#Rebellion Story spoilers

[melonisopod]

The PMMM meme "Christ you are extremely fucking selfish" is so good because that pretty much is Kyubey. Only flaw is the meme implies some level of emotionality and judgement on Kyubey's part when really he's delivering this in a smug, condescending tone because he thinks he's the epitome of logic and impartiality.

And you must understand, that's the core of Kyubey's character and what makes him a villain. He has no concept of an individual because he is a self-serving hivemind species for whom a single unit only serves as an agent of a shared consciousness, so he can't understand why humans grieve and form bonds with each other. He can't comprehend why the sacrifice of a few humans is still a tragedy, since after all, the rest of society benefits from this wonderful system that prevents the universe's heat-death, right?

But he believes that having such a detached outsider perspective inherently makes him an impartial judge, while Rebellion Story thoroughly proves the opposite. It didn't matter that the Wraith System worked just fine and was more humane to magical girls, it simply wasn't convenient enough for his species. It was only *slightly* more inconvenient for him to feed off of Wraith Seeds than Grief Seeds, and that alone was enough to have him poking around in something he didn't understand, only for it to spiral out of his control.

Puella Magi is not about how young girls are selfish for having individual desires, it's about an alien entity believing himself to be a benevolent reasonable mind and then demonstrating he's a stupid selfish bastard and victim to his own hubris.

[mecheye]

A silly YTPMV using vocal snippets and sounds from Rebellion to make a tune.

Not only is the arrangement of the music and video really well done, they picked a fantastic tune to "cover". This slaps!

Major props to +TEK for creating this!

[uselesslilium]

Now that we have an actual trailer and release date for the next Madoka movie, I wanna vent about how annoying it is when people call Rebellion Story's ending a last minute twist forced in by the producers to extend the franchise.

People love to cite Urobuchi's comment that the initial plan was for Madoka to simply take Homura away with her into Magical Girl Valhalla or whatever, and then totally ignore that he followed that up by admitting he decided against it himself because he didn't find it satisfying. His exact concerns were things like 'Is it really a happy ending for Homura to just vanish like that?' and 'Is becoming a god too heavy a fate for a 14 yo?', which are all questions that plenty of fans had about the anime's original ending too! We also wondered if it was really a good thing for the magical girl system to continue with only minor changes, if this was truly a happy ending for Homura and Madoka, etc. etc. And those questions ultimately led to him deciding on the ending in Rebellion Story.

You can still think it's a bad choice and he should've gone with his initial idea, especially since we then proceeded to be left on a cliffhanger for ten years lol. That's fine, no one has to like it, and I won't pretend my own feelings on Rebellion Story don't hinge heavily on just how the sequel resolves things. But acting like there's no thought or meaning behind his decision and that he was just shoehorning in Evil Homura for the hell of it is silly and avoids engaging with the actual ideas the movie presented as a thematic counterpoint to the original series.

[melonisopod]

Hm, I slightly disagree with that. Kyubey IS a huge hypocrite who believes that human emotions are mental disorders, and yet runs an entire energy-generating system on human emotions. When the Wraith System is implemented and perfectly capable of sustaining the Incubator’s energy source to prevent the heat-death of the universe, instead of simply accepting it as a good if slightly inconvenient system, they delve deeper into something they don’t understand so they can extract more and easier energy at the expense of a human victim...which comes back to bite them as said human’s overwhelming love ends up swallowing the entire universe and she gains enough power to start hunting them for sport.

Some have also pointed out that the way entropy actually works doesn’t make much sense for the Incubators’ claims, and that they could very well be lying and just exploiting humans to benefit their own race of hivemind cat-ferrets. Whether this is true or not is anyone’s guess, we can chock it up to fiction and suspension of disbelief as to what way entropy works (I’m not a physicist so someone versed in that area can explain it better than I can, but I’ve been told if Kyubey’s claims were true, the universe would be literally falling apart faster than they’d be able to sustain it. Or something like that)

So, I actually do think the Incubators represent an oppressive system that runs on “cold logic” and “facts over feelings” that is ultimately run on incredibly selfish, self-centered thinking, that condescendingly asks you why you are so angry at how unfairly rigged the system is against you. It’s very easy to tell someone their emotions are illogical and unjustified when you’re not the one personally affected.

no I actually love the fact that Kyubey is basically "facts don't care about your feelings" and "logic bro" rhetoric taken to its extreme. True, he doesn't really demonstrate the hypocrisy that these people often exhibit (where they forget that anger is also an emotion), but he shows just how dangerous it is to take "logic" to its very extreme without also taking emotion into consideration.

Kyubey justifies the objectively immoral magical girl system his kind created by pointing that, by sacrificing the lives of what amounts to a handful of young girls in the grand scheme of things (not to mention all the victims of their Witch forms), the Incubators are ensuring the continued survival of the universe and everything and everyone in it.

Kyubey is literally incapable of understanding why Madoka and the rest of the girls get so upset by the cruel system the Incubators have made. As he points out to Madoka, literally hundreds of thousands of babies are born every day- that's more than enough to not only replace every dead magical girl and Witch victim, but every other person who dies every day. So why do we get so upset whenever someone dies?

Kyubey just thinks in raw numbers, of humans being born and dying. He doesn't understand- or care- that every single person is a unique individual who can't be replaced; that every person has hopes and dreams and a future and loved ones who care about them. Every loss of human life is a tragedy. Anyone with even a shred of empathy understands this.

I really love how the emotionless, logic-driven Kyubey is pitted against magical girls, who are literally powered by their emotions- and in both climaxes (the end of the original series and Rebellion) he gets his shit rocked for underestimating how powerful emotions like hope and love are. They're literally strong enough to rewrite the universe.

(btw I'm not trying to shit on being logical!! It's good to use your brain and you should strive to be reasonable. I'm just pointing out, using Kyubey as an example, that people who scorn all emotion when it comes to decision-making and make fun of people for being emotional are usually tools)

[smile-files]

mommy let you use her ipad, you were barely two

and it did all the things we designed it to do

now look at you, look at you!

(objectober 2024 day 10: internet)

[nessacousland]

Well, I finally finished Dragon Age: Friendship is Magic and that is *my* biggest regret.

[wazzuppy]

SPOILERS FOR THE NEW WALPURGISNACHT RISING TRAILER!!!!!

More analysis here.

Okay. So in this clip with Madoka and Homura dancing, Homura's eyes are clearly pink— just like her devil form. Her eyes gained that coloring after she took Madoka's godhood and its a visual indication of her power.

But in this clip of her looking in the mirror, her eyes are purple again. And she looks shocked.

She looks confused, like this is something that shouldn't be happening.

Now, what does this mean? I don't know. We've not seen enough of the movie to properly theorize, but I do think there's at least something we can gather from this.

First of all: her outfit is completely different. In the dancing scene, she has a black collar and black headband (one that's distinctly not the black one she usually has— note the silver stripe in the middle). But in the mirror, she has a white collar and is wearing Madoka's ribbons. She wore those ribbons after Madoka ascended to godhood, and also after Homura rewrote the world. When she and Madoka met again at the end of Rebellion, she gave her the ribbons back and doesn't wear them in the final few minutes of the movie.

So I think mirror scene may take place right after Homura reset the world, when she's becoming accustomed to her new powers and how they affect her. Maybe the beginning of the movie will show Homura's process of creating the new world?

Secondly, the hand mirror she has does not at all look like something she'd normally use. She's never been associated with the beach, ocean, or seashells before. But you know who has? Sayaka. Her witch form is based on a mermaid and her attribute in Magia Record is Aqua (water). So this is could be Sayaka's mirror and Homura somehow got her hands on it.

Next, the text surrounding it. "Dumme" is a German word that translates to stupid, and Venus is the Roman goddess of love. Regardless of if the mirror belongs to Sayaka or Homura, the message is the same— they're being called a stupid goddess. Stupid for loving.

Both these girls have a complicated history and relationship to their romantic feelings. Sayaka's reason for becoming a magical girl and eventual transformation into a witch were both kickstarted by her feelings for Kyosuke. As for Homura, she's pretty blatantly coded to have internalized homophobia and she views her feelings for Madoka as being evil.

I have no idea if this mirror or Homura's eye color will have any real significance, but I find it fascinating nonetheless.

[biggesthomuradefender]

“homura ruined everything in rebellion !!!!” as if madoka’s wish was fucking perfect and instantly fixed/solved everything 💀

[ghst001]

If we actually get to see even just a Homucifer vs Sayakangel subplot (like Sayaka having her face covered by bandages is already teasing it) in this new movie the ten year wait will all be worth

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

oh huh so they tried unleashing it again after it was already sealed away?

[cybershock24601]

veilguard spoilers below

seeing solas' memories and harding just putting together that the maker isn't real is so funny. girl, you've been hunting the guy who invented the veil for years and you're just now questioning if the maker is real? rook came to that conclusion like five minutes after varric explained the whole dread wolf situation and has a whole red string conspiracy board in her room about what the maker actually is because no way was the maker was actually a god so was andraste lying all along or was she tricked by something in the fade? many questions remain that all the new ancient lore rook is discovering is just adding to. the team's going to walk into rook's room one day and they're going to find her chain smoking cigarettes, hair in disarray, bags under her eyes as she tries to put together the pieces of the many puzzles in the history of thedas with all this new elven lore she's learning

[drmarune]

Trying to make hot characters for my new comic whit family fluff and in the background angst and other stuff 🫠☺️🥰

[divine-buster]

[I.D.: a gif from Madoka Magica: Rebellion of Homura in a black dress, seen from the back. Her hair is huge and floats above her slowly, rippling. / end I.D.]

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Thoughts on Season 2 As Of Eps 1-9

Spoilers for TBB Season 2

So I just saw a video on TikTok that I thought was interesting and I just want to share some of my thoughts on it. The creator said that as of right now, they are struggling to understand what the point on TBB Season 2 is and what the main story thread is supposed to be. And I found this interesting because I have a fairly good idea of what I think the overall message they're trying to show is. But I'm not going to critise the creator because I think I might also have an idea of where the confusion is coming from.

In TBB S2, there seems to be 2 distinct narrative threads running through, which while linking to each other at points, can definitely be seen as two separate storylines. One is how the Batch is trying to find their place in a post-Republic world while looking after a child. The other is the rise of the Empire and the clone rebellion.

And while they definitely tie into each other, I can see why they feel like two separate narratives and that's where I think the confusion over what the show is actually about is coming from.

I'm not going to say that this is a bad thing necessarily. I personally like seeing both stories but I'm not necessarily going to go after people if they personally don't enjoy that. For some people they'd rather have the Batch storyline in one season and the rebellion storyline in another. At the end of the day, it's just an opinion. But I do just want to give my thoughts on why I think this works for me.

Really, I think one of the best ways to understand the season is to look at Hunter and Echo. They each represent one storyline: Hunter wanting to choose a more peaceful life for Omega and Echo wanting to do more to fight against the Empire.

And I think those two really show what this show is touching on: what do the clones do in a post-Republic world?

I think the easiest thing to do is to touch on how each episode ties into the main plot, so I'm going to do that.

Eps 1+2: While feeling like the typical Bad Batch "mission goes wrong" style of episodes, these two set up the two sides of the story. Hunter wants the money so that they can go into hiding while Echo wants the money so that they can fight the Empire and help other people. It's setting up the idea that the clones, while literally being copies of the same person, have different ideas of where they want to go. On top of that, you have Tech beginning to understand more about life outside of war.

Ep 3: You have Crosshair trying to prove that he has a place in the Empire, while Cody believes that the best thing to do is to leave. Cody doesn't want to live the life of a soldier if it means working for the Empire, while Crosshair struggles with the idea of his life being anything other than that.

Ep 4: This episode lets the Batch see that there's more to the world outside of the army. Giving Tech a chance to experience something outside of being a soldier opens up the idea of him realising that maybe he doesn't want to carry on fighting.

Ep 5: A deeper look into what it's like for a child to be living in this world. We have Hunter very clearly trying to come to terms with what the best life for Omega is and how they're going to have to change their lives to accommodate that.

Ep 6: Another look into how the Empire is affecting the galaxy and what the clones' place is in all of that. Omega can't be a child in a world like this, so do the Batch give up their lives as soldiers? Or do they carry on fighting for the greater cause like when they helped the Wookies?

Eps 7+8: You have more and more clones questioning the Empire and having to choose whether or not they are willing to put their lives at risk. While the Batch are willing to help Rex, they don't feel like they can take the big step of fully partaking in the Rebellion. But then you have Echo who doesn't want to give up the fight, who, while not wanting anything bad to happen to his brothers or Omega, doesn't want to say goodbye to his life as a soldier if it means having to stop helping people.

Ep 9: This episode is a deeper look into how the difference in the clones' decisions are affecting them. Did the Batch make the right choice in choosing to work with Cid? Should they have gone with Echo? Or was choosing to protect Omega the right choice? Should they give up the fight? Should they throw themselves further into it? Where do they go from here? What is their place in the galaxy? What is their job?

While the idea of the Batch wanting to live their own lives protecting Omega and the idea of the clones beginning to rise up as a collective and fight back may feel like two different storylines, they are both integral to each other.

This season let's us see what is happening to the clones in a post-Republic galaxy: what their choices are, what their purpose is, what they want their future to be. We're all watching the story of the clones but we're just looking at it from multiple sides.

If people don't connect with the show, then that's fine. I can understand why it may be difficult to understand what this season is trying to say and why some people feel that the episodes seem a little disjointed. But I do think that when you break it down, there is a greater narrative there. You sometimes just need to do a little digging to see it.

[squirrelno2]

(feeling a little bad about not having updated anything even though i have Very Good Reasons of real life existing, so have a snippet of Sometimes a Family Is from The Vault!) I have not yet finished the part of this series where Echo and Fives actually reunite, and in fact a large part of me wants to completely revamp what already exists because I'm insane like that, but we're all here for angsty fluff about clones being dads anyway right? I present to you: Fives agonising over what to name the kids who are totally not his kids.

"You know you'll have to name them sometime," Echo said, leaning against Fives as they watched the two youngest kids work together to painstakingly sort shapes into holes. He squinted at the toy they were using. "Is this dexterity training?"

"Dogma said something about pattern recognition," Fives said. "Or - something. He panic reads parenting help articles and I can't keep track anymore. What am I supposed to name them? It feels wrong just giving them a name. They haven't had a chance to find out who they are yet. What if I give them the wrong one?"

"Right," Echo said. "What a tragedy, having someone else name you. Didn't you start Echo?"

"I think that was Cutup," Fives said. "The Kaminoans' little echo." He sounded nostalgic. Echo, having been the victim of that particular barb, was much less so.

"My point is either they grow into it or they get to pick a new one later," Echo said. "But you can't call them the blue one and the brown one forever."

"Who's calling them that?" Fives looked like he was ready to pick a fight about it. Echo tried not to laugh.

"Ven," he said. "You better act fast."

"I don't know where to start," Fives said. "Mine was easy."

"Fives, we picked our names because we had to," Echo said. "I know it's daunting, but - if you don't pick a name for them, it says you didn't care enough to give them better than what we got. I know that's not true. But they're, what, two? Three? They won't know anything more than their namelessness for a long, long time."

His brother swallowed, eyes fixed on the two children as the Pantoran bit solemnly into the edge of a plastic star. It was big enough not to fit in the kid's mouth, and they seemed content to gnaw at it with their purple gums.

"Dogma's got to be able to track down a baby name list or eight," Fives said finally. "We should look for Pantoran names, right? You're supposed to connect kids to where they're from."

That sounded like something Fives and Dogma would know better than Echo. The only kid he'd had to worry about until finding Fives out here was Omega, and she was a clone like any other. Kamino was where they'd come from, but not somewhere they ever really wanted to go. Then again, maybe that proved it: it must be nice for kids like the Jedi younglings in front of him to grow up knowing there was somewhere holding a place for them.

[wolfoflua]

okay I'm still trying to get through part 3 but if Gale is really going to try to ascend to godhood they better mentioned Azuth outside of that one "A is for Azuth" book" in the teifling camp. like. come on. Lover of Mystra that also became a god. Hello?

Technically ex-lover as he was with a former incarnation of Mystra, do they mention in game how Mystra dies every few centuries ingame? Or that the current incarnation was also once mortal?