#I’m such a traitor to my people because I’m not actually that big fan of football

[waterlilychaser]

olivia rodrigo is secretly regulily (aka how i think every one of her songs relates to lily evans and regulus black)

brutal - “i’m so sick of seventeen, where’s my fucking tonnage dream” you can’t tell me this isn’t regulus as a death eater. if choices was a tv show, i would play this song as his intro after the time jump and you can’t tell me it wouldn’t SLAP

traitor - i’m not a big fan of a jegulily cheating fic because i want them all to kiss eachother on the mouth in succession, but i have read some fics where lily and james are together but then he leaves to be with regulus, so i think this song could be from lily’s perspective in a situation like that. or vice versa!

drivers license - sounds like lily being betrayed by regulus joining the death eaters and the cult against people like her tbh

1 step forward, 3 steps back - i feel like this song would be what it would be like to date regulus black. i love him, but his partners would never know where he’s at in a relationship.

deja vu - again i feel like this could be about either regulus or lily being jealous or resentful of the other once they go and be in a relationship with james. i find them to be really similar characters in a lot of ways, so i think it suits it really well

enough for you - the title says it all. this is a regulus black anthem.

happier - another potential lily/regulus/james triangle angst situation

jealousy, jealousy- i see this one for lily because growing up with a sister and living with girls all the time i think it would be really easy to compare yourself to them a lot. and also when you are in such close proximity to people you tend to learn a lot about them, see what kind of lives they lead, and end up feeling like you fall short in comparison.

hope ur ok - “well i hope you know how proud i am you were created, with the courage to unlearn all of their hatred” is actually lily evans talking to regulus black actually

all american bitch - i headcanon lily as half american sooo this is too perfect! also like the criticism of the ideals of the perfect woman play into the way lily’s character is often reduced to just a mother when she can be so much more

bad idea right? - regulus would definitely pull something like this, be so for real

vampire - i’m thinking this could be about lily and snape actually but idk

lacy - lily’s lacy is petunia and regulus’s lacy is sirius i will die on this hill

ballad of a homeschool girl - regulus regulus regulus!! regulus feeling like everyone got the guidebook of life and he never did

making the bed - regulus :( he’s so tired of being the girl that he is

logical - hear me out, regulus lying to lily and james that he will leave his family for them. this song would be them in the aftermath realizing just how he never intended to fight for them to be able to stay together

get him back! - wait why did i just imagine a fic where lily and regulus both have the same ex and somehow they meet eachother and are like omg that dude sucked so then they team up together to get him back and they do all the things (key his car, kiss his face with an uppercut, etc.) but as they do they fall in love with each other and their shared devious abilities and what if the ex was james and instead of getting him back they get him back and then jegulily happens?

love is embarrassing - regulus would absolutely think live is embarrassing and that’s why he’s always in denial

the grudge - i think i’ve heard people say the grudge from lily’s perspective is about severus and the grudge from reg’s perspective is about sirius and i support this message

pretty isn’t pretty - okay so i think most people imagine regulus as being really pretty, and i almost feel like pretty people put so much identity in their beauty that it feels like all they are worth. and so when being just pretty isn’t enough, it leaves you being not enough, which again is regulus black’s inner monologue

teenage dream - this is just soooo marauders coded of a song, works for reg, lily, and everyone else

obsessed- this would also go crazy as a jegulily ah where one of them dated james first and then broke up, then he gets together with the other and they become obsessed with the ex

girl i’ve always been - lily and snake friendship song for sure

scared of my guitar - aside from the guitar part, i think this song feels very regulus coded like “if i was brave and noble like you, id have the nerve to stop stringing you along”

so american - again half american lily serenading either her french boyfriend regulus or her british boyfriend james

[yourentity06]

WARRIORS ANALYSIS SORT IF MAYBE IDK (PLS READ THIS IS SO INTERESTING TO ME)

Hi!! I’m not currently active, but I’ve been a long time LU fan. Because I haven’t been super on, I'm not aware of all the happenings, so sorry if someone has already done something similar to this!!

While I am not active in LU, I am very deep into Marvel, specifically Captain America and the Winter Soldier. In that fandom I have learned so much more about war and intense combat related PTSD and how it affects a person during said war and after said war, and me being myself I’ve fallen into a fun and exciting hole of more realistic behavioral things the Chain would do due to each of their journeys, but specifically Warriors.

To start off, we need to understand that the Chains’ journeys are absolutely nothing compared to the wars and stuff our world has faced. If you think about it, most of their trials and traumas are due to scare factors and being at constant risk. They only really fight monsters, who aren’t necessarily sentient beyond that of a malicious animal and when one of the Links do fight sentient beings they usually do not end up out right killing them like the monsters. Since this is the case, there’s only a small factor of guilt that adds to their trauma like not being fast enough or not saving the kingdom or not saving a single person etc. The only Links (off the top of my head and to my knowledge) who have actually killed another human are Warriors and probably Time considering he was a member of the royal guard.

Here’s where it gets even more complicated.

In the American army one of the things that they contort your brain into doing at boot camp and throughout their service is to dehumanize the enemy. In doing so it makes it easier for soldiers to function in combat and not mentally collapse (it also makes it harder for them to integrate back into society). Even though they do this, it is in their human nature to see humanity and feel that guilt when they kill people, especially when their service is over. That guilt is added on to the regular traumatic and horrific act of killing in general. Because of the guilt and everything, soldiers often cut off their emotions, get that ‘thousand yard stare’, are distrustful of people  (because if they did it to other people other people could do it to them), and distrustful of themselves. They will go quiet or loud, have big outbursts or lay motionless, isolate themselves and push people away. These things could lead into so many other things but I don’t wanna get into that right now.

Now, considering Hyrule’s history of only like, 4(?) wars (against each other) from Sky’s time to Wild’s time, I think it’s safe to assume rulers would get a little too comfortable and just train their soldiers in combat against monsters rather than people. This leads me to assume that when Warrior’s was training to become a knight, he did not get that training that dehumanized the enemy because the enemy already wasn’t human to begin with. 

So, while I agree with everyone that Warrior’s finding out that some of his men were made into traitors would give him huge trust issues and all, the fact that he had to kill another human being has affected him so much worse, especially since he didn’t have the training that real life soldiers had to keep them from losing it in combat.

I have so much more I could say about this kind of stuff, but this is getting super long lol. DO WITH THIS INFORMATION WHAT YOU WILL!! :))

[withgreatpowercomesmyfuckingdick]

I find it fascinating how the event of Crisis Core seems so important and so big in it's era, but when in Remake, the event seems insinifiant . Yes, it had been at least five years, but it's crazy how everyone just forgets about it , in a way like Soldier First Class Genesis and Angel never existed in the first place.

Thanks for the ask lovely! And yknow what, I’ve actually wondered abt this myself and my primary explanation is this:

Shinra’s propaganda is Just That Good.

Like let’s please keep in mind that Shinra is everything. They’re the news, the press, the internet, the market, the government, everything. Whatever they can control, they do.

We have canon confirmation that the Firsts’ fan clubs were run by Shinra PR. Everything supplied to those fan clubs was through the filter that Shinra put up. They could easily sour the tone of the fan clubs overnight. (Ofc, staying accurate to a real fan club, it’s quite likely the really loyal ones would set up different forums and probably end up conspiracy theorists, but the primary ones would eventually go down thanks to Shinra’s ownership)

I’m sure Angeal ‘deserting’ on a Wutai mission helped fuel some racist propaganda and fear of ‘corruption’ of Midgar. If they twisted it that way, like Genesis and Angeal were active traitors, popular opinion would turn against them.

Sephiroth couldn’t have been as easy, and I’m sure the damage couldn’t completely be mitigated, so they may have played into the ‘grieving company’ ploy instead of trying to hide that Sephiroth was dead.

So I wouldn’t say things are forgotten so much as Shinra makes sure things aren’t talked about. People remember, but Angeal and Genesis being related to Wutai/rebellion against Shinra makes them a no-go topic, and Sephiroth is painted to be a traumatic experience for Midgar (how ironic) and is only spoken in a ‘how sad, how tragic’ type tone.

And I mean, these events are consequential to US because of how much they affect Zack’s/Cloud’s stories, but five years is a large gap when you think about it. To the Midgar people, those three were more celebrities than SOLDIERs. The general population remembers them but they aren’t going to be a day to day topic. SOLDIERs on the other hand, they likely remember a lot, but there aren’t many of the originals left considering Genesis dragged a shit ton of them with him during his mass desertion. SOLDIER after the Firsts are gone is basically a new program altogether. There aren’t enough people that care enough to keep the rumor mill going, and those that have suspicions are either tracked down by Shinra or know to keep their heads down so they don’t get a Turk on their ass.

Buuuut ultimately a lot of what I said is more theory/headcanon than confirmed fact, but we’re getting some interesting new content lately. Maybe they’ll address this in the future? Who knows who knows

[destinygoldenstar]

Jo Minamino ; The Ultimate Musical Sensation (Danganronpa The Privileged Traitor)

Jahan Oishi Minamino (Yah-han Oi-she Mean-ah-mean-oh) ; 21 Years Old ; From Bollywood, India ; The Ultimate Musical Sensation

Jo Minamino is a student of Hopes Peak College Class B-3 in Danganronpa The Privileged Traitor.

Jo is a celebrity in the Bollywood industry since childhood. His main career specialized in musicals, stage and movie, and gained massive popularity all over the world for his incredible singing voice and acting skill. He’s had lead roles most of the time.

Music itself is a huge part of Jo’s life and what he’s defined by. It used to be his great passion, his entire world, and what he felt he was made and born to do in this world.

Emphasis on ‘used to be’.

See, Jo is actually a very soft spoken person in real life. He’s a rather gentle fellow who likes modak and hates getting into fights and likes to keep to himself when he can. If he can’t keep his emotion in check at the moment, he REALLY can’t, but it’s more getting upset at himself than anyone else.

For years his sleep schedule has been non existent, he has habits of making self deprecating jokes, and he gets nervous around peers, especially those that recognize him from his shows.

This is all due to trauma from the very career that got him famous in the first place.

He never had a say in his fame or his job. His parents just heard him singing to himself one day and put him in auditions in a “I’m not asking I’m telling” way. He landed a big part despite just being a newbie kid at the time and his fame just grew from there.

What followed was an entire childhood worth of isolation from other kids his age, pressures of perfecting his singing and acting for multiple performances at once, people putting him on pedestals like an object to display, and severe burnout from the music he used to love.

Did the adults care? No. They kept using him.

It got to a point where his own parents used their kids fame for their own egos, became heavy drinkers, and sent him to live on his own at fourteen because they would be too drunk to take care of him.

It led him in the hands of a theater director that would take him in, but only so he could be used for more shows.

And let’s just say the director would be arrested five years later for exposed abuse of many kinds on minors. They found Jo in a beaten malnourished and sleep deprived state that was masked with makeup and stage glamour for awhile before anyone even noticed.

For the next two years before Hopes Peak, Jo had been stuck with no authority figure, taking medications for his PTSD from his harsh childhood, and taking a break from life in general. He had quit the spotlight, which got backlash from the fans of him that kept him distant from others emotionally. He continued to say ‘screw the spotlight’ when he decided to do nothing about his lack of hairbrush and his major weight gain.

His love for music? Very much killed off. But deep down, he hoped that Hopes Peak would at least help him rediscover what he loved about music in the first place.

Guess what it did instead? Undo pretty much all of his progress.

Turns out, he’s stuck there forever in a killing game. It’s kill or be killed.

Victim? Killer? Survivor?

See my other profiles; The Protagonist ; The Mastermind; The Ultimate Good Cop ; The Ultimate Bad Cop ; The Ultimate Scientist ; The Ultimate Archer ; The Ultimate Environmentalist ; The Ultimate Arsonist ; The Ultimate Vigilante ; The Ultimate Violinist ; The Ultimate Renaissance Student ; The Ultimate Dance Streamer ; The Ultimate Video Game Modifier ; The Ultimate Poetry Writer

[indestructibleheart]

I am slowly getting my groove back, friends. This week, I was able to write some of the Tarlos punk band/bodyguard AU that I shared with ya’ll a while back. So, for WIP Wednesday, I’m sharing the opening scene:

It’s the seconds after the encore that TK loves most.

When hundreds — sometimes thousands — of people in the arena are cheering in unison and the lights are still low, TK will just stand in the wings and let it all wash over him. In a strange way, he finds it peaceful, even in all its volume. And it’s the unity of it, he thinks; they’re all still riding the high of the music, just drifting together in this perfect little bubble removed from the reality of the world. In those seconds before the lights come up and the stadium begins to empty, they’re all connected. They become one.

Yeah, yeah… Said like a lyricist. He knows.

That’s what Nancy had said, the one time he’d tried explaining it to her.

She’d known exactly what he’d meant, though. TK knows that because he knows her. In a way, they’ve become partners: the bassist and the lead vocal, putting their heads together and writing the words they’ll sing. Nancy, Marjan, Mateo, Paul, and TK are a team — have been since they’d first picked up their instruments and started to play together — but TK and Nancy? They’re kinda the group’s dynamic duo.

And that’s saying something, since Nancy and Marjan have been considered a “power couple” since J-14 dubbed them ‘Narjan’ in the early aughts.

Nancy understands him better than anyone else, which is probably why she's the only one willing to interrupt his moment as the lights start to rise. Her tug on his sleeve startles him from his revere.

“C’mon, dude,” she says. “Security wants to take us out the back, just to be safe.”

He rolls his eyes. “We’re still doing this?”

Ever since he got a couple overly enthusiastic fan letters, Judd, their manager, has been supremely cautious. TK, for his part, doesn’t really see the big deal. Have you really made it as a band if you’re not getting weird stalker threats? Okay, and maybe one of them hinted at a car bomb that was actually found underneath his Mustang… but, like, it was defective anyway, so they clearly aren’t a credible threat.

Nancy links her arm through his. “We’re doing this,” she insists. “Actually, Judd has a present for you out back.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I don’t want it.” TK scowls.

Nancy smiles as she tugs him along. “It’s a bodyguard.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope!” She looks entirely too pleased. “You’ve officially made it, kid.”

TK huffs as they round the corner and start towards the exit behind the stage. Judd is just being paranoid, and the last thing TK wants is a new babysitter. This is worse than when he’d first started getting sober four years ago and Judd had his sponsor on speed dial; Cooper was (and still is, actually) basically one of the gang. This, though, has crossed the line from enthusiastic support to just… unnecessary paranoia.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he tells her.

Nancy rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me, dude,” she says. “I just work here. You need to take it up with Judd.”

“Oh,” TK says. “I will.”

They push through the double doors into the fresh night air. The roadies and the rest of the band are in the lot, packing the equipment into the bus, but Judd stands nearby with who TK can only assume is his bodyguard. The guy definitely looks the part; he’ll give him that much. He’s tall with broad shoulders and a jaw that could be a weapon all on its own. He’s handsome, TK notices, but that doesn’t make him any more fond of this idea.

Well… Not much more.

It helps a little.

“TK,” Judd calls, waving him over. “Get over here, kiddo.”

Nancy drops his arm and gives him a little nudge. “Good luck,” she says, far too taunting to be genuine, before trotting off to meet with her girlfriend by the bus.

“Traitor,” he calls after her.

She turns just to give him an exaggerated wink.

Ugh. It’s with resignation that he trudges over to meet Judd and whatever-his-name-is. They’re leaning against a pretty sweet Camaro, and The Bodyguard has his arms folded over his chest. (So, as far as first impressions go, he’s looking a little cliche.) Regardless, Judd pushes himself off the car to get his hand on TK’s arm as he approaches — as if his big brother routine is gonna smooth this over.

“TK, this is Carlos,” he says. “He’s gonna be —”

“—My babysitter.” TK raises a brow.

Judd sighs. “Your bodyguard.”

“Not interested in babysitting,” Carlos says. “I’m just here to make sure no one blows you up.”

Obviously, he’s heard about the car incident. TK gives him a look, but Judd holds up a hand.

“I ain’t hearin it, TK,” his manager says, voice turning stern. “Until we know the fella sending these letters ain’t a threat no more, Carlos here is gonna be your shadow. And that’s that.”

The thought of having a shadow makes him squirm, but he also knows there’s no talking to Judd when he gets like this. He’s officially in Manager Mode, which means he’s technically TK’s boss. So, he just huffs.

“Does he have to follow me to the bathroom?” he asks. “It was a long show.”

Carlos snorts. “I think you can manage that yourself,” he says.

“Great,” TK snaps.

And if he uses it as an opportunity to skip around the side exit and escape… Well, they should’ve known better.

[thefanficmonster]

Nervous

Corpse Husband x reader (female)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Fluff

Summary: After being offered to play Among Us on-stream with a bunch of people, Corpse is feeling nervous that he wouldn’t be able to play to his maximum potential because he gets anxious playing with and in front of people. Reader gives him a test round to prove to him there’s nothing to worry about.

Requested: No

“Hi!“ Y/N immediately answered the phone when she saw the caller ID, a big smile spreading across her face.

“Hey.“ The familiar, deep, soothing voice that gave her oh so many butterflies replied from the other end, sounding a bit off. “I’m low-key freaking out right now.“

The smile on Y/N’s face falters as she flips to protective and worried mode in less than a second, furrowing her eyebrows, “What’s wrong?”

“You know Sean? I mean, Jacksepticeye.“ That was a pretty dumb question, considering he knew she watched him religiously and was among his biggest fans. That’s why he didn’t wait for her to answer before continuing, “Well, he invited me to play Among Us on stream with him and several other youtubers. And PewDiePie. The world’s number one gamer. I’m losing my shit right now.“

Y/N couldn’t help but laugh a little, despite trying to suppress it. She was honestly so proud of him. Her best friend playing a video game with her favorite youtubers, it sounded almost too unreal. However, she had no time to dwell on that, considering her friend was probably pissing his pants with nervousness. “Sit tight, Corpse. I’ll be over in no time.”

* * *

And that’s how they found themselves in this position. Y/N and Corpse are sitting on opposite ends of the couch in his recording room, feet stretched out to meet in the middle with their laptops resting on their laps, eyes fixated on their screens.

“You’re a massive hoarder.“ Corpse comments, giving the army of stuffed animals on the floor in front of the couch a suspicious look.

Y/N looks up from her computer, “A sentimentalist.” she corrects him, “Besides, they’re the only practice audience I could find for you, so you have no room to judge.”

Corpse snickers quietly, deciding not to vocalize the immense appreciation he has for for the gesture. Around fifteen minutes after Y/N hung up his SOS call, she showed up at his front door, laptop in one hand and a black trash bag in the other. In the black trash bag - you guessed it - were a ton of stuffed animals she took with her when she moved out of her parents’ house. As she said, she’s a sentimentalist.

“They’re making me nervous in a whole different way.“ He murmurs, staring one stuffed duck dead in its soulless eyes.

“Quit stalling, I found a server. ‘Classicsimp’, join while there’s still empty spots.“

“Alright, alright.“

And with that the two of them enter the lobby only a second before the countdown begins. Complete silence falls upon the room when the little red astronaut tells them to shush, the screen following giving them their respective roles.

Y/N’s cyan astronaut immediately starts heading down to admin to do the card swipe, her almost letting a smile slip when she remembers what a tough time Corpse had with that task when they were playing together last time. She takes a quick look through her list of five tasks and cringes a bit when she sees two tasks in electrical. She knows that’s a danger zone like no other. The other two tasks are in shields and O2, so she goes to do them before walking to what se considers her demise. While heading to the right side of the map, she loses Corpse and the majority of the players, just two of them sticking with her. The two little avatars following her are doing their tasks properly so she feel safe doing hers with them near by. As she and the pink avatar are waiting for the orange one to complete a task in navigation, a dead body is reported.

She opens the chat box where the white avatar says they found the body of the dark green player in the reactor. Y/N rolls her eyes, knowing that the reactor is a pretty dangerous place as well, with the hell of a long task and all. 

No one is sused so they skip the vote, pushing onwards. After a brief stop in security, where she sees Corpse doing the long task in reactor, she bites the bullet and heads down to electrical. While connecting the wires, the vent pops open next to her, the black avatar coming out and killing her before once again going in the vent.

She’s not surprised, but she’s pissed. She looks up at the smirking face of her best friend who pretends to be focused on the game, despite the growing urge to laugh.

“I thought we were in this together, you traitor.“ She narrows her eyes at him with pretend anger.

“We were...“ he trails off, “until our roles suggested otherwise.“

In the end, the impostors win, which comes as no surprise considering one of them is the most badass impostor of all times - Corpse.

“See, there’s nothing to be worried about.“ She finally smiles at him once they both exit the game.

He shakes his head slightly, accidentally catching a glimpse of their ‘audience’. “Shit, I forgot they were there.”

“You’ll do that with the real ones as well, at least for the first few streams.“

With his head held low, he raises his gaze, looking her in the eyes with much struggle, “I think that’s because I was playing with you.”

She scoffs, not picking up on his actual message, “Oh, you were that focused on killing me?”

“Nope.“ He smiles shyly, “Just focused on you.“

And there are all those butterflies again. What am I saying - ‘again’? As though they ever left her alone when she was in his presence. She made up the wildest excuses to not let herself believe she might actually be living the cliche of crushing on her best friend. But, now she had to come to terms with it.

“I’ll have to repay you for this.“ He tells her, “How about dinner?“

“You mean takeout?“ she asks, as clueless as ever.

“Yeah, I’ll take you out to dinner. If you’re up for it, of course“

Her heart skipped like ten beats at that sentence, her cheeks turning red. She can feel the butterflies raving in her stomach, “How could I not be? But, seeing as how I’m in an oversized hoodie and my pajama pants, we’ll have to postpone that dinner. And I’m really hungry, so for tonight we can settle for take out.” She hurries to explain, “We’ll go on a proper date when you give me the chance to actually dress up.”

He can’t help but smirk, “So you’re calling it a date, huh?”

A cocky smile plays on her lips, “I’m just saying what you were trying to.”

“Touche.“

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

I have been playing league for over 7 years, I have an extensive knowledge of the game’s lore, I love cartoons and anime, and I am an especially huge fan of the character Jinx, and Piltover and Zaun is my favorite Runeterra location, (hell before transitioning I had such bad music taste that I loved imagine dragons). Despite all of this I’m really not a big fan of Arcane. Like it’s a good show that’s beautifully animated and has multiple scenes of Jinx killing cops that I adored, and you’d think I’d like Caitlyn and Vi finally being together as a couple after like a decade of fan shipping. But I just cannot overlook how the creators of the show looked at the core concept of Piltover and Zaun in lore and we’re incapable of recognizing it as a clear class struggle of wealthy piltovans and the oppressed working class of zaun. Like yeah expecting riot to not try to both sides things was an impossible standard given their frankly abhorrent track record with Shurima’s slavery and Demacia’s mage execution camps in lore. But like watching the shows main creators talk about how it’s so cool that Piltover and Zaun both have their own ways of life seemingly not realizing that one is explicitly the oppressor class and the oppressed class just baffles me. This barely scratches the surface of my complaints. I can’t even bring myself to care about Caitlyn and Vi because they’re both cops. Like idk if people who only watched Arcane realize this but in actual League lore Caitlyn is the chief of police that only serves the Piltover oligarchy and Vi is a class traitor whose entire character was designed as a joke about excessive police brutality. Once again I can’t expect a billion dollar media corporation to actually have good politics, but given that Piltover and Zaun are regions designed to depict class struggle and Arcane just goes “isn’t it so cool how there’s 2 equal but different cities 😊”

[kylorenisadorkable]

How TROS Failed Rey

These are just my opinions and from my personal perspective, if these things worked for you in the movie then cool, but this is why it was never going to work for me.

A Feminine Power Fantasy

Growing up in the 90s there wasn't a ton of media that had female lead characters. I grew up with strong female characters but they were often relegated to being the token girl of the group (see the Smurfette principle), the story was never centered around them and we never got to experience things from their point of view or really get to know their story. It felt like I was being asked to relate to male characters but boys were never asked or expected to relate to female characters.

Just as young boys see themselves as Luke, leading the adventure I also wanted to see myself as the main character. I wanted to have my own adventures.

When I first saw TFA, I went in knowing nothing about the movie. I had seen the OT and the Prequels as a kid and I had thought they were ok but I wasn't a huge Star Wars fan and in hindsight I really think this was due to the lack of female representation, Leia and Padme are great but I never really felt like I really got to know them as people. Not to mention that these characters are 2 women out of a cast that's predominantly male, it just seemed like the message LF was sending was that Star Wars is for boys, yeah girls can watch it if they want to but this isn't a series that is meant for you. So as you could guess I wasn't really expecting much from these new Star Wars movies, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I fell in love with Rey's character during those first 3 minutes of her introduction. During this brilliant example of “show don't tell,” story telling they were really able to convey so much about Rey's character and personality, I really began to care for her and felt like I understood her, as I could relate to her loneliness and isolation in my own way. And I was excited to see a story from a major fantasy/adventure franchise told from a feminine perspective. It felt like I was finally getting the representation I wanted to see.

So what happened? How did we go from Luke's line “And I will not be the Last Jedi” which is essentially him “passing the torch” to Rey, the next generation, to “One day I will earn your brother's saber?” 

As if the saber didn't already choose her in the Force Awakens? Why did they decide that all of a sudden Rey was unworthy? Didn't Yoda say “that library held nothing that the girl Rey didn't already posses?” which yes was a clever way of saying that Rey already took the jedi texts with her but was also implying that she already had everything she needed within herself to be a jedi (courage, humility, compassion etc...). Why did they take a step backwards in the last movie in the franchise? Insisting that Rey needed to train, that she suddenly wasn't good enough?

I can't say for sure what happened to lead up to this point. Was it just that the creative team gave in to the pressuring of a loud minority of alt-right youtubers and bots. Were they relying on Reddit and Twitter for public opinion rather than doing actual marketing research?  While I think that this was definitely a big factor I think there was just a general misunderstanding of the characters on Terrio's and JJ's part to begin with.

What Does Rey Want/Need?

To know where they went wrong, we have to ask ourselves who is Rey? All characters have a story goal, or the thing they want. By the end of the story the character will either get what they want after some struggles of course or learn that the thing that they want isn't what they need. So what does Rey want?  To understand what she wants we have to first understand her wound or past experience that caused emotional pain and interferes with the character's life. Rey's wound stems from her  abandonment. Along with the wound, comes the concept of the false lie. What is a lie that the character believes about themselves that we as the audience knows is untrue? Rey's lie is first, that her family is going to come back for her. 

The other lie she tells herself is the belief that she is worthless because she was abandoned, as she tells everyone she meets “I'm no one“ or “I'm just a scavenger.”

When Daisy Ridley was asked in an interview why Rey says she's “No One.” Ridley says it's because our relationships to people define so much of who we are and without relationships then who are we?  This makes sense considering that our parents are major influences in our development and in how we think about ourselves through much of our lives.

Rey seeks out parental figures, thinking that through them she'll figure out where she belongs. “Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But there's someone who still could. The Belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.” 

Rey initially believes that Maz is referring to Luke and when she later sets off to find him. She believe that he is going to be able to give her answers, and provide her with the belonging that she longs for, but Luke ultimately ends up disappointing her but finds comfort in her relationship with Ben.

This goes back to the idea that what Rey thinks she wants, Isn't necessarily what she needs. As JJ stated in the directors commentary of The Force Awakens, “So there was a very powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging, which she’ll get, but just not how she expects.”

JJ and Terrio try to fullfill Rey's need through “found family” the family she finds with her friends and the resistance, but I think there is more to Rey's desire of wanting family that can't be satisfied by this alone. Finn, Poe, Leia are definitely a part of her journey in finding belonging but they're not the final piece to the puzzle. Otherwise she would have felt completely fulfilled by the end of The Last Jedi when she is on the Falcon surrounded by her friends.

I think part of Rey's desire for family, is also the desire to be understood, to be “seen.”  Rey even tells Finn in TROS that “People keep telling me they know me. No one does.” We hear Ben's response in the trailer “But I do...” (which was cut from the movie)

Ben has always been shown to be the person who truly “sees” Rey. He sees even the aspects of herself that she doesn't like to acknowledge. Recognizing that her holding on to her parents is affecting her negatively and that if she really wants to “find herself” she needs to let go.

Which is why when Ben says “You have no place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me.” What is really being expressed is “I don't care about where you come from and I see you for who you are.”  

This is why I believe that Ben was always suppose to be the final piece to the belonging Rey is searching for. As their narratives are intertwined. They both satisfy each others needs as characters, Rey's need to be seen for who she is and Ben's need for reconciliation and healing within his family.

Rey Palpatine

Rian Johnson said that when he began working on The Last Jedi, he wrote out all the character's names and next to them wrote what would be the hardest thing for that character to face. For Rey, this was that she needs to stand on her own two feet and define who she is for herself but JJ and Terrio seemed to have misunderstood this as Terrio states that,

“We also thought that Rey’s arc cannot be finished after Episode VIII. You can leave Episode VIII and say, “Well, now, Rey is content. She’s discovered her parents aren’t Skywalkers, or whatever, and that’s fine.” But so much of her personal story was about where she came from, what kept her on Jakku all those years and the trauma that shaped her. We see quite strongly in Episode VII that something mysterious and troubling happened to her. Although she did get some answers in Episode VIII, we didn’t feel that that story was over. We felt that there were still more questions in Rey’s head about where she came from and where she was going. So, that was the other big idea that we had to address in this film. Rian’s answer to, “What’s the worst news that Rey could receive?” was that she comes from junk traders, and that’s true. She does come from junk traders; we didn’t contradict that.”

Rey's conflict wasn't that she came from junk traders. Rey didn't care about “legacy.” Her conflict stemmed from her abandonment. Rey thinks she's “a nobody” not because of her parent's occupation or lineage but because she feels that she must be worthless because why else would her parents give her up? Rey learning that her parents sold her off for drinking money, that they didn't want her, was already a difficult and traumatic truth to overcome. Star Wars is a coming of age story, in the OT Luke grows from being a boy longing for adventure to discovering what it truly means to be a Jedi (following your principles and having a compassionate heart). Rey's journey is about letting go of childhood trauma and discovering her own independence.

It's also strange seeing as JJ had previously stated during The Force Awakens press tour that “I really feel that the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline. It's not that I don't believe that as part of the canon, I'm just saying that at 11 years old that wasn't where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.”

And there was still conflict for her to overcome. The one person who she felt truly understood her is now the supreme leader of the first order, will the resistance discover their connection? Will they see her as a traitor? All of this had the potential for great external and internal character conflict, but for some reason they didn't see this as conflict enough to sustain a whole movie?

Instead they gave Luke's character arc in the OT of having a dark side relative to Rey. “Discovering that you actually descended from your adoptive family’s greatest enemy, the same enemy who corrupted Anakin Skywalker and is responsible for the destruction of the Skywalker family in the first place, felt most devastating to us.” This doesn't make any sense to me as it feel like they just gave Rey Luke's internal conflict of being afraid of his dark side, I don't think this was ever a problem for Rey. In fact, in The Last Jedi  she leapt into the dark side cave to face her darkness (her abandonment). Luke even says “You went straight to the dark and you didn't even try to stop yourself.” 

The dark side cave in The Last Jedi was symbolic of Rey coming to terms with her darkness (the parts of herself she wants to hide).  It relates back to Jungian psychology (which much of Star Wars is based on) that people can only become whole through understanding both the light and shadow aspects of their personality. So it doesn't make sense for Rey to be afraid of who she is in the final movie when she just finished a journey where she learned to accept who she was?

Rey Skywalker

Terrio says that the decision to have Rey take on the name “Skywalker” was a way to show that “you can choose your ancestry.” Which is not true and also a strange thing to say considering the trilogy started with this:

But even if this was just awkward phrasing and what Terrio meant to say was that she considers the Skywalkers her family. Does this make sense considering that she didn't have a great relationship with Luke to begin with?

 I've seen it argued that she took the name as a way of honoring Leia but Leia never took the name or considered herself a Skywalker. Also this is another step backwards for Rey's character as The Last Jedi was trying to assert that Rey does not need to keep looking for parental figures to define herself.

So why  must she be a Palpatine, a Skywalker and “all the jedi” anyways? I think this was done for two reasons, the first was because by killing Ben they were going to kill the last of the Skywalker family and they wanted to keep the name tied to the franchise, in case they need the characters for future projects down the line, so they just pushed it onto Rey. The second reason is that I think they were trying to appease the misogynists' who spent the last 4 years calling Rey a “Mary Sue” so they explained her power away through powerful male lineage. It just feels so weird to me, like the creators are saying that we should like Rey not because of who she is as a character but because of who she is in relation to all these other characters we know you like (Luke, Leia, all the jedi that use her as a vessel etc...)

Daisy Ridley has even expressed her frustration with the Rey's lineage debate multiple times, “I love that Rey is such a great character, they’re like: ‘No, no, she has to be… she has to be-’She’s her own person! Let her be her guys, let her live.

Yet even at the end of the final film poor Rey can't seem to catch a break as she's once again asked for her last name. She once again has to justify herself for just existing. Why are surnames suddenly so important in Star Wars now anyways? Shouldn't the correct answer be “just Rey,” now that she's come to accept who she is and where she's come from and shouldn't that be good enough? What happened to the message of anyone can be a hero? That you don't have to come from or align yourself with a powerful family legacy. That we all have the power to make a difference?

TROS seems to be constantly asking Rey to prove herself. And weirdly enough it reminds me in a strange meta way of my own experience being a woman in the fandom and being constantly asked to prove that I'm a “True fan” (whatever the f@#% that means...) to prove that I'm worthy of consuming and participating in this content that male fans feel belongs solely to them.

In Conclusion

So what did our heroine gain in the end? Did she find family and belonging? No. So what does she have in the end? A yellow lightsaber (for merchandising purposes) and a surname of a dead family?  I guess she finally has an answer to give all the nosey nellies, obsessed with ones pedigree that have suddenly popped up all over the galaxy.

It's not a satisfying ending for her, as she's basically right back where she started. Alone, in a desolate desert, once again staring face to face at an old woman (an old woman which at the start of the Force Awakens symbolized her fear of growing old and wasting away her life on Jakku).

Terrio states that  this is not meant to indicate that Rey plans to stay here, “The very last thing Rey would do after all that is to go and live alone in a desert.”  but when that is the last shot you chose to end the movie on then what is the audience suppose to think? The bigger issue however, is that Rey's ending holds no significance to her or her journey. Terrio says that “In our thinking, Rey goes back to Tatooine as a pilgrimage in honor of her two Skywalker masters. Leia’s childhood home, Alderaan, no longer exists, but Luke’s childhood home, Tatooine, does. Rey brings the sabers there to honor the Skywalker twins by laying them to rest — together, finally — where it all began.” Tatooine, the Lars homestead and the twin suns, don't mean anything to Rey.  You know who did mean something to Rey? Who was the one person who understood her, who she had an intimate relationship with, who she explicitly states she wanted to be with? Ben. But he's gone too. But clearly a light saber and surname are more important. Again this all comes from a lack of caring for what Rey wants.

I just wish that the Sequel Trilogy had stayed Rey's trilogy, that she got to be a heroine in her own right not because she was a skywalker, or a palpatine or from some other powerful family. I will always love Rey but I will always hate what they did to her and I'm tired of people invalidating my feelings and telling me that it was a good ending or that it was empowering. I just want heroines to be taken as seriously and to have all the same privileges as male heroes. Let them stand on their own without connecting them back to every male hero in the franchise, let them be their own character, and finally just let them be human, let them fall in love and have relationships if they want to. Male heroes are never considered to be less of a hero for having a love interest, so why are female heroes? Basically what I got out of the Rise of Skywalker, was that it was created by a couple of guys that loved Luke and the OT and could care less about Rey and that's truly heart breaking.

[itsclydebitches]

The Bad Batch: A Crosshair Analysis

Hello, Star Wars fandom! I have just completed watching—and loving—The Bad Batch, which you know means I now need to dump all my thoughts about the first season into the tumblr void. Specifically, thoughts on the complicated drama that is Crosshair. I have no doubt that the majority of what I’m about to say will be old news to anyone who watched the show when it came out (I’m slow...), but I’m writing it all out anyway. Largely for my own sanity enjoyment :D

I want to preface all of this by saying that the above is not an exaggeration. I love the show and I love the entire cast. My enjoyment in each of the characters is directly connected to my enjoyment of the season as a whole, which I say because I’m about to get pretty critical towards some of the characters’ choices and, to a lesser extent, the writing choices that surround those. Does this mean I secretly hate The Bad Batch? Quite the opposite. I’m invested, which is presumably just what Filoni wants. I’m just hoping that investment pays off. 

But enough of the disclaimers. Let’s start with the matter of the inhibitor chip. I’ve seen fans take some pretty hard stances on both sides: Crosshair is completely innocent because he’s definitely been under the chip’s control this whole time, no matter what he might say. Crosshair is completely guilty because he said the chip was removed a long time ago and he chose to do all this, no moral wiggle room allowed. However, the reality is that we don’t know enough to make a clear call either way. The audience, simply put, does not have all the necessary information. What we have instead is a couple of facts combined with claims that may or may not be reliable. Let’s lay them out:

Crosshair was definitely under the chip’s control at the start of the series.

He was able to resist it to a certain extent, resulting in a pressure to obey orders coupled with a primary loyalty to his squad. See: telling Hunter to follow the Empire’s commands—which includes killing kid Padawans—but not turning his team in as traitors when they did not. It’s an in-between space.

Crosshair’s chip was then amplified to an unknown extent. I’m never going to claim I’m a Star Wars aficionado—I’m a casual fan, friends. Please don’t yell at me over obscure lore lol—but within TBB’s canon, no one else is undergoing that experimentation. The effects of this are entirely unknown, which includes Crosshair’s free will, or lack thereof.

Crosshair then becomes a clear tool of the Empire, hunting down innocents, killing on a whim, the whole, evil shebang.

In “Reunion” he’s caught by the engine and suffers severe burns to his face. One leaves a scar that covers precisely the place where the chip would have been extracted.

Removing the chip leaves its own scar behind. If Crosshair’s was removed, we can’t see that scar due to the burn.

After these events Crosshair seems to mellow a bit. He does horrible things under the Empire’s orders—like shooting the senator—but is still loyal to his squad—killing his non-clone teammates to give TBB a chance, saving AZ and Omega, etc.

Crosshair claims that his chip has already been removed. However, Crosshair is arguably an unreliable source if he’s been lied to or if the chip is still there, encouraging him to manipulate the team.

Crosshair claims it was removed a long time ago, which is incredibly imprecise. As we can see from just some of the events listed above, precisely when the chip came out—if it came out—makes a huge difference.

Hunter realizes this and presses for clarification, but Crosshair dodges giving it. Again, a legitimate belief that it doesn’t matter, or evidence that he can’t say because something else is going on? We don’t know.

Hunter checks Crosshair’s head and finds the burn scar which proves… nothing. As stated above, they wouldn’t be able to see the surgery scar one way or another: its existence or its absence. It’s useless data, as Tech might say. I’ve seen a few fans claim that Hunter was also feeling for the chip with his enhanced senses, but 1. I didn’t catch any evidence of that in the scene and 2. Even if we assume Hunter did that anyway, the chips are notoriously hard to spot. Fives and AZ couldn’t find the chip at first when examining Tup. Ahsoka had to use the force to find it in Rex. TBB themselves couldn’t find it at first in Wrecker. If machinery consistently fails to find the chip on the first couple of tries—it’s meant to be a hidden implant, after all—why would we believe Hunter’s senses could pick it up instantly? Maybe he missed it, or maybe it wasn’t there at all. 

Crosshair appears to be struggling with a headache in the finale, just as he was at the beginning of the season and just like Wrecker was for the first half.

The point of listing all this out is to emphasize how ambiguous this whole situation is. I don’t want to use this post to argue one way or another about whether Crosshair’s chip is really out. I have my preferred theory (the chip’s still in, but only partially functional), but at the end of the day none of this is conclusive. The writing takes us in what I hope is deliberate circles. Crosshair says the chip is out? Crosshair is not a reliable source of information until we know if the chip is out. What other evidence is there that the chip is gone? A scar? We can’t see if there’s a scar. Hunter’s abilities? He only checked once for a canonically hard to find implant—if he actually checked at all. And why would the Empire want the chip out? Well, maybe it has to do with that push towards willing soldiers, but if that were the case, why leave Crosshair behind and have the “clones die together”? By that point he was one of the most willing, chip or not. Did they have to take it out because of the engine accident? Pure speculation. We just don’t know and THAT is the point I want to make.

Because it means the rest of the Bad Batch didn’t know either.

The core issue I have here is not whether the chip is in or out, or even how long it may have been in if it is out now. The issue is that TBB spent 99% of the first season believing that Crosshair was under the chip’s influence… and they didn’t try to do anything about that. They abandoned him. They left a man behind. Does this make them all horrible monsters? Of course not! This shit is complicated as hell, but I do think they made a very large mistake and that Crosshair has every right to be furious about it.

“But, Clyde, they couldn’t have gone back. It was too dangerous! Hunter had a duty to his whole team, not just Crosshair.” True enough and I’d buy this argument 100% if Hunter hadn’t spent the entire season throwing his team into dangerous, seemingly impossible situations to save other people. Crosshair became the exception, not a hard rule of something they had to avoid. They went back to Kamino for Omega, a kid they’d only had one lunch with, despite knowing how dangerous the Empire was. They went into the heart of an occupied planet to rescue not just a stranger, but one belonging to the Separatist government. They helped Sid when she asked and there was plenty of compassion for the criminal trying to take her place. Most significantly, there wasn’t the slightest hesitation to go rescue Hunter when he was under the Empire’s control, in precisely the same place. Every explanation I’ve seen fans come up with—Kamino is too fortified, they don’t know where Crosshair is, they can’t risk Omega being captured, etc.—also holds true for Hunter, yet there wasn’t a second of doubt about needing to at least try to help him. And his rescue was arguably far more dangerous given that TBB knew they were walking into a trap. Going after Crosshair would have at least had some element of surprise.

I think the problem with these justifications is most easily seen in “Rescue on Ryloth” and, later, “War-Mantle.” In the former, we do watch Hunter decide that going on a rescue mission is too much of a risk, only for Omega to talk him into considering it.

Hunter: “It’s a big galaxy. We can’t put ourselves on the line every time someone’s in trouble.”

Omega: “Why not? Isn’t that what soldiers do?”

Hunter: “It’s not worth the risk.”

Omega: “She’s trying to save her family, Hunter. I’d do the same for you.”

The arguments that sway him are ‘Soldiers should help people’ and ‘Soldiers should specifically help their family.’ So… what does that say about their feelings for Crosshair? They’re willing to put themselves on the line for the parents of a girl they met once at a drop site, but not their own brother? That’s the message the writing sends. “But, Clyde, the difference is that they had an advantage here. Hera’s knowledge of her home planet tipped the odds in their favor.” Yeah… and Crosshair is stationed on TBB’s home planet. Even more than them collectively having the same knowledge that Hera does, “Return to Kamino” reveals that Omega always had additional, insider knowledge of the base: she has access to a secret landing pad and the tunnels leading up into the city. That knowledge was given and used the second Hunter’s freedom was on the line, but it never once came up to use for Crosshair’s benefit. 

“War-Mantle’s” mission puts this problem in even sharper relief. Another claim I’ve seen a lot is that TBB only took risky rescue missions because they needed to be paid. The guys have got to eat after all. Yet Tech makes it clear that going after Gregor will lose them money. They’re meant to be on a mission for Sid and deviating for that won’t result in a payment. He explicitly says that if they decide to do this, they won’t eat. They do it anyway. No money, no intel, a huge risk “on a clone we don’t even know.” But that’s not what’s important, the show says. All that matters is that a brother is in trouble. This time it’s Echo pushing that message instead of Omega. When Hunter realizes that they’re about to try and infiltrate an entire facility and they don’t even know if this clone is still alive, Echo points out that they took that risk once before: for him. “If there’s a chance that trooper is being held against his will, we have to try and get him out.”

Yes! Exactly right! So why doesn’t that apply to Crosshair?

“Because he tried to kill them, Clyde!” No, that’s the easy, dismissive answer. A chipped Crosshair tried to kill them. AKA, a Crosshair entirely under the Empire’s control. The only difference between his enslavement and Gregor’s is that Gregor’s chains were physical while Crosshair’s were mental. And again, the point of everything at the start of this post is to show that no one knows when or even if that chip was removed. TBB definitely didn’t have any reason to suspect that Crosshair was working under his own power until Crosshair himself said as much. We might have been able to make that case at the start of the season, but “Battle Scars” removes any possible confusion. The entire team watched Rex reach for his blaster when he learned their chips were still in. The entire team watched Wrecker become a totally different person and attack them, just like Crosshair did. The entire team forgave him instantly and had their own chips removed. So why in the world didn’t anyone go, “Wow, Crosshair has a chip too. He was no more responsible for attacking us than Wrecker was. We need to try to get him out, no matter how hard that might be, just like we had to try for all these other people we’ve helped.”

But they didn’t. No one even considered rescuing Crosshair. They only went back for Hunter and, when they realized Crosshair was there too, they didn’t change their plans to try and rescue him as well. He’s treated as a particularly threatening inconvenience, not another team member in need of their help.

The problem I have with how this all went down is that the team treated Crosshair like an enemy despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite Omega outright saying that this isn’t his fault, it’s the chip, the group seems to decide that he’s gone crazy or something and that there’s nothing they can do. “It’s fine,” I thought. “They don’t really get what the chip is like yet. They don’t understand how thoroughly it controls someone.” But then “Battle Scars” arrives and Wrecker is treated with such compassion (which he deserves!) only for the group to continue acting like Crosshair is somehow different. It’s easy to say, “But Crosshair shot Wrecker” and ignore the easy pushback of, “and Wrecker nearly shot Omega.” Up until Crosshair’s own accusations and Omega’s ignored comments, TBB’s understanding of the chip’s influence and the lack of responsibility that accompanies mysteriously disappears when the show’s antagonist becomes the subject of conversation. This is seen most clearly in how Hunter tries to frame things during his talk with Crosshair:

“You tried to kill us. We didn’t have a choice.”

“Can’t you see that they’re using you? It’s that inhibitor chip in your head.”

“You really don’t get who we are, do you?”

Hunter mentions the chip, but he acts as if it’s Crosshair’s responsibility to overcome it: “Can’t you see…” Of course he can’t see, that’s the entire point of the chip, the thing he currently believes Crosshair still has stuck in his head. But Hunter and the others—with Omega as a wonderful exception—never seem to have accepted this like they did for Wrecker. When Crosshair “tried to kill us” it’s seen as a deliberate act that he chose, not something forced on him like with Wrecker. When Hunter talks about their ethics, he subconsciously separates the team from Crosshair: “You really don’t get who we are, do you?”, revealing a pretty ingrained divide between them. Even Wrecker gets in on the action, the one brother who truly understands how much the chip controls someone: “All that time, you didn’t even try to come back.” What part of he couldn’t try is not hitting home here? Again, for the purposes of this conversation it doesn’t matter whether Crosshair was chipped this whole time or not. The point is that TBB believed he was chipped… and yet still expected him to somehow, magically overcome that programming, writing him off when he failed to do that. He’s consistently held responsible for actions that they were told (and, through Wrecker, saw) were completely outside of his control. Even when we factor in his claim that the chip was removed, TBB has ignored all the evidence I listed at the start. No one, not even Omega, challenges this super vague and strange claim, or seeks out proof because they don’t want to believe that their brother could willingly do this. There’s just this... acceptance that of course Crosshair went bad. Why? Because he was an asshole sometimes? Taking it all as written, it doesn’t feel like the batch considered him a true part of the team. Certainly not like Wrecker or Hunter. As shown, the batch will go out of their way, risk anything, forgive anything, for them. They have a level of faith that was never shown to Crosshair. 

“Severe and unyielding,” Tech says and he’s absolutely right, but I’d seriously challenge this idea that any of the others would have automatically done better if the situations were reversed. It stood out to me that each batch member has a moment of doubt throughout the series, a brief glimpse into how they think the Empire isn’t that bad, at least when it comes to this particular thing. Basically, a moment that could lead to a very dangerous line of thinking without others to stomp it down. Wrecker announces that he’s happy working for whoever, provided they give him food and let him blow things up. Tech finds the chain codes to be an ingenious strategy and is clearly fascinated with their development. Hunter initially wants Omega to stay on Kamino, despite knowing that this Empire has already, systematically killed an entire group of people: the Jedi. Doesn’t matter. She’s still (supposedly) safer there than she would be running with the likes of them.

There’s absolutely no doubt that those three made the correct choice in defying the Empire, but I believe that their ability to make that choice is largely dependent on them having each other. They survive together, not apart, and it’s their unity that allows them to make the really hard calls, like setting out on their own and opposing such a formidable force. But if Tech’s chip had activated and he’d been left behind, would he have muscled through to escape somehow...or would he have gotten caught up in all the new technology the Empire offered him, succumbing to both his chip and the inevitability that if his squad no longer wanted him, why not stay? Would Wrecker have escaped, or been easily manipulated into a new life of exploding things? Would Hunter have been able to push through without his brothers, or would he have become devoted to a new team to lead? Obviously there’s no way to ever know, but it’s always easier to make the right decisions when you have support in doing so. Crosshair had no support. His team left him and yes, they had to in that specific moment, but the point is that they never came back. As far as we saw throughout the season, they never planned to come back. They all talk about loving the Crosshair who existed when life was easier, but they weren’t willing to fight for the Crosshair that most needed their help. When he says “You weren’t loyal to me,” he’s absolutely right. The same episode, “Return to Kamino,” gives Omega two powerful lines that the group rallies behind:

Omega: “[The danger] doesn’t matter. Saving Hunter is what matters.”

AZ: “You must leave.”

Omega: “Not without Hunter.”

The key word there is “Hunter.” Danger, stakes, risk, probability… none of that matters when Hunter needs help. Crosshair did not receive that same level of devotion.

Which creates a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The group is upset that Crosshair isn’t rejoining them, but they fail to realize that he has no reason to trust them anymore. He’s not joining the Empire because he’s inherently evil and that’s that, end of discussion. He’s joining it because above all Crosshair wants a place to belong… and TBB has made it clear—unintentionally—that he does not belong with them. The horrible actions that Crosshair took under his own free will (theoretically) came after he realized that doing bad things while under the Empire’s control was, apparently, unforgivable. If it wasn’t, his team would have come back to rescue him. They could have at least tried. But they didn’t, so Crosshair is left with the conclusion that either what he did under the Empire’s control is something the group can’t forgive him for, or they can forgive that (like with Wrecker) and he’s the problem here. He’s the one not worth that effort.

“The Empire will be fazing out clones next,” Hunter says. To which Crosshair responds, “Not the ones that matter.”

He wants to matter to someone and events show he no longer matters to his brothers. So why not stay with the Empire? I mean, we as the audience ABSOLUTELY know why not. Self-doubt and feelings of isolation aren’t excuses for joining the Super Evil Organization. Crosshair, if he is under his own control, is still 100% in the wrong for supporting them, no matter his reasons. So it’s not an excuse, but rather an explanation of that very human, flawed, fallible thinking. He needs to be useful. He needs to be wanted. Crosshair is an absolute dick to the regs and I have no doubt that a lot of that stems from the harassment TBB has experienced from them (with a side of his inflated ego), but I’d bet it’s also due to Crosshair’s intense desire to be valuable to someone. He keeps pointing out the regs’ supposed deficiencies because it highlights his own usefulness. When Crosshair fails to find Hera, the Admiral says that soon he’ll get someone who can, looking straight at Howzer at the door. It makes Crosshair seethe because his entire identity is based on being useful, yet no one seems to need him anymore. TBB seems to no longer want him. The Empire no longer wants clones. Now even regs are considered a better option than him, the “superior” soldier. Everywhere Crosshair turns he’s getting the message that he’s not wanted, but he’ll keep fighting to at least be needed in some capacity, no matter how small. Even if that means overlooking all the horrors the Empire commits.

“All you’ll ever be to [the Empire] is a number,” Hunter says and he’s absolutely right. But to TBB recently, Crosshair hasn’t even been that. He’s been nothing. Nobody worth coming back for. To his mind, at least being a number is something.

I hope that all of this resolves itself into a conclusion that is kind to each side (preferably without a Vader-style death redemption), especially given the still ambiguous state of the chip, but from a writing standpoint I’m admittedly a bit wary. We’re obviously meant to believe that the batch all love each other, but as established throughout this entirely too long post, this season did a terrible job imo of proving that they love Crosshair. Or, at least, proving that they love him as much as the others. If this was really meant to be just a matter of miscommunication, with Crosshair making terrible life choices because he only thinks he was abandoned, then we as the audience would have seen the batch trying and failing to get him out. Or at least establishing a very good reason why they couldn’t take that risk, hopefully with entirely different side-missions so the audience isn’t constantly going, “So you can risk everything for Gregor... but not Crosshair?” I’m VERY glad that Crosshair was allowed to air his grievances to the extent he did, but the end result of that—Hunter continually denying this, Omega walking away from him in their rooms, neither Tech nor Wrecker actually sticking up for him and acknowledging the chip’s influence during at least some of all this—is making things feel rather one-sided. It’s like we’re meant to take Crosshair at his word and accept that he’s this garden-variety antagonist who joins the Empire because yay being on the winning side… despite all these complications that clearly have a huge impact on how we read the situation. It doesn’t help that the show has already embraced an inconsistent manner of portraying chipped-clones. We know every clone has one, we know only a couple clones are aware of the chip’s existence (and can thus try to get it out), we know they enter a “Good soldiers follow orders” mindlessness once activated… yet towards the end we see a lot of side character clones thinking for themselves. Howzer decides that he’s no longer loyal to the Empire, giving a speech where a couple other clones throw down their weapons too. Gregor was arrested because he likewise realized how wrong this all was. But how is that possible? Do the chips completely control the clones, or not? Are these clones somehow exceptions? Are the chips beginning to fail? All of that has a bearing on how we read Crosshair—what were his own decisions, how much he was capable of overcoming the chip, whether that changed at all during certain points—but right now that remains really unclear.

It’s details like that which make me wonder if all these other questions will be answered. Will the story resolve all those ambiguous moments surrounding the chip, or brush them off with the belief that we should have just taken Crosshair at his equally ambiguous word? Will the story acknowledge Crosshair’s points through someone other than Crosshair, allowing it to exist as a legitimate criticism, rather than the presumed excuses of an antagonist? I’m… not sure. On the whole I’m very happy with TBB’s writing—despite what all this might imply lol. Until my brain picks over the season and discovers something else, my only other gripe is not allowing Omega to form a solid bond with Tech and Echo, instead putting all the focus on big brother!Wrecker and dad!Hunter. I think it’s a solid show that does a lot right, but I’m worried that, unless there’s a brilliant answer to all these questions and an intent to unpack both sides of the Hunter vs. Crosshair debate with respect—not just falling back on, “Well, Crosshair is with the Empire so everything he says is automatically bad and wrong” take—we’ve just gotten the setup for a somewhat messy, ethical story. For anyone here who also reads my RWBY metas, I’m pretty sure you’re not at all surprised that I’m invested in going, “Hey, you had one of the heroes suddenly become/join a dictatorship and do a lot of horrific things, but within a pretty complicated context. Can we please work through that carefully and with an acknowledgement of the nuance here, rather than throwing the ‘evil’ character to the proverbial wolves?”  

God knows TBB is leagues ahead of RWBY, but I hope things continue on in not just a good direction, but one that tackles the aspects of this situation that many fans—and Crosshair—have already pointed out. As much as I adore the cast—and I really, really do—it was discomforting to watch a found family show where 4/5th of that family so completely wrote off one of the members and crucially have, at least so far, refused to acknowledge that. I want complicated, flawed characters, but that’s only compelling when the storytelling admits to and grapples with those flaws. We have quite firmly established Crosshair’s flaws in Season One. I hope Season Two delves into the rest of the team’s too.

Aaaand with that meta-dump out of my system, I’m off to write TBB fic. Thanks for reading! :D

[baku-bowl]

broke 1,000 followers (the fuck? I don't even make content people), so decided to write up a list of some (but not all, I'll make other lists later) of my favorite Bakugou-centric fic recs. my tastes run towards hurt/comfort, as you'll probably figure from the list. if there are some Baku-centric fics that you've enjoyed that aren't on here, please add them - this is definitely not a complete list of the ones I've read and love, but I'm always up for some recs. <3

fair warning, most of these are wips.

------------------------------------------------

Social Media 101 by WindsChild8178

Part 1: Survival Guide to Fucking Up

[Solely Bakugou’s point of view]

Katsuki Bakugou doesn’t have a gentle bone in his body. He’s aggressive in everything he does and does everything with 100% of his heart in it. After the Sport’s Festival, Katsuki starts to get harassed by strangers for his unheroic demeanor. It starts with letters but it doesn’t end there. The moment Katsuki realizes the harassment has entered dangerous territory and he needs to tell someone, it’s already too late.

Part 2: Post Traumatic Life Disorder

[Point of View opens up to Bakugou, teachers and classmates]

When the Dorms are finally built, everyone is settling in well, but things become tense as people begin to realize something isn’t right with the recently rescued Bakugou.

[Cannon compliant right up to after the License Exam]

hands down my favorite fic in the fandom right now. it’s the one that converted me into a Bakugou lover. if you have any fondness for Bakugou as a character then it’s likely you’ve read this one already, but if not, I can’t recommend it enough. incredibly depressing, but with the hope that comfort is coming soon in the next few chapters.

The Kids Will Be Alright, Eventually by NotWithThatAttitude

Bakugou is spiraling in the aftermath of Kamino and his friends are starting to notice. He's stubborn, aggressively independent, and less than willing to dig into his past, but after a breakdown that ends with a painful secret revealed, he starts to get help.

Whether he likes it or not.

Meanwhile, a new kind of villain threatens an uneasy peace following the loss of Allmight. Whispers build as a new narrative slowly takes shape:

Hero society needs to change.

Feat. Therapy, Dadzawa, best boy Kirishima, dysfunctional families, healing, growing up, and the mortifying ordeal of being known

guys.. the medical accuracy of this fic is just... *chef’s kiss*

I rarely see mental health genuinely handled well in fics, but this one goes above and beyond. kudos to the author for doing such excellent research into psychology, and making the application of it in here not-boring. also, while this one does have abusive!Mitsuki, it’s done in a way that feels realistic, and how I usually will see it occur in real life, rather than just for the hurt/comfort feels.

fair warning, the fic can be incredibly triggering (themes of severe depression, PTSD, panic attacks, rape survival, abuse survival, suicidal ideation/attempted suicide, among other things), so be safe and heed the tw’s if you decide to read. legitimately one of my Top Favorite fics in this fandom.

Lock and Key by autochorystalize

Bakugou made a choked, gravelly noise before croaking out a low, “You can’t be serious.” His fingers ached to blow up everything in the room.

“I’m sorry, young man, but you can’t change reality! This sometimes happens.” Recovery Girl clicked through his file, adding a new symbol in a previously empty slot.

- - -

A pair of eyes discreetly locked on to an explosive blond plowing his way forward, parting people in his path. He recognized the kid, of course. Anyone in the underbelly of society would recognize him, after the publicity of both UA’s Sports Festival and the events leading up to All Might’s fall. The uniform he was wearing cast away any doubts about the young man’s identity.

It was a bit of a surprise that the little firecracker presented as an omega.

- - - - - - - - -

Or: there are certain types of evil that seemed too distant, archaic violations and perversions that would never actually threaten bright-eyed heroes-in-training in the clean, modern world...but sometimes those evils aren't as distant as one might think.

remember when I said that I love a/b/o fics that are full of plot and world-building and gender-induced tension? that’s this one. the OC’s are fabulous and you love to hate ‘em. also, it’s the fic that made me fall head-over-heels for the TodoBaku dynamic, so it’s got a special place in my cold, dead heart. 

be warned, there are rather explicit non-con scenes between an adult (OC) and a minor (Bakugou) in this one, but the author warns for them in advance, and you could likely skip those parts without missing too much if you need to.

Never and Always, Eventually by Wawa_Boonliang

"Katsuki can remember the exact moment that he and Deku…that he and Midoriya Izuku became friends. He can also remember the moment he and Izuku became fierce rivals, a time when they were almost enemies.

However, what he remembers most clearly about their relationship is the moment that they moved passed rivals and became something more close than mere friends. Something more like brotherhood, something forged in fire and secured in the middle of a battlefield or in the midst of natural disaster where the number of the dead was climbing ever higher. And then it was torn from him."

Katsuki is given a second chance. A chance to save everyone. A chance to change everything.

But should he?

y’all. I’m a slutty, slutty whore for time travel fics. a time travel fic with autistic!coded Bakugou? it was love at first read.

Lessons Learned by Sif (Rosae)

Rather than the police station, Katsuki's friends bring him to a hospital after rescuing him from the villains. His wounds were minor, but it didn't make having them treated any less important. As it would so happen, Best Jeanist was also brought to this hospital after the attack.

Sometimes, small choices have a big impact on how a story plays out.

classic Bakugou hurt/comfort. this fic opened me up to the potential that could be a genuinely good Best Jeanist & Katsuki mentor-mentee relationship, and I kind of dig it and search ravenously for it in other fics now. I’m also a huge fan of the behind-the-scences Pro Hero Chat group.

Slope by sunfleurmoon

“I’m not a hero. Or a good person,” Katsuki says, giving Aizawa a pointed look, “So leave me alone. I don’t care about the League or UA, or you—” The two years he’s been away have been fine, more than fine, fucking fantastic actually if you ignore the bi-monthly near-death experiences. He doesn’t need this place. He doesn’t miss this place.

And yet, longing, a childish desire to tear up, or maybe blow something to bits, they all twist in his chest like a band of traitors regardless. “—I just want to go home.”

Or: the one where Katsuki and Izuku fail the first term exam, Aizawa discovers their pasts, and Katsuki is booted from UA. Featuring questionable descriptions of villain organizations, a slightly illegal moving shop, and your favorite emotionally constipated badass in distress with a newly discovered penchant for collecting strays.

paaaaaaiiiiiiiin. the hurt is ALIVE in this one. lots of tortured, angsty exploding child goodness. the OC’s are excellently crafted, and the Bakugou & Eri relationship? beautiful. definitely deserves a read.

Ground Zero by WindsChild8178

In the wake of Kamino, Katsuki is tested more than anyone could imagine. Bound by a villain’s quirk to keep his silence or die, he lives each day knowing it might very well be his last. He continues to work towards becoming a hero, keeping his secret from his classmates and teachers, focusing on making it through each day and trying not to allow the panic or depression to get the best of him. When the villain finally corners him with demands in exchange for his life, there is really only one answer Katsuki Bakugou can give.

honestly don't know which I want updated more - social media 101 or ground zero. this author's fics are amazing, and I really wasn't expecting the twist in this one. can't wait for windschild to come back to this fic some day.

The Defect by LadyGreenFrisbee

"Why do you want to win the Sports Festival so badly?" 

Because I want to see if the defect could usurp the masterpiece.

(In which Endeavor holds a terrible secret and Bakugo has to suffer since childhood for it.)

a great concept, and I adore the shouto and Katsuki sibling interaction here. hoping the author will come back to this one some day.

A Name That You'll Remember by Heronfem

Kirishima Eijirou is a Hero. Bakugou Katsuki... is not. Trapped in his toxic workplace and increasingly desperate to get out, Red Riot's days are only brightened by a new villain known as Caution, who's not exactly villainous and keeps accidentally doing good deeds. But when a real villain appears, a threat from the past that demands that Red Riot make the ultimate sacrifice to keep the public safe, Bakugou is forced into saving the day... and eventually, Red Riot himself.

sob story good guy villains are my weakness, this fic is a gem, and I'd kill for the sequel.

Our Hero by AnonymousTwit

He felt everything jerk to the side and throw his balance off before he saw anything, dust clouding his vision and irritating his lungs as the earth itself opened up to swallow them whole. For a single moment, in a millisecond's time, his wild eyes locked with Raccoon Eyes', hers alight with fear and adrenaline-fueled desperation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that it was the first time she'd looked at him with something other than long-deserved hatred in days.

And then he was free falling.

Or

After a particularly nasty encounter between childhood friends, the class learns about Bakugou and Midoriya's dark history and practically ostracizes Bakugou while trying to defend Midoriya. An earthquake during an outing has all sides regretting their decisions.

just fucking tear apart my self-sacrificing faves in every way imaginable while their loved ones watch on in terror. 💖🥰💖 this one is heavy on the Bakusquad and Class-1A feels, and VERY heavy on the Mina & Bakugou relationship (platonic).

Running back the tape, watching it replay by Faralyne

For someone ripped from their time, ripped from the few but strong relationships built by time and personal development, by self-reflection and swallowed pride, ripped from the one thing that made him feel worthwhile and needed and put-together, and forced to forge everything over again—Katsuki thinks he is handling it pretty fucking well.

Or

A villain’s quirk sends a 29-year-old Bakugou back in time to his middle school days.

am I a sucker for time travel? yes. am I a sucker for vigilante!bakugou? also yes. am I a sucker for this fic? literally refreshing the page in wait for an update as we speak.

Liability by sandelf

After All-Might dies rescuing Bakugou from the League, Bakugou is determined to prove it wasn't for nothing.

But the world is against him, his grief is overwhelming, and his stability is splitting at the edges.

very self-indulgent bakugou angst. tw for harassment, severe depression, and suicidality.

Special Mentions:

How To Win The Sport Festival: A Step By Step Guide by mhwright

Short re-imagining of the Sports Festival Arc if Shinso had planned a little better and worked a little harder to win the Sports Festival and if the match-ups had been slightly different. Self-indulgent fic of watching him succeed.

this is completely Shinsou-centric, not Bakugou-centric, but I love and adore it and am dying for a sequel. Shinsou is Best Boy here and you'll be rooting for him the whole time.

[beevean]

@mashounen2003

The whole thing with Fiona Fox (and Scourge, for that matter) is a mess, indeed. There's a lot of misinformation, as well as Flynn fans once again not wanting to admit their fav writer fucked it up big time. Long story short: Flynn tried to write an abusive villain (Scourge) and a reference to Joker & Harley Quinn (Scourge & Fiona), but never understood Harley was supposed to be Joker's victim

Flynn also grew fond of Scourge, who became his pet villain & a Mary-Sue. Scourge's abuse towards Fiona was shown, wasn't ambiguous, and unlike Penders, Flynn recognizes emotional abuse as a bad thing. But Flynn didn't do all the necessary steps to clearly send the message that Scourge was evil, so now everyone thinks Scourge is some anarchist sex-god anti-hero

Also, Fiona was portrayed as massively petty & mean; before Flynn's run, Fiona was painfully underutilized but had some interesting depth and the potential for an uplifting story. When Flynn turned her into Scourge's victim-- Sorry... "girlfriend", her personality changed completely. There are clues of Fiona having secretly been manipulated by Scourge since a long time before her "betrayal", but this all remained at subtext-level

As you probably already know, Flynn has a problem, not with his own ideas on morality, but with how he makes morality work in his stories' universe. He thought Sonic & the Freedom Fighters would think that traitors like Fiona are worse than genocidals like Eggman or abusers like Scourge. & his stories mirror some of that too. Scourge is undoubtedly a vile monster but is treated a bit better, while Fiona is just misguided and has untreated childhood trauma but is written as an alpha bitch

That's also why I don't like when fans wanna make Fiona a good guy again and they give her a "redemption arc" when, TBH, that's not the way to do it. More of that in this post in my "mashounen2003" blog: post/646874203783577600/a-couple-of-grievances-i-have-with-some-tails-x. I recommend to take a look at what I reblogged from other people about both Fiona & Scourge (use tags "Fiona Fox" & "Scourge the Hedgehog" if necessary).

Admittedly, I'm a bit biased in favour of many concepts from Archie (yeah, I'm a fake fan, I should feel ashamed, yadda yadda yadda), but I like Archie mostly for its potential, not so much for what was actually done with its concepts (minus a few genuinely great stories). I still dislike most of Archie but for its ideas' execution; its concepts are interesting. I'm willing to pair Tails with Fiona, but only after rewriting this from scratch and doing some "character deconstruction".

Sorry for the long chain of continues in your ask box. There are many things omitted by both Archie fans (because they skipped every comic issue before Flynn, they're spellbound by Flynn and can't admit he did something wrong) & Archie critics (because they just stopped reading after all the genuinely ugly shit, so they didn't look beyond that)

I'm still a bit conflicted myself. Flynn isn't like Penders, he's not an abuse apologist or rape apologist like Penders; Flynn did point out other characters' emotional abuse & crappy actions during Penders run; & Flynn's versions of Shadow -& the entire Team Dark- and Knuckles in Archie (not in IDW) are some of the best in the franchise (that's why fans accuse SEGA of keeping Flynn's hands tied 24/7 now). But... *sigh*

Flynn has good ideas, but he executes them poorly half of the time, and he's quite unprofessional. If the audience thinks something is really "cool" or a trend at a given moment, Flynn lets that "cool" or "trending" thing influence his work a lot. "House of Cards" happened largely because Marvel's "Civil War" event, as infamous as it was, also had record sales. Metal Virus was so stupidly depressing because The Walking Dead was still popular at some extent

And the same happened with Scourge & Fiona, albeit this'd only be evident 10 years later, when the 1st Suicide Squad movie was released. Jared Leto Joker was sanitized as hell, pretty much like Scourge; Harley was just arm candy for Joker while the abuse was never even mentioned (even though anyone who watched DC cartoons or read DC comics knows Harley is a victim and, not a long time later, gets away from Joker & becomes very much a hero), pretty much like Fiona and it was all because that "bad boy & bad girl" thing, devoid of the source material's context, was popular because there were many teenagers romantizing abuse. In Archie's case, Flynn fans lacked the context for Scourge's creation and didn't know about Fiona's previous appearances because they never wanted to touch the comics before Flynn's run (which I can understand, but still... they were still canon; moreover, Flynn outright referenced them time & time again until Archie's reboot)

I should have written all this on a post on my own blog. Once again, I apologize; I wrote this after being suddenly inspired & I didn't want that inspiration to go away. I also recommend reading "toaarcan" Tumblr account, maybe asking him about this; he can explain all this better than me, more patiently and in a more concise format, and he's useful as he has opinions different from the prevailing ones in the Archie-Sonic fandom and in the Sonic fandom in general. 

I had to put your askes like this haha

I appreciate the perspective of someone who has read the entirety of Archie, the good, the bad and the very ugly. I go by hearsay and posts of other people, which is not enough to form a complete analysis

Huh, Flynn turning another female character into an asshole? Apparently he did the same with Rouge (to be fair, such an amateurish mistake was common at the time :\). Also Fiona being treated worse than Scourge? Sheesh...

I would like to see his Team Dark and his Knuckles in Archie, especially his Shadow. I don’t like justifying his mistakes with “mandates”, but with Shadow I can believe that he had to change his personality to follow the current canon one :\

Also yeah, Penders... I’m glad that the dude was pretty much exiled from the franchise and we don’t have to worry about him again, because man, what little I know about him makes my skin crawl.

[pocket-void]

Haha, my brain really said “I’m not gonna stop thinking about that AU” so I drew more of it just to settle that idea down. >///< I’m gonna write some scribbly notes about it too just so I have them, but I need it out of my system or I just ain’t gonna settle down lmao-

Uuuuh, the basic plot is essentially there are four “suits” with different ranks you can be born into in this world. It’s a very fantasy-esque universe with magic and soul stuff. Everyone has a “core” which is basically how everyone knows what their suit and rank are, and it acts as their source of life and magic. There have been growing tensions between suits over the years that’s broken into on and off wars and life has just been slowly getting harder for everybody.

Lil tidbits about who and what everyone is:

Roman - Kings are rare in this universe, and they’re born gifted with immense magic and power. Roman’s not really a villain, but he’s a key player that needs to be convinced somewhere down the line to help out. He lives in his own castle because his powers over creation make it kind of hard for the court to get him to do things they want. Some say he’s been waiting for a worthy opponent to face him one day...

Logan - He’s technically a traitor to his court for abandoning his position. He’s a talented and dangerously skilled mage who didn’t want to be controlled by a system that just wanted to benefit from his powers. He left on a personal quest to find the reasons behind the growing tensions that were tearing their country apart, and intends on solving it. Unfortunately he’s not a big fan of working with others, let alone other suits. Can’t really blame him though, he’s a bit of a wanted person.

Patton - Patton is something called a “soul smith”, he repairs damaged cores and tinkers on the side as a hobby. Aces are a special rank of folk with smaller specialized talents. Patton’s happens to be healing and minor animation, but he has to lay low in a kind of obscure workshop because he has reputation of saving enemies to the court. He just wants to help people in whatever way he can. He ends up saving one of the others somewhere in the story.

Virgil - A knight that’s sick and tired of the battling. He wants to find out the truth behind it, and set out on his own to figure things out in a way. He lacks magic but makes up for it in his strength and skill with a blade. He’s stubborn and incredibly dedicated to the common people. Virgil has no problem working with other suits and think the tensions between them are stupid and really inconvenient. He just doesn’t want to see regular citizens suffer anymore.

Janus - JOKER is a mythical rank that’s only been heard of in legends. In the story, it’s a slowly growing revolutionary organization with the intentions of overthrowing the rulers of the courts in order to unite them once again. Janus is one of the group’s leaders and its supposed founder. He has the incredible power to shapeshift and disguise himself as other suits, which has caused rumors of him being an actual JOKER. (This is unconfirmed) A curse from betraying the diamond court has left him with odd diamond marks on his face and a slowly worsening condition that saps away his magic, but he’s really determined to achieve their goals before he loses everything. He claims to have been a Queen in rank.

Remus - It’s unknown as to what rank Remus actually is. He’s good friends with Janus and is often there as a sort of right hand man, but at the same time very he’s chaotic and unpredictable. He doesn’t seem to take a lot of things seriously, much to Janus’ annoyance. He’s skilled with blades and throwing knives, apparently able to conjure them at will. People say he’s got magic, but he uses it so sparsely that they aren’t sure if his magic is weak or if he’s just not using it that much. He claims he has a brother who “doesn’t like to share toys”, but nobody sure if that’s true or even what that means for that matter.

Very messy and unclear plot notes, but I needed to write them or else my mind wouldn’t shut up so there ya go. u///u

[austajunk]

Please PLEASE go into detail about how protective he is over Chiaki!! I literally am begging to finally hear someone else actually acknowledge their friendship/relationship especially after having to deal with a pretty toxic anti-bi/pan Nagito rper I was on a server with for a good part of a year! (Sorry went kinda ranty but hopefully my anguish is understandable!)

Oh my lord, you’re giving me a chance to shine with my fixations?! I can’t thank you enough! Now, please understand that this is based on my perception of the series as I’ve played through the second game twice. I’m pretty good when it comes to being the person who has unpopular opinions and ships and I know claiming that Nagito is bi/pan/Demi is probably one of them. But honestly, it comes from the desire to see this boy get as much love as possible. Because he sure needs it.

Ultimately, Nagito’s sexuality is never canonly specified, so I think whether gay, bisexual, Pansexual, or what have you, we’re all well within our rights to just have fun and see what we want to in a really flawed and relatable character. And that’s what makes it interesting.

That being said, let’s talk about Nagito and Chiaki. Friendship or romantic, I don’t think you can deny that Chiaki is at least special to Nagito in some way.

Upon replaying the second game, I’ve realized how protective Nagito actually is towards Chiaki interestingly enough.

In chapter 2, she leaves to go question Fuyuhiko but Nagito stops her and tells her not to let Fuyuhiko get rough with her. Every time Chiaki’s skills help them advance, he deeply praises her. Even after he’s stopped praising all the others (which he does mostly after Chapter one, hinting he does not like some of them as actual people). But for some reason, especially during the trials, Nagito is quick to jump in and mention how wonderful Chiaki is and compliment her (only to be usually cut off by someone when he starts to ramble).

It should also be noted that Chiaki and Nagito both share an appreciation for games. Nagito seems to like more luck-based games for obvious reasons, but he also mentions that like Chiaki, he likes the Twilight Syndrome series. Both of them similarly state that they felt Monokuma was butchering a favorite game of theirs.

They also both have an odd way of trying to cheer Hajime up and joke with him, the examples shown coincidentally beside one another. Chiaki says she’s gonna look for a dirty book, throwing Hajime off and Nagito “jokingly” tells Hajime to lick his boots and now to him, but Hajime is extremely put off when he claims it was a joke. These oddballs get each other in the weirdest of ways is what I’m saying. They’re both incredibly antisocial, but their hearts are reaching the same place too when they try to make an effort.

In chapter 4, when Chiaki teams up with Nagito and Kazuichi, then leaves because they’re both being clingy, Nagito quickly follows and chases after her to make sure she’s okay. Then he chastised her for running off, looking deeply concerned. Even after his attitude change, he will answer her more directly and not ignore her. When she tells him to be quiet, he politely obeys... or maybe it’s because he’s deep in thought about her motives as he mentions he was watching the trial carefully to decide on who the traitor is.

I may just be mentioning this because they’re my OTP, but if you know about their school time together and pay attention to Nagito’s Hope versus Chiaki’s Hope, I think it’s fascinating.

Okay, now let’s head into Danganronpa 3 territory. Now this is the part where I am the most shaky as I’m still trying to determine what I take canon from this series. The thing is, a friend who got me into the series informed me that the production was way rushed and that Kodaka never wanted to do the anime in the first place. But! That being said, Chiaki and Nagito have some great moments in this and the anthology comics along with it, so let’s get into some stuff.

First of all, Nagito warmly mentions that Chiaki being their class rep makes her the true Hope of their class. And you can tell he’s serious because as he’s saying it, he’s doing that thing where he’s staring at his hand desperately like he wants eat it. You know the look.

Moving on, it’s clear that aside from Chisa, Chiaki is the only one to value and treasure Nagito. And this makes sense. In her own dying words, she loves her classmates. They are the world to her. All of them. And of course, she loves Nagito too with all her heart. As evidenced as she cradled him protectively in her arms while he’s injured. At first when Chiaki and the others are determined to stand up to Junko and get their teacher back, Nagito pleads with Chiaki not to. That his luck could not overcome them. He knows they can’t win in this situation and I do think he was actually trying to talk Chiaki out of it. But of course, when Chiaki pushes back and says she wants to go anyways, he literally can’t help himself when it comes to wanting to see Hope shine. So he agrees and praises her again because of course he does.

Until it all leads to the Pain Train with Despair coming out on top. Chiaki is brutally slaughtered and we see something new from Nagito. He breaks down crying. Tears are streaming madly down his face as a forced and twisted smile appears on his lips. He even beseeches Chiaki’s name. “You understand right? You know you’re a stepping stone for Hope!” “What has been done to Nanami is unforgivable...” Nagito’s already trying to cope. To rationalize something horrible that he just witnessed in his mind. He’s trying to protect himself as he’s utterly being destroyed and breaking down like all of his classmates. Chiaki’s death literally shatters his mind. It’s a pretty well done scene even if I’m not a big fan of the brainwashing stuff. Not to mention, the way he says “You understand right, Nanami?” As if he’s begging for her forgiveness as he falls apart. It’s so very very tragic. And of course, when being made apart of the Neo World Program, his desire to see Chiaki once more, just one more time like his classmates, brings her back to him(and the other classmates) in AI form.

Honestly... it’s pretty beautiful. Chiaki is apart of Nagito in some way and is imprinted into his mind and heart. He longed to see her as much as everyone else. This person, who doesn’t seek out relationships because his luck either gets them killed or he finds their Hope to be too weak, has a connection with Chiaki like that. This is literally a person who believes his life is just a stepping stone for better and more worthy people, someone who knows their existence is a formality at this point. And still, he does have connections. There are people capable of caring about him and loving him and Chiaki was one of those people. And he wanted to see her again in the Neo World Program. Like Chiaki said, it’s no less than miracle.

But alas, this is getting rather long, isn’t it? Well in the D3 anthology, Nagito also is concerned when Chiaki avoids eating because of her hyperfixation on gaming. Chiaki skipping out on self care?! Not cool, Chiaki. And so he challenges her to a game to make sure she’ll eat lunch. Fucking protective as hell. And yes yes, the anthology isn’t canon... but that’s the thing about Danganronpa. The series is over. Any additional info and stuff added to it is meant to enrich the experience for the fandom, so it’s canon to me. What’s the fandom gonna do? Whine at me and tell me it isn’t? That Nagito wouldn’t do these things when official anthologies and content that’s sold for Danganronpa tells me he would? So... yeah.

Ultimately, whether you ship them or not, I think this fandom is missing out on the Komanami side of things and how good their relationship is when you really observe it. :3

[freakypumpkin]

NOT ME Ep9 - I have thoughts

Mostly about Dan and Todd, and completely unorganized: (and this is also possibly totally biased by the fact that I grew up on a ton of american, british and german crime shows)

1. Dan shooting Sean’s father:  Am I annoyed by this? Yeah, but I can also see how it works from a writing standpoint. Sean posed the question of “Who shot my father?” in the flashback and the answer was left blank, therefore in need of being answered later on. If it hadn't been Dan, there would've possibly been a need to introduce another character and flesh them out to a degree to reach a conclusion of the revenge arc for Sean.  It’s just important to me how they push through with that storyline and what points they’re planning to make, so, let’s see. And tbh in hindsight, making him the one who actually shot Sean’s father, is actually a pretty bold/risky move, and while I’m not the biggest fan of that, I still respect it.

2. Todd being a bad guy:  With how heavy the show hinted at Todd being sus, for me it was a choice between them either misleading the audience or knowingly hinting at it and the mystery would not be if he was involved, but how he was involved.  Again, I usually prefer more subtle hinting in these cases, but I can see the appeal of revealing him as the bad guy.  This way the tension created is about  - childhood friends growing apart/’breaking up’ due to different moral(?) standards - the choice of growing up in privilege and deciding to embrace it/choosing a side (while Black made the choice against it, and White went through that transformation, but I would say not go to the same kind of extreme as his brother) - Todd presenting possibly what White could've become had he not gotten involved with the gang (?) - the introduction of the idea, that the ‘bad guys’ are not just big corporations and there CEO, but also the childhood friend  And if he had turned out to be a friend and not bad, tbh, I think, his character would've have fallen flat or you would've had the need to give him some other kind of involvement and also an arc in general. 

3. Dan possibly betraying the gang: (Now, this is totally biased with my absolute hatred of the trope in shows with an ensemble cast with the one gay character, who finds a love from the outside and that lover turns out to be a traitor ... so, I REALLY don’t want this to happen with Dan and I also think, Yok does not deserve that as a character, but anyhow.) My thoughts against that theory, are:  Dan did not seek out the gang after first contact. Even after the police started coming for him because of the fire, and as a police officer he’d possibly have ways to find them and expose them for setting the fire - but he mostly just tries to stay away. He’s forced into active contact after Yok steals his wallet with his work ID.  Yes, he’s there when Yok gets followed, but honestly (and honestly I can be totally wrong on that) I see it as TV timing, just like characters tend to randomly meet each other in packed malls.  The comment of “Do you believe me now, that people could follow you?”: Logic conclusion? Dan met them while they committed arson, the theory that people in power would go after them sooner or later.  And I’m possibly naive, but I see him honestly being worried about Yok, especially after that guy walked into a police station without a care in the world. And still, Dan does not ask about further missions (unlike Todd), he makes a guess based on the latest news, and he doesn’t want to get into it, he wants to take the protective side.  Furthermore, similar to Todd, from a writing standpoint, it wouldn't make a ton of sense to have Dan be a mole, I think? His character would fall flat in my eyes, because then it would pretty much destroy his complete arc so far. And with what motivation or for what reason? Because he’s a cop? 

I could see it as a parallel of Todd, who started close as a friend to to become a villain, to Dan starting out as distant and as villain to becoming closer. 

[arabian-batboy]

“The Journey” movie review.

It was a great movie, basically the anime version of the Prince of Egypt and I highly recommend you watch it.

Minor-to-medium spoilers:

The protagonist of the movie was so lovable, he’s already one of my favorite characters of all time. I absolutely adore his character’s design, it was a perfect a balance between being realistic while still being interesting at the same time. I read that some of the Japanese animators were told by the Arab animators to redo a lot of their work because it was too fantasy-like and I’m glad that they put their foot down, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten these beautiful result (See what happens when you actually allow people to be a part of the retelling of their own stories?)

For example, it was a really small detail, but I really appreciate how they had the men lift their thawb and tuck an edge around their waist to run instead of just giving them knee-length tunics like a lot of non-Arab artists do when drawing Arab men (they’re supposed to reach our ankles not our knees)

Another moment that was a highlight was Aws putting the kohl his wife gave him on his eyes before battle

Although I’m not going to lie, I hate how almost all the background characters had big crooked noses and darker skin/eyes than the characters with spoken lines, it’s giving me deja vu to Disney’s Aladdin and how he and Jasmine were significantly less ethnic than the rest of the cast.

The enemy’s army on the other hand had no cultural accuracy for the real-life Abyssinian culture, their costumes and weapons were completely made-up, but I actually think that this is a good thing? They probably deliberately made this choice because they didn’t want to show Eastern Africans/Ethiopians in a negative light by taking their culture and giving it to irredeemable villains for the sake of “historic accuracy.”

I also love how the conflict between the two groups had nothing to do with race whatsoever, it was completely portrayed as “invaders vs natives,” in fact they even had a Black character among the Meccans while an Arab character was among the Abyssinians and they were no comments by either sides about them being traitors or anything like that (the only thing that was racist imo was a scene where a character with a blonde afro, the guy in the middle of this pic, had his hair be called a “bird nest”)

I liked the plot of the movie, it was based on a real event so there was not much room for creative liberty, but the execution was great and it really reminded me of the execution of The Prince of Egypt (minus all the music of course). I really found all the cutscenes with the animation changes to stories of the Quran/Bible/Torah really interesting, at the moment I was restless and I didn’t understand what they had to do with the story/plot, but it all came together when Aws said that their story need to be passed down to their descendent the same way their predecessors passed down their stories.

All of the voice-actors did a fantastic job, even though having Levi’s voice actor was distracting. (I watched in the Japanese dub btw, I may rewatch a 2nd time in the Arabic dub tho)

The animation was as great as any other popular anime show, my only real issue was that I wished that they didn’t make all the fighting scenes so shounen-y. I would have much preferred it if they went with a more realistic approach to fit with the atmosphere of the movie, maybe something like how the fighting scenes in Vinland Saga were animated, but then again this IS Toei Animation, maybe that would be asking for too much for a studio that specialize in over-the-top anime (I also thought that ending scene was weird, it would have been a better and complete ending if they had Aws reuniting with his wife and child on-screen as the closing shot)

All in all, as both an Arab and anime fan, I very much enjoyed this movie and I would give it a score of 8.5/10 or even a 9/10 for being so visually unique and pretty to look at.

[hamphobicbasil]

Could u elaborate about the dsmp story being bad? Not a rabid/brain dead fan, just genuinely curious and I enjoy reading people's rants lolol

oh you dont know the floodgates you just opened

a few things:

1. despite not liking the creators of the dsmp anymore, I don't actually hate most of them. [the ones that are particularly unsavory fall outside of this of course] so all that I'm saying i truly mean in a critical sense towards the story, its also just all purely my opinion as someone who enjoys fictional and fantasy stories and who like criticizing works to see what it does well and what it doesn't do well

2. for clarification I'm going to use the c![name] to indicate when I'm talking about the characters. Don't get me wrong, I think its annoying too but its the only way I'm gonna be able to write this thing without getting something across the wrong way yknow?

3. I stopped watching the streams after November 16th, [save for one Techno one but I closed out after a particularly bad story beat lol] and so all information coming afterward is all second hand from either me seeing people on twt talk abt it or people dming me. All i really know is up to dream's imprisonment and some stuff past that.

4. This is mostly aimed towards the "main" story, so stuff abt the badlands, eggpire, and whatnot are briefly mentioned.

anyways uh, i'll try to be brief but also include enough information to get why i feel the way i do on some stuff across

A. Performances Alright obviously these people are all streamers, so obviously they might not be the best actors, and hell no one is even asking that of them. However, when you're telling a story that's based on the audio with the visuals kinda coming to a second, it's gotta be pretty strong. I will say, some of the best actors in my opinion are Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo. I would include Ranboo but I never watched any of his story bits or story streams so I can't say much. Wilbur and Tommy are excellent in selling their character's emotions and feelings, when I watch the stream I don't feel like I'm watching an rp but an actual thought-out story yknow? And one of my favorite Tubbo examples was in the Hog Hunt video whenever Techno attacked him, he sounded genuinely afraid and I believed everything his character was feeling.

However, unfortunately, not everyone is gonna be that good. And I'm gonna say it; Dream and Techno have to be the worst out of the entire cast. I understand Techno's whole character is this monotoned badass, however, when really emotional moments hit I feel like he never lets that fall, and a lot of intense moments just ring hollow. And I'm sorry but Dream's attempts at being intimidating leave me laughing whenever I watch them. It feels like he watched that one scene from The Marriage with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson and said "Oh this is what good acting looks like! Just yelling." His whole "I don't give a FUCK about Spirit!" speech isn't as great as people keep making it out to be. And whenever he tries to act coy when being a villain it feels like a guy reading the script for the first time, a bit like he's trying too hard. I have more problems with his character but his portrayal certainly doesn't help.

Everyone else is fine, and I don't feel strongly either way about a lot of them.

B. The "Lore" Okay first off, I can't be the only one who thinks it's silly that people are calling the dsmp's story "lore" when it's not, it's the fucking story. Lore indicates backstory to either the world or the characters, which a lot of the streams don't really pertain to. This is a really petty section but god it's a weird pet peeve of mine.

Other than the misusage of "lore" vs "story", the actual lore and world-building of the world are so lackluster that new elements can be introduced whenever and it often feels cluttered or not well thought out at all. And here's the thing, I feel like if the writers sat down just for a few minutes to establish world rules and general history, a lot of this could be solved! but so much is made up on the spot that it starts to feel like they're grabbing at straws to keep people invested, trying to reach that next high and intense story beat without actually earning it.

C. The Egg / Eggpire This is a pretty minor note since I was only invested in the Egg storyline for a little bit, but god it's so underused that it's almost embarrassing. Bad has provided this super interesting antagonistic force that's infecting the SMP, can control people, and who one of our main character is immune to, and it's just never used or even talked about again? Now I understand if he wanted to keep it to a side storyline only, however, to introduce this borderline eldritch creature and force within the world and then never have it dealt with is so weird.

D. The Writing Oh boy this is. kinda a big one. Now I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty obvious I have a bias for the Wilbur writing over the current team [that consisting of Dream, Quackity, and Tommy mostly]. I don't this his writing is perfect by any means, the characters constantly bringing up traitors got obnoxious after a while, and writing Hamilton but in Minecraft really isn't the modern Shakespeare or anything. However, I think his exploration of characters and plot progression was a lot more thought out and well planned, like he actually had two brain cells behind the story yknow? The current team I think fails to be as emotional or even impactful, things happened too fast and my god was everything drowned in angst for so long.

Don't get me wrong, you gotta have your characters face hardships to make them reach their goal believable, but some of the shit they put the characters through just felt like too much. From c!Tubbo's constant comparison to c!Schlatt [who btw, fucking ordered his death and kept him from his friends in a nation he felt trapped in] and on a side note, i kinda really fucking dislike the "c!Schlatt dad!!" au's or the au's where c!Tubbo inherits some of Schlatt's features, it would be like c!Tommy getting a c!Dream mask after his exile, it's feels so weird yet people eat that shit up for some reason.

But god, did c!Tommy get the brunt of it all and in retrospect after his final death, it kinda feels really fucking gross. Now obviously, I'm not trusting any of these people to write decent mental health representation, but c!Tommy's PTSD and how it was explored was just degrading. [Specifically the scene in that one Techno stream where he saw the final control room from the first war, and had a flashback / panic attack where he started calling out for c!Dream. I understand this is an actual thing people with PTSD will experience, but it felt so fucking stereotypical it got on my nerves. I actually had to close out of the stream because it made me feel sick, fiction shouldn't leave you feeling that way.] And don't get me started on how they basically reused the formula from the previous arc. [Problem introduced -> Tensions rise as things start to fall apart -> Big confrontation -> Exile -> Return from Exile -> Blowing up L'Manberg, again.]

And speaking of characters-

E. Character Arcs, or the lack of them In my genuine opinion, some of these characters' arcs are so disappointing. Especially c!Tommy's. I'm not one to believe that he was a "selfish" character or anything, however, his goals were simply set on his discs and maybe c!Tubbo, he didn't have much outside that. However, L'Manberg gave him something to care about, he gave up his discs for it and he fought for it tooth and nail, I think it taught him to open up to others and trust more. It was a great character arc for him to have, seeing him still fight even after his first exile alongside c!Wilbur, to return safely to the nation that he and his found family had built.

But then his second exile happened, and I feel like all of that was undone.

c!Tommy's exile genuinely pisses me off for so many reasons. It's not that characters can't have their low points after reaching a major change or feeling like they've "completed" their arcs or anything, but it's more of the fact that it seems like he's never going to heal that feels like a spit in the face, especially to people who might have had setbacks like that before. Progress isn't linear, sometimes things happen and you get knocked back down, it can take a while to get back up, but I don't think c!Tommy's character is ever going to be allowed to get back up. From c!Dream, who pretty much was a constant abuser in his life, killing him then reviving him, and his still fractured relationship with c!Tubbo, which by the way I have a had time believing they would still be friends after all that happened, it feels like he can never get a win and it's generally kinda a shit way to treat your characters who have been abused. Of course, not all abused characters are going to get happy endings, I'm not trying to dictate that they all should, but c!Tommy deserves one and the fact that it's so obscure feels shitty.

Side note: we still don't have a canon reason to give a shit abt the discs. Like I'm sorry but without some sorta connection to the MacGuffin why should we give a shit about him getting them other than "he wants them lol". Like hell, I would even accept the classic "they were the last gifts from his parents" or something, but we still don't have a reason.

c!Tubbo also lacks a fulfilling arc as well, from someone who started out as a yes man, he has progressed a bit into having his own interests first, but besides that sometimes his character makes me so. depressed. He's easily one of the most pushed around and hated characters within the story, all for being a kid who didn't know what to do and he's in the same vein as c!Tommy; these kids can't get a break. Also, his anti-violence beliefs morphing into the "lets kill c!Techno lol!" bit was so out of place and without proper build-up it was like. what. And now he's building nukes?? god c!Tubbo makes me so sad because he's kicked around constantly and never given a chance to grow.

Another small note, I also don't really enjoy c!Techno at all. Besides the previously stated reasons of lack of emotions when they're really needed, I find his character to be weirdly pretentious. He talks as if he's constantly been betrayed and hurt but I personally, don't see it? Like, I think one of the main examples was the Pogtopia vs. Manberg war, yknow he wanted to end the government but they just reinstated it after they won = c!Techno upset. But this doesn't make sense to me because why did he think otherwise? The entire time c!Tommy had talked about taking back their nation and starting again, so the fact that c!Techno suddenly thought there would be a sudden change is, to put it bluntly, kinda fucking stupid. I don't want to say that he "plays the victim" or anything because that feels a bit harsh, but his character feels so far up his own ass that I can't enjoy him.

I have a major grip with c!Dream as well, but that's getting it's own fucking section.

F. L'Manberg This is a quick note before we get into the, forgive me for this, endgame, of this entire rant, since the next two sections are tied together. But god, L'Manberg makes me upset because it feels like they gave up on it.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it is supposed to be c!Wilbur's "unfinished symphony", the thing that destroyed a once charismatic and widely loved man, his attempt at power that utterly ruined him. But the fact that it just got blown up in the end after everything and left to rot felt like such a waste of time. From the first war, to Pogtopia, to even c!Tommy's exile, it all felt fucking worthless in the end, and the story is actively closer to how it was when it started now more than ever. I wished it was actually allowed to exist and continue to be a peaceful place in what is a chaotic world, but no it was just snuffed out because why dedicate to this concept of finding others you can band together with and feel safe. fuck that noise apparently?

G. The Villains Now villain-wise, I'm only talking about c!Dream [during the first war], c!Schlatt, and c!Wilbur. And believe it or not, this is actually mostly positive.

Now I'm not gonna lie, c!Dream as a staring antagonist wasn't bad actually, he posed a genuine and threatening opposition to L'Manberg, even if we didn't know his real intentions or motivations as to why he was against it. He's lucky in this sense because he didn't have to be good, he had to be passable. If anything, he felt more like an anti-hero than a tyrant or traditional villain, and my god do I wish he kept this theme going forward.

Now quick disclaimer, I don't like JSchlatt as much as the next guy, he's an adult man who should know better than to joke about some sensitive topics and act the way that he does. But the one thing I'll ever give him is that damn, was he a good actor for his character.

Now here's the thing, c!Schlatt wasn't particularly deep at all. He had no real motivations behind his exile of c!Wilbur and c!Tommy other than getting competition out of the way, had no reason to act the way that he did and yknow? that's fine. The reason why he worked was from his performance alone, he was actually intimidating. When he came onto the stream and was doing his typical bad guy stuff, it was actually intense to see what he would do. Whenever he would almost catch c!Tommy back in Manberg, whenever he would begin to pressure c!Tubbo, it put you on the edge of your seat and it felt like everything would change at the drop of a pen. He's a villain to be a villain, and this works out because he's just charismatic and well put together enough to make it interesting, even without the backstory or motives.

c!Wilbur however, is much more tragic, and the best villain of the story. He essentially was the "mentor turned evil" trope and it felt terrible watching him descend into madness, unable to trust barely anyone except for c!Techno and c!Tommy. Hell, in the end I think he still cared about them both, despite losing everything. Sure, he blew up L'Manberg, but there was still a smidge of the old c!Wilbur in there made everything he did feel melancholic. His death at the hands of his father after achieving his final wish was chilling, and something I still think about.

Until yknow, Ghostbur came back way too soon to let people feel his loss as a character within that world. And then he got revived, pretty much-undoing everything that moment meant for his character lol.

And then there's the worst one:

H. Dream. I'm going to be completely honest, c!Dream is one of the main reasons why I dislike the current dsmp stuff so much. Outside of his actions as a person, the way Dream decided to write his character as this overpowered madman of the dsmp really just. destroyed any intrigue that he could've had. Perhaps this is from my growing dislike towards him, manifesting into a bias towards his character, but god I cannot fathom why people try to insist he's interesting when he has as much depth as a fucking puddle.

And here's the thing, I'm not even entirely against c!Dream being a villain, hell I think he would've been great as an anti-hero if anything. Make him sympathetic but not through c!George to get your precious "DNF" points or anything, but show him actually caring about the people within the dsmp, including c!Tommy and c!Tubbo. This would make his rival status with them just a bit more complicated, sure they're enemies, however, he doesn't want to hurt or kill them, and there's still a level of friendship there that keeps them bonded when things get super bad. This could've been super interesting to see, the first villain of the story receiving a sorta redemption arc then descending into madness as he started to fixate on being a god. This is all how I feel personally, but god do I feel like it would've been better than his current character, and hell would've worked with how he was during the Pogtopia arc, before the war that is. I'm not trying to tell Dream how to write his own character, but there are so many other ways he could've done the madman seeking to become god rather then. whatever the hell we got.

Because instead, we got this power-mad asshole who does things... because he can? And that's one of my major issues: he tries to surround his character in mystery to make him "intriguing" but it's kinda like c!Techno, it comes off as pretentious. Not only that, but you cannot keep waving around this mystery of a backstory without ever actually revealing it. I know the story isn't over, but c!Dream is effectively at his lowest point, now would be the time to reveal his backstory. But no just keep it in the dark and keep everyone guessing, that's totally fun and not at all tiring and annoying. (sarcasm, if anyone needs it)

And back to his performance, he doesn't sell this aloof, cynical and strategic warrior that has perfected the blade or some shit, he comes off as some angry guy yelling on reddit. which i don't need to tell you, isn't intimidating. It feels like he's trying to have c!Schlatt's intimidation combined with c!Wilbur's depth, but instead he's like a little brother who's trying to hard to mimic his older brother and is kinda embarrassing himself.

but other then that i dont feel too strongly abt the dsmp lol

but seriously, these are the main complaints I have abt the story tbh, I could probably talk about more but I wont because man. this is probably gonna get me in trouble if any of the hyper-dsmp fans actually read it.