freaking the midwives out but they are too scared to ask him to leave. He's not even trying to be scary for once, he's just super focused on the delivery and can't look away. He hasn't blinked even once in twenty minutes. One of the midwives are crying.

Lorgar won't stop yapping. Oh what a glorious moment! Praise God! Another member for his flock to guide! Asks if he can save the umbilical cord and the afterbirth. For religious purposes. Lorgar, you fucking freak, no.

Perturabo keeps complaining the whole time. Why is it taking so long? Are the midwives sure they know what they are doing? The room is not big enough. Grumbles when the midwives throw him out.

Horus brought the entire Luna Wolves legion with him, they are all waiting in the hallway right outside the delivery room. He's filming the whole thing, providing commentary like it's a sport event.

Alpharius is there. Omegon is also there, disguised as a doctor. In fact, every midwife just might be an Alpha Legionnaire. They are all pretending everything is normal.

Sanguinius is acting like he's the one giving birth. He's crying so much. He's just- he's just so darn happy. The midwives don't have the heart to tell him to calm down. Is getting weirdly hungry?

Vulkan is yet another one that has to be escorted out of the delivery room. He was just too damn cheerful and kept interrupting the midwives by telling them how happy he was and that he's so excited to be a father. Like bro, they get it, but stop shaking their hands.

Jaghatai is right there, holding the hand of the mother to his soon-to-be born child. His leg is also vibrating at the speed of sound. He's so damn hyped but keeps calm so he won't be thrown out.

Dorn is unhappy because the birth is not taking place at the hyper secure, secret bunker he built for just this moment. He's barricading the room for "security reasons". Was asked to leave but straight up just said "no" and they couldn't do anything about it.

Leman is another Primarch that brought his entire legion with him. He was also promptly shoved out of the delivery room cause he kept getting in the way of the midwives. Stands outside the door, whining, wanting to be let back in.

Lion just stands in the corner, unmoving, barely saying anything except every now and then when he tells the midwives to work faster. Is internally freaking out about the whole thing.

Roboute falls asleep in a chair, covered by the baby blanket, and only wakes up when the delivery is well under way and almost done. Please forgive him, he ain't gotten a good night's sleep in years.

Corvus is also freaking out, though compared to Lion, is much more vocal about it. He's already convinced he's going to be an awful dad and that the child will hate him. Corvus, please, chill.

Ferrus is trying to distract himself from the fact he's about to be a father by focusing on the tools and the scientific aspect of it all. He is also freaking out but refuses to show it.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

arcane s2 - review

okay so now that i have given my two cents on caitvi and i've had enough time to digest s2 of arcane, what do i think about the rest of it?

overall, i have mixed feelings about it. i didn't hate it but i feel like a lot of the themes and ideas were poorly executed, especially compared to s1.

(huge spoilers to arcane below!)

but let me start with the positives:

the animation OBVIOUSLY. huge props to the animators, s1 was already phenomenonal and s2 lived up to the hype, animation-wise. the fight scenes especially were just *mwah* chef's kiss.

the character designs were great. caitlyn looks a lot prettier with the middle parting. vi's emo phase is really hot. jinx's designs in the alternate universe and the finale were iconic. jayce's beard and disheveled look was just chef's kiss. jesus viktor was hot as fuck.

the voice actors did an amazing job obviously, and i didn't expect anything less from them.

jayce's and viktor's relationship was so good despite not having all that much screentime when you think about it. they interact in the beginning when viktor wakes up from his hex-coma and then reunite and fight and make up in the final few episodes. but because of their relationship that was built up in the first season, it all worked out smoothly and made for a very natural progression in their relationship.

jinx's redemption was pretty good. not the BEST but it was carried out well enough, especially in just 9 episodes. i didn't feel like it was rushed or undeserved. her sacrifice in the end was heartbreaking but it felt natural and not shoehorned in for some added angst.

and now for the negatives:

1. the pacing was really bad, in my opinion. they had only 9 episodes but they stuffed in so many subplots into this season that it felt overwhelming.

maybe i'm just stupid but i couldn't keep up with half of the stuff that was going on and some parts of the finale didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

like the whole storyline with mel and ambessa and the black rose was a blur to me. i honestly don't know what happened in the end after ambessa dies.

the whole deal with singed and vander and whatnot was also really murky. like i get the overall premise but it was really hard for me to grasp every single detail.

maybe this is just a me problem and i'm too dumb to follow more than two storylines at the same time. but s1 already had a lot going on and it was still a tad bit easier to follow.

s2 was just crammed with a whole bunch of different characters pursuing different goals and facing different obstacles, 9 episodes weren't enough to give all of it a satisfying conclusion. and as a result, some of the arcs felt rushed and unfinished.

like what happened to the whole found family thing with sevika, jinx and isha? they were beginning to get closer and form a good relationship but then suddenly, sevika is pushed out of the image and we never see how she reacts to jinx and isha's death.

2. while i don't think that caitvi is abusive, i still don't think the ship was great. it was just super rushed and there is a grain of truth to what caitvi antis are saying.

like yeah, caitlyn being an enforcer and seeing nothing wrong with it was.. questionable. wasn't the whole point of s1 that enforcers were ruining the lives of the people in zaun? wasn't police brutality and classism the main theme of this series? how come vi's parents were killed by enforcers and she was unfairly imprisoned for years by enforcers, but somehow she ends up dating an enforcer?

before s2 came out, i expected caitlyn to give up her job after realizing how corrupt it was. i thought that would be the natural progression of her arc, especially since she's seen how much the people of the undercity has suffered at the hands of enforcers. but nope, she keeps her job and it's never addressed in the end.

i don't think that caitlyn hitting vi once out of frustration and once out of necessity makes her a domestic abuser. but i do think it's kind of icky for vi to end up in a relationship with an enforcer, and for the show to frame it in a semi-positive manner. it's not entirely romanticized but the problems with it aren't really addressed either.

3. i feel like the themes of classism wasn't as well addressed in this season as it was in the first one. the first season had a strong message and it stuck to it. the second season was all over the place and then suddenly, there's viktor and the whole glorious evolution or whatever, and the conflict between piltover and zaun is pushed aside.

i like that sevika becomes part of the council in the end but is she the only one representing the undercity? is one person enough to speak for all these people in zaun? at least it's true to real life, i guess.

overall, i felt like the message was a lot more murky in this season. this ties to my first complaint because while s1 had a lot of storylines too, they followed a common theme. war, classism, and how privilege and the lack thereof affects people. s2's storylines are just all over the place and none of them seem to follow a theme. at least some of them could have been discarded.

4. i briefly mentioned this before but the fact that jinx stops experiencing her hallucinations never made sense to me. especially after she accidentally killed silco, shouldn't they get worse? it is implied that she has schizophrenia and c-ptsd so i really don't understand how silco's death suddenly got rid of most of her symptoms.

she still sees and hears the hallucinations from time to time and her mental state is definitely far from stable, but it was still such a huge jump from her psychotic breakdown in the s1 finale.

so yeah, these are my thoughts about arcane s2. there were more pros than cons but the cons still outweigh the pros, simply because of how much impact they had on the plot.

i'm generally not one to demand more seasons or episodes out of a series where the writers have already told the story they wanted to tell, but arcane s2 was so rushed and so filled to the brim with different characters and storylines, i couldn't help but feel like it would have benefited from having more episodes to play everything out more slowly.

i still liked this series a lot and i enjoyed watching it, but i'm not blind to its flaws and i try not to be biased.

[whentherewerebicycles]

a complete list of things women can do in the universe of christopher nolan's oppenheimer

be sultry and depressed

correct oppenheimer for misquoting marx

be one-upped by oppenheimer because actually he read das kapital in the original german. sorry you're so dumb lol

tell oppenheimer he needs to get laid

refuse to believe he can read sanskrit

challenge him to read sanksrit during sex

seem unimpressed by him reading sanskrit during sex

sit in a class with a bunch of physics dudes

tell oppenheimer you're too silly and ordinary to understand quantum physics but could he explain it to you in very small words

drink martinis

be married many times, but nobody gets you like oppenheimer

drink more martinis

ride horses in the desert

cheat on your husband with oppenheimer. nobody gets you like oppenheimer

babytrap oppenheimer

have psychological problems

have an affair with oppenheimer

cast a sulky, baleful gaze at oppenheimer's wife while having sex with oppenheimer in an interrogation room in a scene so hilariously bad i had to excuse myself from the theater to laugh and write down a funny note about it to myself on my phone

get drunk in the dark while the baby screams

ask your husband (oppenheimer) to get rid of the baby. just take him somewhere. just give him to someone else

yell at oppenheimer for putting country over pussy. who does this great man think he is

ask where the martinis are

tell oppenheimer that nobody else can do this nobody else in this whole wild world he is the Only Man for the Moment. hype him up girl he’s gotta build that bomb

move to the middle of nowhere for your husband's job

point out that none of the men thought to add a kitchen to the houses they built. a woman needs a kitchen

be pregnant

type

kill yourself

have another martini

damage your reproductive organs by handling radioactive material

put up the sheets

bring in the sheets

wreck oppenheimer's career by being a communist

throw a glass at a wall and scream because your idiot husband oppenheimer won't admit that his boss shanked him politically

snark at the guy interrogating your husband but in a kind of confusing way that achieves nothing. you did your absolute best with that scene emily you were not given much to work with i do not lay the blame at your door

not shake a man's hand

it's happy hour somewhere girl. treat yourself to a martini

[outivv]

I’m so disappointed with the natlan teaser because like. Girl. All of those characters would straight up look better if they had even the tiniest bit of melanin don’t even lie hyv.

I’m gonna go on a fat rant here so below the cut, fair warning because it’s messy as fuck I’m just pissed off

No because how are you going to straight up take the inspirations, and clear liberties from Aztec, Māori, Qichwa, Nigerian, Hawaiian, Native American, And Mayan (according to this image from @ HYVboycott on Twitter highly recommend btw they have good info imo)

And then you’re not gonna represent them in terms of their skin color??? Yes there are pale people in all these countries and pale people apart of these cultures, HOWEVER the vast majority of people, or the native people are not typically fucking white. I am white and I literally am darker than the majority of the genshin characters, even in winter when I don’t fucking tan. Like the genshin characters don’t even look ALIVE for Christ’s sake. Hyv are a bunch of cowards who take inspiration from poc, and don’t properly represent them, even in their other games like honkai Star rail. Boothill is Native American. Blatantly. “Oh, no he’s not!!” Yes the fuck he is, his entire backstory is based off of native people, he’s also part Hispanic because the original cowboys were Hispanic people called vaqueros, his home planet in the original CN version of honkai Star rail is literally two native tribes put together I believe. He is Native American, and Hispanic, and hyv TOOK that inspiration and that culture and then was too much of a coward to AT LEAST make him tan. Don’t even get me started on aventurine. So it’s not just with genshin that they do this shit, it’s a hyv problem as a whole, but with genshin it’s so like… common, and genshin has so many issues that make it feel like a cash-grab kinda game, and like the devs are just spitting in our face CONSTANTLY, especially when it comes to characters, and representation. It’s so depressing to see a game that at first had so much fucking promise, now just be such a fucking letdown after like what? 5? 4? Years? Like you’ve built up so much hype, and lore, and excitement just for Sumeru and Natlan not having any representation like fuck off. Hyv CAN fix these issues, they just don’t want to and they have expressed that time and time again by making dark skinned enemies, and enemies with dreadlocks. They know that they can, they just don’t want to because they’re too pussy. And it’s not because they’re a Chinese company, I mean obviously I understand that there is a complicated relationship with tan skin and China, HOWEVER that is no excuse because genshin, honkai Star rail, zenless zone zero, and honkai impact 3rd are all worldwide games and they need to appeal to their WORLDWIDE customers, and I’ve seen plenty of CN players fucking just as pissed off that there isn’t any actual diversity for like any of their games. Plus other Chinese companies have made diverse games, like Dislyte which I’m honestly a huge fucking fan of because of their diversity. Having diversity would BENEFIT hoyoverse a hell of a lot, but they are just trying to appeal to greasy old white men who are the same men who have a tantrum while making a reaction video to a game trailer and go “OH MY GOD SHE ISNT GOT ENOUGH!! LOOK AT HER!! SHE ISNT SEXY!!”, “OH MY GODDD THEY HAVE PRONOUNS NOW!! THE WOKE SNOWFLAKES GOT TO THEM”, and “OH MY GOD ASSASSINS CREED IS MAKING A BLACK SAMURAI THE MAIN CHARACTER!! NOOOO THATS NOT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!!” Because they’re all pathetic, and that’s who hoyoverse is trying to cater to.

Okay I’m done, this went all over the place but I’m so pissed off so fuck hyv, give them the feedback they deserve, have a great day.

[theinstagrahame]

It's a bad day, and I've been dragging my heels on this. But, I got a bunch of neat new TTRPG stuff in October, so here's what landed in my mailbox.

Break!! - A few years ago, I stumbled on some art on Twitter. It was fun, it was vibrant, and it felt inviting. I wanted to know more, looked into the artist, and discovered it was spot art for an upcoming RPG called Break!! So, I kept an eye on it. The book is beautiful, well laid-out, and really cool, so maybe one good thing came from Twitter*.

The Electric State - Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood have been pretty high on my "To Play" lists for years. A follow-up, set in a similar (or the same?) world was kind of an instant pickup. Not as interested in the movie, but the game seems pretty rad.

The Geologist's Primer - I picked up the Herbalist's Primer when it came out, and was really impressed with the quality and care that went into it, so when I saw "That but for rocks" was in the works, I was definitely already in. Also excited for the follow up "Mushrooms next time".

Starkhollow Hall - I accidentally fell into a Gothic Fiction kick over Spooky Month, so the timing of this was perfect. I don't know a ton about the GUMSHOE system, but I do feel like what I know about it makes it a perfect fit for the genre. Gothic heroines (and I guess heroes) are at their best when they know there's a dangerous mystery at the heart of what's happening around them, and go looking for it anyway.

Forsaken - Kyle Tam is, honestly, a designer to watch. I picked this up because it was part of an Afterthought Committee project, which is a team I've also really enjoyed work from (my game Water Landing is built off of their game Cast Away). Does a better job of establishing a sort of grimdark/Soulsbourne vibe than some stuff that explicitly tries to.

Iron Edda Reforged - The pitch for this caught me immediately: Cyberpunk Norse Mythology. Tracy Barnett is another Designer to Watch, and I really like all of their stuff--haven't played the original Iron Edda, but have heard it on Party of One and really dug it. Was really hyped to see this come into being.

Electrum Archive v2 - I went through a Weird Sci-Fi phase this year, and the original Electrum Archive was an early pick for it. I really loved the world, the way each class worked differently, and the magic/currency/MacGuffin that it used. Obviously I wanted more, because the second book is here.

Alice is Missing - Silent Falls - My friends and I have been talking about the prospect of another Alice is Missing game since playing the first one about two years ago. It was a really memorable experience, partly due to the game's really compelling design, and to some of the in-moment decisions we made (I played the facilitator character, who starts the game having returned after a long absence, and another player immediately got pissed at them for sorta abandoning the group. it created an interesting play dynamic for the whole session)

Kill Him Faster - I picked up a previous Kovidae Games book as a lark: a collection of exercise-based RPGs. I nearly ignored their other stuff, but this had a pretty compelling pitch: What if time-travel was invented mostly so people could speedrun murdering Hitler. Since Eat the Reich came out, I've thought a bit about Hitler Revenge Fantasy as a genre, and honestly, I'm kinda into it. He was a loser, and deserves to be reduced to a video game villain and killed over and over again; so, yeah. Let's kill him faster next time.

Splat (issue 5) - I'm not usually one for essays and interviews, but this is a zine featuring and by some folks I really like and respect, and this one is packed with thoughts about the state of the indie TTRPG scene and industry from a diverse and immensely talented group. It's honestly a must-read.

(Already getting a few things for the next edition, but also feeling too garbage after the Clusterfuck Election to think about doing anything else today...)

---

footnote: * Technically, two good things came from Twitter. I also once expressed sorrow that I'd missed out on a limited T-shirt from a web comic artist that said "Sorry, Glenn, the only Beck I listen to has two turntables and a microphone", and the creator saw it and had an extra in my size.

[stillness-in-green]

Finding Fascism in My Hero Academia (3/4)

Part 3 is now publicly viewable to non-members, with Part 4 (the final and longest part) now available for paid members. Part 3 excerpts below the cut! This week they represent a particularly small part of the whole, which is close to 8000 words.

Points in this section: intellectually dishonest rhetoric about one's enemies and the effect this has on one's wartime efficacy, Peace Is Never An Option, contempt for the weak (read as: everyone beneath you in the hierarchy), and the cult of the death-seeking hero.

Point 8: Enemies are simultaneously strong and weak.

Primarily manifests as hyping up the ostentatious wealth, force and/or influence of the enemy while also convincing followers that the enemy is weak enough to be defeated.  Eco—who is a bit vague here, frankly, not providing any specific ways in which Ur-Fascism characterizes its enemies’ weakness—notes that the followers being made to feel humiliated is an important factor; I take this to imply a narrative that convinces followers that they are being perceived as less-than, that their enemies are looking down on them for their comparative (and/or alleged) simplicity, sobriety, or lesser reach.  The dichotomy, in any case, is a mindset that leads to difficulty in wars because of an inability to objectively assess the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses.

Meta-Narrative: (...) It’s hard to say what the meta-narrative being “bad at war” would look like.  The story falling flat?  Misidentifying its own core themes and thus failing to resolve them?  Losing popularity compared to its peers in Shonen Jump?  Being savaged by reviewers?  Wide swathes of its own fandom disagreeing with its messages?  If the story’s own Villains are the “enemy” the series is engaging in misleading rhetoric about, what does it mean for the story to be bad at fighting them?  What would it mean for the story to lose to them?

We might say that every reader who disliked the story—or quit reading it before the end—because they sided with the Villains over the Heroes is someone who judged that the Heroes lost, or at least that they didn’t deserve to win.  That seems a fair way to define the story losing to its own antagonists.  Did that happen?  Well, obviously the fact of me writing all this means I think it did, but MHA certainly had and retains an enormous fanbase who seem to have liked the ending just fine—I’m not unique, but neither am I in the majority.

We might also define the story losing to its own antagonists as the story failing to overcome the challenges those antagonists posed.  I’d argue—and much more vociferously—that that happened, too.  The story raised a bunch of systemic issues up to just past the halfway point, then abruptly refocused its attention on All For One and tried very hard to convince the readership that killing AFO plus implementing vaguely expressed intervention measures targeted mainly at children is a sufficient response to its driving conflicts—it very much is not.

—(…)—

Point 9: Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy./Life is permanent warfare.

Being built on fear of the enemy, fascism must always have an enemy.  This means, however, that there’s no vision for peace after ultimate victory.

Team Hero:  (...) While it’s clear that we’re meant to read the ending as progressing towards peace, and that this is something Heroes in general desire—most explicitly summed up in Tokoyami talking about Heroes working to make their own jobs obsolete, quite as if he's forgotten that Heroes also do disaster rescue work!—the ending is either too cowardly or too driven by the needs of pleasing its fanbase to truly show us a world that needs fewer Heroes, or a different sort of Hero.

If Deku truly believed that being a teacher is more meaningful to him than being a Hero, why not step down to focus on that rather than refining a power suit that can really only accelerate the production of quirk-emulating military hardware?  If Ochaco truly wants to make a difference via her counselling program, why not retire from Heroics and make the program her full-time job?  If Shouto really wants to explore who he is, rather than pursue the person he wants to become, why not take a sabbatical, trusting that the world will keep spinning and people will get the help they need even if he takes some time for himself?

Did the final volume need yet another two-page spread of Class 1-A leaping collectively into action?  Did it occur to Horikoshi at all that having twenty-one Heroes fly across town to jump one (1) desperate, panicked carjacker of normal human dimensions actually makes society look more saturated with Heroes than ever?  Particularly since that scene goes on to depict the triumphant Heroes standing around chit-chatting with each other, blithely unconcerned with the emotionally distraught criminal being hauled off by police, exactly the same as we always saw Heroes doing in the bad old days before the world-changing altruists of Class 1-A decided to try reaching out to Villains?

—(…)—

Point 10: Contempt for the weak./Popular elitism.

The group identity is built on pride in the group and the group’s strength/superiority, breeding contempt for those outside the group.  However, this goes all the way up, such that leaders of the group at all levels are contemptuous of not just the out-group but also the people beneath them in their own group’s hierarchy.  Particularly if the Leader gained their position by force, they’re predisposed to believing the people they thus conquered (their own) both need and “deserve” to be ruled by a strong Leader.

MLA: Half a point.  The MLA very obviously meet the bar for the first part based on their quirk supremacist ideology.  Even back in Deika, you had Re-Destro (who otherwise focuses exclusively on the high-minded ideals of Liberation rather than the ugly might-makes-right rhetoric found elsewhere in the group) scorning Twice for his sentimentality and Shigaraki for his lack of ideology.  They also show a good amount of in-group/out-group contempt—they’re dismissive of Villains, have a furious disdain towards Heroes, and, while this is more isolated to the second war, can also be pretty contemptuous of common civilians!  However, I don’t think you see the second point, popular elitism.

As much as some fans talk about e.g. Re-Destro and Trumpet lacking respect for their followers, I personally don’t see that in the story.  The MLA leadership is somewhat pragmatic about them, to be sure, but never contemptuous in the way they are towards people outside their group.  (...) Shigaraki accuses Re-Destro of hiding in his tower, removed from the hoi polloi, but we don’t have to take Shigaraki’s word on this.  Re-Destro was not out in the scrum for the same reason President Roosevelt wasn’t on the beach in Normandy on D-Day.  He still fought when he had to and still expressed his rage about his followers’ deaths when Shigaraki—who RD was planning on killing, and with no one else around to hear the answer!—asked about them directly.  In every other case besides Skeptic, the MLA leadership is right out there in the field alongside their people.  Compare this to someone who really is contemptuous of their followers, like Overhaul or All For One, and the difference is night and day.

—(…)—

Point 11: Everybody is educated to become a hero./Cult of death.

The Übermensch part of the deal.  The mythological hero is exceptional by definition; Ur-Fascism would have such a figure be the norm for everyone.  This is linked strictly to the glorification of death: everyone seeks to be the ideal hero, and for the ideal hero, the ideal endpoint to a heroic life is a heroic death, the ultimate reward.  See the pursuit of Valhalla in Mad Max: Fury Road for a prominent recent depiction.

Team Hero: Yes to the first part and some concerning undercurrents regarding the second.  Like, there are obviously lots and lots of people in Hero Society at large who don’t grow up to be Heroes, who aren’t seeking a valorous death, all that, but this category’s consideration is about specifically Heroes, and, obviously, yes, Heroes are educated to become heroes.  It’s literally called My Hero Academia.  The HPSC, of course, gets less of this, but they still encourage and cultivate it at every turn—even their own secret child soldiers still have to be Heroes by daylight!

As to the cult of death, you could make an argument—and by no means a weak one!—that Heroes qualify based solely on three points: All Might’s Pillar ideology, U.A.’s Plus Ultra mantra, and Mandalay’s comment that there’s “no better way for Heroes to meet their end” than the “honorable death” of dying in the line of duty.  But I don’t think that all of these quite add up to the remaining half-point.  All Might is the top Hero, but he’s only one Hero all the same; U.A. is the top Hero school, but still only one Hero school.  Mandalay delivers those lines in a solemn enough way that it would be child’s play to read them as a platitude she told herself until she believed it, far more than something that’s actually a matter of chapter-and-verse Hero dogma.

Indeed, lots and lots of Heroes quit as soon as things really start getting difficult!  So while there are elements there, I think people who really believe that Heroes ought to embody this are mostly the hardcore zealots like Stain; it’s less evident in the body of Professional Heroics at large. Tellingly, nowhere in any of the main characters’ classes do we see death being linked to the Heroism they’re learning!

—

Read the rest here!

[gffa]

The latest ending of Ahsoka really made me realize one of the big problems with Felony's writing and why so much of the Masndo-verse and Felony's modern writing falls flat compared to OWK and Andor. Shock value. A BIG twist cliffhanger that leaves us all mouth open and HYPING up the next episode in hope and filling the forums with discussions in anticipation. Understandably, he can't write what we wrote in our heads for 7 days and top that. 1.

2. But once that shock is gone when the story has moved onto the next big thing, or you watch it again when you know what it pays off in, or watch the whole series or season again, it just doesn't hold up. It's empty. Vapid. Because it's all about the shock. The twist. The discussion. The hype fodder. It's not saying anything or adding anything. OWK and Andor was a lot better at that, without the use of the nostalgia baiting that Felony relies on. 3. It becomes an endless circle of low lows and high highs, while OWK and Andor both slowly built up to the crescendo of discussions and speculations and both have stayed in the fandom consciousness alot longer thanks to that. And because they have something to say, both to the world and to the viewer. While with the Felony and the Fraudrou verses, it's just a constant barrage of oh wow, moving on, what's next? ehh, it's over, let's move on.

I feel like one day I'm going to do a longer analysis on why exactly Filoni's writing feels weak to me (where I try to be more fair than I'm usually feeling about his writing), because I don't think he's without a lot of talent and there's certain things he really does get about Star Wars, but I think so much comes back to that he's a writer who is caught in a difficult position--playing in someone else's sandbox but has to now establish his own new corners of that sandbox and I'm not sure he's strong enough to be a big picture kind of guy when he works better in smaller focus. His work on TCW and Rebels is content that we do come back to again and again for analysis, during my rewatches of both those series, those shows hold up! But I think they're ones where he had stronger guardrails up, and he was forced to stick to things in one place. I think live action has been bad for Filoni's writing because of the way so much is structured, that there are multiple series going on and I feel like his writing doesn't have the patience to actually tell a story in a single space, that's why we get Grogu's story being split between The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, that's why we get Mandalore's story being splintered across Rebels, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and now Ahsoka. We still haven't even seen half of the events that happen in the Mandalore bigger story! And you're right that he and Favreau both lean too hard on the cameos and echoes/rhymes for nostalgia's sake. And those reference points are often extremely fun in the moment! And I'll grant that the Luke episodes are ones I go back to fairly often, because I think there's some really good content in there about what attachment actually means. But I don't think it's that surprising, looking back, how quickly the Favroni shows fell apart for us and how it doesn't feel like they're establishing anything that can support a bunch of books and comics. I suspect that Disney's not allowed to have books/comics/etc. based on Favroni's shows because they want creative control over those characters while they're still actively writing for them, but also I look at the OT and the PT and look how much was built off those movies+TCW as a foundation, I look at how much you're able to still watch those and find new things to analyze, and I just don't feel that with Filoni's writing anymore, not since Rebels, not to that level, anyway. (I'll grant that I've been a lot more excited about the Ahsoka series and what we can say about it/find in analyzing it than I expected, I expected nothing but shitposts like we did with Mandalorian s3, but I've had fun with serious meta in Ahsoka! I was genuinely excited to come on-line after episode 4 and talk about themes and structure and how well Filoni did with that there!) Ultimately, I think Filoni (and Favreau) both have a lot of talent, but I think they're being pushed too hard to make too much too quickly and that it shows that they're making this up as they go along, rather than that they had a vision they've been crafting for years and any kind of idea of where they want the end goal to be. Like, yeah, Lucas wrote some stuff on the fly, he changed his mind about things along the way, but he had an end point in mind for his story, so the echoes/rhymes felt more resonant for me. Favroni don't feel like they have any idea where they're going and so much winds up feeling like shock value and self-reference for nostalgia bad for me instead of something that's Going Somewhere.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Magic: Return of the Asspull

So the word on Twitter is that there have been leaked reports of a new anime called "Dragon Ball Magic". I'm pretty sure it's all made-up bullshit, but I remember thinking Dragon Ball Super was a pipe dream too, and here we are. So I may as well discuss the topic here.

The whole thing comes across like a modern day Dragon Ball AF, where there seems to be a lot more emphasis on hype and speculation than tangible evidence. For example, there's a twitter account dedicated to gathering all the information available about the new series, but all it really does is amplify rumors and fanworks. When I search for the title on Twitter I mostly get skeptics making fun of the idea, or true believers talking about the show as if it were objective fact. Like AF, there's a lot of excitement but no clear picture of what the the thing actually is. The only real consensus I can find is the following:

Dragon Ball Magic will feature the Supreme Kai

Goku will be turned into a child, just like in Dragon Ball GT

Geekdom101 talked about this once, so that means it must be real.

And that's why I led off with the screenshot of the tail-yanking scene from GT, because I was trying to find an appropriate image of GT Goku and the Supreme Kai, and... yeah, that's it.

The more I think about it, the more this feels like something an internet troll would come up with. Like, someone started with the stupidest moment in the worst Dragon Ball series ever, and built a rumor around it. Oh, and also the rumor namedrops Geekdom101, just to make it extra absurd. It's the sort of thing gullible people would flock to while everyone in on the joke would have a laugh over it.

I don't know enough about Geekdom101 to insult him properly, but I'm like 90% sure he's an asshole. Back when Twitter actually worked properly, I'd see his name trending and there'd be a bunch of people in the fandom going "Dammit, what's he done this time?" Does he have inside sources in the anime industry? I dunno, maybe he does, but I think he's got a credibility problem. I mean, he calls himself "Geekdom101", and his avatar is Golden Frieza with a pair of glasses and holding a lightsaber. His YouTube videos look like a clickbait parody, with things like "Kai-o-ken EXPLAINED" and "WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR". Also plenty of what-if and who-would-win videos.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that maybe this is a guy who makes a decent living off his fandom channel, and when there's not much going on, he'll cobble together a story just to keep the conversation going and draw more attention to his videos. Which... I mean, if that's profitable, so be it, but if Geekdom told me water was wet I'd want to double-check for myself.

As to the rest, even if Toei was really planning something like DB Magic, there's no guarantee they'd actually follow through with it. Plans change, and even if this were 100% legit, it means nothing without an official confirmation and a release date. That "Superman Lives!" movie with Nic Cage was a real thing... right until it wasn't.

But I find the concept too vague and too specific all at once. Like, okay, it's Supreme Kai and a de-aged Goku. Why them in particular? What are they going to do? It just feels like something someone made up to get a reaction from the fans. GT likers are supposed to get all excited or defensive about a potential GT reboot, and other fans are supposed to get upset that the Supreme Kai got the lead instead of their favorite C-lister.

Compare this to the early reveals for DBS: Superhero. Toei teased a few details, and gradually it became clear that the Red Ribbon Army was back somehow, and maybe there were some new androids, and there was a lot about Piccolo and Gohan, so it seemed like they'd be a big part of the story. It wasn't a complete picture, but it made sense from a promotional standpoint. People were more concerned with the CG animation than any of the characters or plot.

I mean, anyone can come up with this stuff. I mean, my uncle works for Nintendo, and he told me that the next anime is going to be called Dragon Ball Snazzy, and it'll be about Vegeta and 18 starting up a private detective agency. Or... I don't know, Dragon Ball Jazz, which is a prequel series featuring a young Dr. Brief and Gine as secret agents. Wait, how about Dragon Ball Spatula, starring Elder Guru and Launch as they explore the multiverse!

And you know, I'd probably watch any of these shows. Hell, I sat through GT, and it was awful! The bar's pretty low when it comes to making a Dragon Ball project that I'm willing to try out. But people have been clamoring for Dragon Ball Super II ever since the first series went off the air in 2018, and that was years ago. This Dragon Ball Magic business just sounds like the same old empty hype with a fresh coat of paint.

Or maybe the whole thing is real, but my advice is: Don't get your hopes up. Life's too short to get worked up over things that might never happen. If it actually comes to pass, then it'll still be just as much fun whether you believed it ahead of time or not.

[not-goldy]

I knew the day I saw a video of Tk edited by tkk with Tae sitting behind Jk and it was a whole montage of Tk supposedly eye fucking each other in the monitor and it had 1000's of likes vs an edit of Jk sucking Jimin's off ear off at Rosebowl and him bragging about his Hickey Jm gave him and it had half the likes, showed me exactly what this fandom is. A bunch of scared homophobes, who'd rather pretend to be queer supporters and hype two men they know who aren't together deep down, then actually support the two obvious queers who are so into each other times, it was hard for them to contain themselves. And that sums it up. Cause why is it the two obvious queers who are clearly into each other, are the ones harassed by everyone and cause everyone sees it, they are also harassed for pointing out the obvious? And seeing how Jimin has never hid his queerness and at times, his behavior with Jk even had me worried he was gonna out himself for real, more then he already was cause he was so in love, is called the queer baiter and straightest member of bts by these people, while the same people claim Tae is the obvious Gay icon of the fandom who is dating Jk or Jimin, even though he was prancing around with his girlfriend for over 2 years in their faces. Army are scared of gay people PERIOD. Especially Jikook.

That whole ship is built on nothing but fiction hallucinations content creation and psychological manipulations of impressionable minds. Take the fake edits away and they have absolutely nothing to show for it

More grease to their elbow

[fudgetunblr]

Guide to Studenten

Idk if anyone has done this because I haven't checked the tag, but anyways, here we go:

Swedish High School is three years of education, where you have a specific area of studies. I feel like perhaps someone has talked about this before, so let's not dwell on it.

There's usually countdowns, 250 days, 200 days, 100 days, 50 days, blah blah before where there are theme parties. You don't have to go to these, not everyone does, but the closer you get, there's more parties. The legal drinking age in Sweden is 18. However, you can't go out and buy your own at Systembolaget (the only alcohol company in Sweden) until you're 20. This doesn't really stop people, unsurprisingly.

The hats are the white ones they wore on the show, and back in the day it was very simple, something like this:

however, nowadays there's a lot more design options. You can pic your own tinsel in the middle, many go for stones. There are specific colours for different programs, but most people don't care. You usually put your name on it, other things that are common: your class name, the year you graduated, some put their school, and at the back of the hat many put a little quote on the back. You can also customise the inside. Often you pick a few of these things and not all, because the hat costs a lot of money :3 I made my own really cheap tbh.

Mösspåtagning is a typical event where the students get to wear their hats. Because of covid, ours was combined with like a prom, but usually this happens before that, according to google, often outside or whatever.

There's a prom. But that's pretty normal.

Champagnefrukost or champagne-breakfast happens the day of studenten, where you go to one of your classmates houses, usually one who lives closest to the school, and have breakfast with your class. There you hand out the plates around the neck, aka the "class... [insert whatever, take clown as an example]. You drink, you eat, sometimes teachers will stop by. You get hyped with your class for the day.

Then you head to the school.

There's a photographer that takes a picture of the whole class and then individual portraits that you can later chose to purchase.

You meet with your mentors and say goodbye. They usually hand out a little scholarship thingy for the person with the best grade in the class. You write your name inside your classmates hats. My mentors held speeches based on Carola songs, it was pretty great.

Utspring - you're running out of the school. You've chosen the song/songs that you're running to, you dance around, sometimes there's choreography, to be greeted by family and friends. Because of covid this activity was limited, but traditionally it is fucking packed with people from all different programs, because the times are more stacked on top of each other.

Your parents greet you with a plaque of a baby picture of yourself, with your name and class-name. You take pictures, you get a bunch of stuff hanging around your neck like tiny champagne bottles, teddybears with their own graduation caps, whistles, other loud shit you can use at:

Flak - or flatbed according to translate is when you ride at the back of one with your class and blast loud music and dance around while it drives you around town. They're all in tow. There's a huge linen sheet on both sides that has been decorated with your class, consisting of the class name, the names of the people in the class and usually some funny quote or something. (I never got to do this because of covid)

After this you go home to greet family and stuff and celebrate however you want at home.

Then it's time to go out and partyyy. Usually you've booked a table at a specific event.

How do you fund this??? Well, over the three years of school you've built up a lot of money with your class through different fundraising methods. There's a service where you can sell cookies and another where you can sell clothes and shit.

There you go, it's not everything ofc, there are other traditions, and it's also important to note that not everyone does this. Not everyone goes out to drink, not everyone gets a flak, etc etc. But if we're talking very stereotypically here, that's the gist.

It's really fun (even if I had mine with a lot of covid-restrictions), and I hope this has given a bit of context to the new season of Young Royals (and probs the last episode where the graduation will be), and why they were so pissed to be missing out. (even if there are clearly specific school traditions that aren't custom for everyone).

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PRELIMINARY ROUND - THE LEGEND OF ZELDA - ZELDA

PROPAGANDA

Tetra (The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker)

1.) Wind Waker actually has a point with its misogyny and kinda condemns the misogyny. We first see Tetra as a helpless girl in the clutches of a giant bird monster. A pirate ship catapults a boulder at the bird, which drops Tetra on the hero's home island. We find out that young Tetra is the rough-and-tumble captain of an entire pirate crew, and the brains of the outfit. We later learn that bird monster has been kidnapping a bunch of girls to find the reincarnation of the legendary Princess Zelda. It is revealed that Tetra is the next Princess Zelda. Because she is Zelda, she transforms from a tanned pirate captain into a pale princess in a dress, and her role requires her to wait in a castle for the hero to finish his quest. Which is what she does. And the point of the story is that this is wrong! The villain is wrong, and the hero's mentor is wrong—they're both hurting children and forcing them to reenact old roles in an old story, in their selfish quest to resurrect their long-dead kingdoms. Then breaking tradition, (I believe) Wind Waker Zelda is the first Zelda to wield the sacred Light Arrows and to take up an active combat role in the final battle. The happy ending is that Zelda turns back into Tetra, and she and Link set out to forge their own future. BUT THEN. The cheap sequel Phantom Hourglass (the equivalent of a direct-to-DVD Disney movie sequel tbh) pretty much opens with Tetra being turned into a stone statue. And she's a stone statue for the ENTIRE GAME until the hero rescures her. Clear-cut sidelining of a compelling female character, smells like misogyny to me. At least Tetra's identical granddaughter was a playable co-protagonist in the next sequel, but arguably Tetra founding a new monarchal country named the same as the ancient one and then actively continuing the tradition of making Princesses Zelda undermines the conclusion of Wind Waker. Tetra possibly has the most personality and most meaningful role out of all the Zeldas, and she's far from the biggest victim of misogyny here—but still, let's remember that even Tetra deserved better than she got.

2.) Was built up as a super-cool pirate leader antihero who helped out Link. Then, as soon as it's revealed that she's that era's incarnation of Zelda, she gets magically put in the standard Princess Zelda dress (which also makes her skin lighter for Some Reason), and she ends up being sequestered in a basement for her safety until the finale, where she actually gets to do something again.

3.) Idk if anyones talked about windwakers sequel game, phantom hourglass yet so i will. Dont go into ph expecting a lot of cool pirate zelda action because shes a statue for like most of it. Shes a statue and you have to go save her.

Zelda (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of

1.) Oh my god. Oh my goooooooood. She was like. Ok in botw (I don't know). But then in totk, they COULD have had her take a more active role, especially with her whole sage of time thing and the era she was in not having a "hero", but NO. She barely did anything, and then in the end she ended up sacrificing herself (at least turning into a dragon is new. Like I don't really have a problem with the dragon thing but man they dropped the fucking ball with everything else). Like one of the creators literally stated that Zelda HAD to be the damsel in distress (rescue her from a crystal, a castle, whatever) and yeah, they definitely continued that in totk. Please just give a mainline Zelda a sword or an active (fighting) role in the game I am BEGGING YOU. Damsels in distress aren't cool, especially when you hype them up to be super powerful!!! She fucking deleted the Calamity from existence in botw you could have done SOMETHING

2.) WHY CANT I EVER HAVE A MAINLINE ZELDA GAME AAAA

I hope someone else gives good propogands but this is specifically about Tears of the Kingdom. So before it came out, I tried to avoid anything and everything about the game so I could go in 100% blind but I did see a few images of course because internet people don’t tag or algorithms lol but the point it looked like Zelda was the protagonist or at least a swap where they’re both playable choices and you can swap between them because she and link looked so alike and I was so happy to play her and was like as much as I like link free my girl from never ending Princess saving needing and it was happening!!

It did not happen and she was again lost and felt like a repeat of the last game where I need to save her (not exactly the same but COMEON)

3.) forced to be a magic sealing princess when she wants to do science and build robots

[koskela-knights]

Random Koskela HCs

Headcanons partially based on what I've seen in the game so far, which includes some of the manuscript pages & the commercials (*Some spoilers ahead thus*)

Ilmo is the younger twin with an age difference of 3 solid minutes

Ilmo's entrepreneur & creative spirit is balanced out by Jaakko's no-nonsense attitude.

However, I like to think that Jaakko has had his share of wacky, wild ideas but happily gives Ilmo the credit for them since most residents already view Jaakko as the less quirky brother.

It was actually Jaakko who came up with the floats they can't show on television.

The Koskelas are inseparable from each other and also from their baseball cap and beanie.

They probably lived in Watery their whole life.

Ilmo looks up to his brother, even though he doesn't always say this out loud.

The brothers have a bunch of tapes with bloopers from their commercials that they watch when drinking beers together after a long day of work.

Every now and then, when the weather's good, they like to race each other on their motorcycles. It got them in trouble more than once with the deputies, but fuck the government and police!

They also like to make long tours on their bikes, taking in the views of the landscape.

Extended Family

Jaakko met his wife who was a tourist visiting Bright Falls. They had kids but in the end it didn't work out with them because his wife was a city woman, plus Jaakko's involvement with so many Koskela businesses left him with little to no time for her.

Still, he has an okay bond with his ex and a good relationship with his kids. They mainly keep contact through e-mail and occasional phone calls. During some holidays, the kids visit Jaakko in Watery.

When the kids were young, Jaakko's built them some toys and mini attractions (like a mini moose spring rider)

Ilmo tried his best to be The Cool Uncle but didn't always succeed where he wanted to. Being a smalltown resident, he was often out of touch with the big city customs and cultures.

Other random stuff

Although the local government isn't always too happy about so many things being owned by the Koskelas, it gives the town their fair share of income and it helps locals get jobs and keep a community feel.

Ilmo took evening classes to become an entrepreneur

He had to grow into his more extroverted persona.

Ilmo hates it when tourists pronounce or write his name wrong. No his name is not Elmo and he doesn't know who that furry red thing is. (There have been instances where Jaakko told naive tourists that 'Elmo' is the correct English version they could use instead)

Ilmo once considered doing tour guides on his motorcycle but Jaakko talked him out of it.

Angsty

Ilmo sometimes feels he has to overcompensate in his achievements. Since he looks up to Jaakko, who is his business partner and has a family, Ilmo fears he will fall behind.

Jaakko wishes his kids would stay in Watery, but knowing how shady the place is, he is glad they live far away from their hometown.

Jaakko was initially afraid to become a dad, but Ilmo hyped him up and supported him through the process.

No matter how many Taken they've killed, it hurts each time. Especially if they've known the person who got transformed.

Jaakko was the first one to kill a Taken, which he did after Ilmo initially hesitated which almost got him heavily injured.

Ilmo isn't superstitious, but there always remained a lingering fear that one day he would turn out like the historical figure Illmari. After the events of AW2, he blames himself heavily for Jaakko's death.

Ilmo has survivor's guilt.

After Jaakko's death, Ilmo can't immediately grieve, because there is still an evil to defeat, plus he still has all his responsibilities for the multiple businesses he runs. But keeping up a facade isn't easy.

Ilmo doesn't know what to tell Jaako's kids. How is he supposed to explain what happened to their father? The only "consolation" is that Jaakko's death was quick, he didn't have to bleed out or anything. Still, it was super messed up and Ilmo has nightmares.

[ninainthetardis]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ HoFaS Spoilers ahead ⚠️⚠️⚠️

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Just a bunch of things about this finale that I wanted to get off my chest. I will start by saying that I found it overall underwhelming, unsatisfying and anticlimactic, so you can guess it's not going to be a positive rant here. This is the part of my GR review I haven't posted there.

Please, do not come at me under this post or the others. This is just my opinion, and I won't be answering any rude comment. I have the right to express my own disappointment. Those who want to have a constructive and respectful conversation are always welcome, though.

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• The crossover ended up being reeeeally underwhelming, and the whole Ruhn/Rhys thing that built the entire hype for this book was explained in the lamest way possible (and at a certain point even forgotten by the characters). Also, what the hell were those references to ToG that were just dropped there without further explanation? We know how the Fae from Prythian got to Midgard, but what about the ToG ones? How is it that Lidia has knowledge about her ancestors from the other world? Also, how could Lidia know she had fire magic even when Danika was alive if elemental magic had been hidden and kept dormient in every Vanir for centuries?

• I am not a big fan of Azriel and Bryce, and I am definitely not on the list of Nesta's fans, but you know what? This trio worked. For some reason, I liked to see them interacting, and I actually found Azriel and Nesta's dynamic an element that could be interesting if explored in the following acotar books. Maybe it's just that I didn't care about any of them enough to be bothered by the things I usually find annoying (Bryce), triggering (Nesta), and irritating (Azriel) in such characters.

Too bad Nesta screwed it up with the mask thing (which I have already discussed here) and in Ember/Randall's bonus chapter with the return of her spiteful, ungrateful, behaviour/attitude. I guess the best I can hope for when it comes to Nesta is to be civil to her and nothing more, just like it happened with post ToD Chaol. Slightly less even. Like, maybe she could stop triggering me every two pages. That would be progress and beyond any of my expectations, really. It would make the next acotar books much easier to read, though I cannot forget how she's been in the past.

• I didn't like the info dump both in the final part of the crossover and in the part with the Princes. I would have preferred some flashbacks showing what happened to the "tell don't show" technique SJM chose here. And finding out what happened in the First War, for me, was the most interesting point of the whole book, so that execution disappointed me.

• Why was everything resolved so easily? Bryce got everything she needed provided for, or told by someone else, she somehow managed to master new skills within a range of few seconds (the same can be told for Lidia and the other characters when freed of the infection) and the most interesting aspect of her character - her being so underpowered in comparison to the Asteri - Was totally nullified by the ridiculous amount of power she got along the way. Literally, all they did/tried to do, worked first try. Where is the struggle? Where is the pain KoA made me feel? Where are the emotions? The only moment I felt something was that "Light it up, Danika!" At the end of the book. Just that.

And where is the characters development? Ships development? Also, the always absent talking about traumas is really getting on my nerves. I'll be making examples about this later.

• What the hell was that recycled finale? It resembled KoA's finale. It even had the "Rhys is dead" plot twist, but with Bryce and with the same resolution. Also, what was the point of having characters killed in books 1 and 2 if Hypaxia could've just resurrected them within a couple of minutes? I hate the resurrection theme, especially when overused. It diminishes everything.

• I am apparently one of the few people who's given Hypaxia some consideration. She's been one of my favourites ever since the first book, but... in HoFaS she's just doing miracles, resurrecting people, and developing an antidote out of the blue in a couple of hours (really?), which brings me back to the fact that in this, everything happened too easily.

• So, SJM is trying to tell me that the Asteri were so clever to submit a population of powerful Vanir people for 15000 years, meanwhile keeping hidden form them that they were limiting and stealing their magic, - and even eating their dead's - but then failed to imagine Bryce's real plan because they were too arrogant? Wtf was that? Am i supposed to believe that Rigelus just underestimated her when in book 1, he was the one trying to keep her calm and content because he recognised how dangerous she was, after all she had done?

• What was the point of introducing Ariadne?

• I can't say I am totally disappointed in Jesiba's character, I just don't understand why the most powerful characters for magic or combat skills were kept away from the battle against beings as powerful as the Asteri lol Her arriving only at the end of the battle, Fury and Baxian being away... meh, everything was just kind of disappointing.

• Also, black holes? 🤨 no insights about the battle and the Princes fighting? All we got was literally: "The Princes killed the other Asteri, yay!". Did I mention that it was all so disappointing and anticlimactic?

• Now, let's move on to specific characters:

- Tharion "the funny one turned into Mr Boredom".

I have to say it. He was the king of repetitive povs in book 2, and just one of the many characters in this series who started off as being interesting only to become almost annoying by the end of it. But he's the friend who can't do anything right to the point you end up thinking your own bullshit is not that shitty. Repetitive povs and excessive whining (he was supposed to be the funny one sigh) aside, I kind of still care about him. And him and Sathia are unexpectedly interesting as a couple, but we'll see if they become an actual one. I also liked his sort of friendship with Ariadne. And the one with the Aux and Ithan, "the pack". Please, let him sort his shit out and be fine because he's such a mess I cannot even hold it against him, lol

- Bryce the Fa(k)e Woke Queen-lan

I won't say that Bryce's character was butchered here because there was nothing to butcher according to me, she's always been like this. It just became more evident.

From HoSaB to the end, she's been annoying. Though she had some moments of glory along the way, I have to admit that. But why was she convinced that she could be Aelin all of a sudden? She was never a strategist nor a planner (and her plans ALWAYS failed, except her plans in HoFaS? How's that?). Her most successful moments were due to improvisation, - prompted by survival instinct - and luck. Now she's suddenly an entitled overpowered mastermind lol

She has zero respect for others feelings/traumas, as usual she's always right and anyone who disagrees with her is just an alpha asshole, she's better and knows better than anyone else (and I am still trying to figure out why she's supposed to be any of those things) and she's constantly criticising anyone else... for things she does herself too. Great. Like, in the crossover she literally complains about Nesta and Az manipulating her while.. she was doing the very same thing to them? Just like in book 1, when she was complaining all the time about Fury not talking to her while she did the same thing to Ithan.

And what the hell were her plans, anyway? She was so desperately trying to be Aelin, but she never even had a chance. Leaving Baxian and Fury in a naturally protected place and not taking them to battle? How is that smart? Not calling Jesiba, the powerful witch, to join the battle? HOW IS ANY OF THAT SMART?

She had a whole conversation with Nesta before Rhys arrived, his shadows announced pages before? (Wtf?)

She bloody endangered Prythian, almost freed and unleashed an Asteri on Prythian's soil, and Nesta GAVE HER THE MASK? (WTF I-don't-even-know-which-part-this-is-anymore)

Now, should I comment on Bryce's total disrespect for her mate's trauma and past while he's always been thoughtful when it came to hers? I do not ship them AT ALL, and it's not because Hunt is boring as someone claims, but because Hunt deserved better, tbh and I loved them in book 1! Worst SJM main female character, really.

Also, please tell me again why she was supposed to be the queen of a species she literally hated and didn't want anything to do with. She was Queen of generalisation in that sense. I loved how Baxian called her out and made her realise that she was only considering what was convenient and conform to her prefixed, biased ideas (the speech where he compares wolves and fae). I mean, she was right about fae nobility, but there were innocents among the fae too and she was talking about how the whole species deserved obliteration, while claiming wolves were better (when statistically there was a huge amount of wolves who judged her just like the fae and did nothing to help during the attack, just like the fae... because they obey to their leaders, and Sabine was just as bad as Morven and the Autumn King. Wolves were not all like the Devil's pack, Ithan and Danika, just like fae were not all like the Autumn/Avallen king). All while not considering the fae among her group and treating Declan and Flynn like shit for absolute no reason. Or giving those shitty answers to Sathia about her plans for the fae people... she was a victim of the system more than Bryce tbh Bryce's wokeness would have been so much more believable, useful and coherent if she wasn't biased as the ones she accused or an alpha asshole herself.

I am sorry, but I just cannot stand her hypocrisy. And I cannot stand generalisation.

- Hunt "the powerbank" Athalar

He was literally conceived to be Bryce's powerbank first and later his shadow (Umbra Mortis?!) who follows her everywhere without even being given the chance to have a say in what they are going to do. Otherwise, he'd be acting like an alpha asshole. Just to be told not to make a fuss about being held captive and tortured with his friends. I'm so pissed for his arc, because he was so interesting in book 1, only for his povs to become repetitive and sometimes boring in book 2 and almost non existing in book 3, like he didn't have any inviduality other than being Bryce's mate and anchor. Also, how could he blame himself for anything when Bryce didn't even listen to his warnings/complains/objections, leaving him with no other choice but following her to get at least the chance to protect/help her?

And then she's like "I don't want you to just follow me, I want that you want to do this" (wtf?)

Bonus: being son of Apollion or Thanatos instead of somehow created by them in terms of powers would have been so much more interesting.

I liked his friendship with Ruhn and Baxian though, and missed him and Isaiah/Naomi.

- Ithan "I don't even know what I'm doing" Holstrom

Why was Ithan so damn sure Sigrid would be a good leader for the wolves is beyond me. He didn't know her. Literally, it was just because she was a Fendyr. That was his only argument in support of his theory. As if Sabine wasn't proof that being a Fendyr didn't automatically make you a good leader. As if Sigrid didn't act entitled and reckless and dominant and selfish and despotic the whole time. It's all she's done, really, and he did not expect that she was not that good as he wanted her so desperately to be? SHE AIMED TO KILL HIM IN THAT PIT! Him, the very person who risked everything to save her, the only person who ever cared about her! A person who was not trying to harm her despite the circumstances. She was not going to try and find another way even though she knew all those lives depended on the group getting out the Viper Queen's hands... it was self defense and I truly get his struggle to accept what happened BUT defeating the Asteri was the priority and the fact that she came back 5 seconds later as a creature that could not be killed and known for being dangerous, when it is known that messing with the dead usually leads to no good... did not exactly make me empathise at all with this whole arc. And after that, he was still whining about Sigrid instead of fully focusing on fighting the Asteri...

It's a pity because I really liked him before this Sigrid thing. But I'd be willing to give him a second - or should I say third? - chance. I think Perry may be his mate, anyway, and I am kind of curious about that.

- Ruhn/Lidia

I was totally unimpressed by them as a couple after book 2, but I thought they were getting interesting at the beginning of book 3. Then somehow Lidia felt entitled to be pissed at Ruhn because he was struggling to accept that Day was the Hind (wtf) and then Ruhn felt entitled to be pissed at Lidia for not talking to him about her past (wtf part 2). Only to forget/postpone all of their issues because they were horny and about to go to battle against the Asteri. That's not ship building/development. Ruhn shooting her was too much, even if he was trying to protect her and sacrifice himself. But that idea made no sense and had literally no use or purpose. Why did SJM think it would be a good idea? Adding some drama/shock value element that was totally uncalled for and that only resulted in diminishing a ship that wasn't even well developed to begin with? Because it served nothing and it was dumb. Leaving Lidia wounded and vulnerable. One of the best assets they had in that battle - and they didn't bring many with them. Just like clockwork hadn't been for Tharion, they would have all been dead five seconds later.

To think that the fact that Lidia already had two kids was such an interesting and unexplored arc for mates... sigh, I am disappointed.

I am happy that it was Ruhn to deal with the Autumn King in the end, though. He deserved closure and to free himself of that monster. I am quite sad that his character never had the chance to fully come out.

Lidia carried the whole book. I loved her.

- Baxian/Danika

They truly were the most interesting ship in this series. I hope there will be a flashback book/novella about them. I swear I would love it. Their dynamic is also interesting, and I'd love to get to know Baxian better. But maybe, we will?

To sum up, this series left me absolutely nothing. I do not care enough about any of the characters, I didn't get particularly affectionate to any of them. Its major strength was the focus on friendship, but after the first book, it was almost absent, the principle only slightly reminded by Ruhn, Dec and Flynn/Hunt, Rhun, and Baxian. The premises of the story in general were so good (HoEaB), but the execution through book 2 and 3 was so poor it disappointed me. It's not a bad series, it is entertaining in its own way... it's just a bit "undertone" if compared to the other SJM series, it lacked of emotions, plot/characters/ships development and impact, I don't know how to say it. I hope the next books will be better. My guess is on Ithan, Tharion, Flynn next. Or even Sathia, considering that SJM prefers female povs. I wish we'd seen Fury and Juniper a bit more, and Dec and Marc, but they are established couples, so I don't think we'll see any of them as main. Flynn has that slightly hinted thing with Ariadne, who was introduced and forgotten, so maybe she'll be important later? I want to stay optimistic lol

I wished there was a better development for Ruhn and Lidia as a couple, though, and Ruhn as a character because I think they'll be side characters from now on. Also, why on earth was their marriage in a bonus chapter? That's not extra content. That's the ending for two of the main characters. It's not fair!

Btw, imo the only memorable characters in this series so far are Danika, Baxian, Aidas, and Lidia.

[traumxrei-archive]

【 book 6 thoughts ! (4) 】

i think this should be the last one until late march, and it should be a fairly short read bc i only had two chapters to read

part: one, two, three, four / whenever they release more

[ warning ! spoilers for 6-42 till 6-44 under the cut ]

[ about : uber eats and STYX ]

ok there was a conversation about this in one of the servers i was in, and the ob gang talking about how they're getting canned food + powdered drinks just makes me wonder if they really don't have any other food or deliverables on the island

leona and jamil complaining about the food, and jamil's subtle jab at the culture of the island of woe vs riddle "heartslabyul dormleader" rosehearts, who's demanding for tEA jskdfksf

and then on the opposite end, azul's asking to read the news. the news. and not just any news, but news about economics. when someone said that azul was a crypto bro, i think they were right...

[ about : crowley's whereabouts ]

it's quite interesting that they didn't bring crowley to the STYX headquarters. like...they brought all the students + grim there, this whole time, i thought crowley was staying in the city or something. but turns out, he's all the way at the land of dawning ? maybe that's a countermeasure, bc if they brought crowley to STYX he could've figured out the students' whereabouts + how to escape with them if he wanted to.

[ about : "having friends over" ]

ok. it saddens me a lot that the reason idia become a loner in the first place is bc he knew he wouldn't be able to have friends. like, ever. bc in the end, everyone who isn't in STYX would forget about him after he graduates + starts working there. bc it's his "fate". so he feels like it's useless to make friends + get close to others bc he knows he can't stay and he knows it'll only hurt him more in the future.

but also. ortho saying all that stuff about this being the first time idia's had friends over....it really DOES make me sad. like this is the first and only time that people that go to the same school as him are gonna be at the place where he's gonna spend the rest of his life.

[ about : "and who would call this bunch of troublemakers friends, anyway?" ]

answer: yuu. yuu would.

[ about : their demands ]

riddle: tea (even though we are not at heartslabyul, it is my duty as the heartslabyul dormleader—)

leona: meat. (they make the cheap steaks at the school cafeteria look like five-star restaurant food.)

azul: access to news (i need to stay on top of my investments.)

jamil: better food (i can't eat food with such unconsidered flavor and texture)

vil: exercise equipment or yoga mat (i'd like to get in my daily workout)

[ about : new test subjects ? ]

okay what ? why are they thawing the phantom subjects all of a sudden, i'm. so confused. idia called it an A-class phantom, so i wonder what class the ob gang's phantoms were.

also. why do i sense impending danger....they're releasing phantoms from tartarus aka phantom jail for testing, but i just feel like something will go wrong.

[ about : tartarus ]

holy fuck tartarus is big. i thought they only had one or two phantoms, but from the image they showed, there's a lot of phantoms that they've been keeping for who knows how long. and ortho said ten thousand phantoms. and idia says that some have been captive for over one thousand years. what about this doesn't scream dangerous ??

[ about : ortho, idia's biggest fan ]

i love it when ortho hypes up idia's achievements. bc like. he deserves that much !! c'mon !! he built an entire security defense system to protect all the people living and in STYX and no one else would know, so if it were me, i'd definitely pull an ortho and brag to people i know about it.

[ about : leona n vil sjdfkjsk]

leona really said "don't worry your pretty little head over it" to vil and i'm sitting here like sir you are about to get a foot slammed right into your head (also dude he's flirting— /hj)

[ about : idia and ortho's game plan]

it's so funny how they're whispering at each other about how to keep these people occupied bc they know that 3 hours with them all in one room is gonna lead to a brawl. i love the shroud bros going back n forth trying to settle on a game to pacify their classmates jsfkdsj

[ about : that cliffhanger is illegal ]

yk i would've been madder if they had stopped it right as rookepeyuu arrived to STYX, but i feel like somehow this is worse. bc there's A. the video game party that i wanna know about and B. the looming threat of the two phantoms being tested rn. but oh well, i guess i'll curb my curiosity and wait till march ^^

and that's the end for now !! argh still that cliffhanger should be illegal, i wanna see them play video games >:(((( but well, good things come to those who wait. although i know that an overblot is coming sometime, so that's the opposite of a good thing. but yes.

[taravangianlistenstothebeachboys]

15 to 17

end-of-year book ask game

15. Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?

I honestly don't know how many books I read this year won awards. I know The Shadow of the Torturer won a bunch of sci-fi awards, and I did really love it—though I enjoyed it more as a part of the larger Book of the New Sun series than I did as a standalone work.

16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

I don't have the hater's temperament. Most things that are popular I'll enjoy, most things that aren't popular I'll enjoy. The closest I had to something being "overhyped" for me was not getting a lot out of The Duino Elegies, if you can count "my brother really likes them and was telling me about them positively" as something being over-hyped. I can't even hold it against Rilke, I don't think I was really coming to those poems on his terms.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

I've been perpetually trying to get through the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings for a while now. Sade doesn't have the most gripping prose and I'm unable to get much thematic depth outside the unending, overwhelming excess of lurid grotesquery he spends countless pages dryly relating. Look, I'm from Vegas, I'm all for unending overwhelming excesses of lurid grotesquery, but it hasn't really built up to anything meaningful for me yet. Which is dissapointing, considering how much I liked Salò.

That said, I also read his novella Incest, and was surprised by how much I ended up enjoying the little thing. The characters were arch and simple, but that just made me more surprised by the quirks of their characterization. Take this passage about the mother, who had just discovered her daughter had been groomed into a sexual relationship with her husband:

The unhappy Mme de Franval could no longer take refuge in her illusions; not a single one remained for her to indulge in; it was all too clear that the heart of her husband — the most precious thing in her whole life — had been stolen from her.... And by whom? By the girl who owed her the most respect.... and who had just spoken to her with such insolence!

This character is supposed to be a paragon of virtue, and she reacts to this all by claiming her daughter stole her husband? That her daughter wronged her? Not that her husband wronged their daughter horribly, not that she wronged her daughter by letting her be isolated from all but him for years.... And she says her daughter owes her respect? She had no hand in raising her, is she supposed to be owed respect for bringing her into this world? Incredible. I love reading about how the structure of role expectations and power dynamics in families is irreparably fucked.