#Thats an entire self destructive arc she went through

[theology101]

People need to accept that some times, a person is just Evil. And there can be lots of complex and nuanced reasons to be evil, but at the end of the day… they’re still evil. And just cause they’re a teenager right now doesn’t undo that, especially when every time they’ve had a chance to step away from evil, they doubled down.

Sorry you wanted her to be some manipulated little pawn but no, she’s a Mastermind. She made the choice, she murdered her friends.

Kipperlily is Evil.

If she didn’t do something in High School, she would’ve done something eventually. She’s a school shooter who slipped through the cracks and was failed by the adults around her - but end of the day she made the choice and is evil

Her best friend, the only one who ‘got it’ seemed to think that she was too far gone.

[iratusmus]

so bizarre to me when people give fiona a redemption arc like making her evil wasnt literally like the fundamental core of making her an actually interesting character. like . ok actually i was mostly planning on just leaving the post as this but im going to make a proper post whining about this because ive seen it far too often for my liking.

it appears to me that a lot of people do this because they dislike fiona/scourge which is like. sure i get it. but you could literally just... break them up . and have her continue being awful on her own. like scourge is not the reason she switched sides and i find the idea. 1) a bit misogynistic frankly but thats more of a personal gripe than anything else like god forbid a woman make bad choices of her own volition and not because a man forced her hand into doing it (YES i am aware that abuse makes this more complicated than that but also we .... already have a relationship in archie sonic that fits this exact bill. yes it wasnt written well but the wonder of fan works is that you can always make it better. so why are we repeating it again 1:1) and 2) demeaning to the point of her character.

like. ok. lets go over the facts real quick. as a kid fiona got put in robotnik's salt mines and got accidentally left behind bc sonic & co couldnt find her. she realized that nobody was going make the effort to go save her, so she dug herself out and started life on the run as a treasure hunter/thief. she didnt ever really accept the fact that sonic and mighty not saving her wasnt really their fault, and even after becoming a freedom fighter, nobody ever said anything or apologized or said "hey wow that kind of sucks you went through all that". she never really made any actual friends within the ff or formed any meaningful bonds. she starts dating sonic, but its pretty clear that the only reason they're dating is that she's his rebound post The Slap. the moment her history with bean & bark came up - after she used that knowledge to save everybody - sally immediately turns on her and sonic is the only person to try to stick up for her. as bark and bean leave, bean also insinuates that fiona isnt really a freedom fighter, and that she's still basically one of them.

fiona is a "bad" trauma survivor. when i say "bad" i mean in opposition to the ideal tumblr trauma survivor - the sad poor uwu bean whose trauma only inclines them hurt themselves and they become more sympathetic kind etc. as a result. fiona, on the other hand, blames sonic (whose fault this is, frankly, not) for her experiences, and becomes more jaded and mean. she has no real support system and people repeatedly tell her that she hasnt changed and that she wont change and she cant change. shes already got all this baggage by the time her relationship with scourge starts carrying actual weight - he's offering her a way out. if none of them are ever going to really accept her being "good", then she might as well just give into her worst impulses and join hands with scourge, who, notably, has no stake in this - he doesnt have any obligation to be her friend like the freedom fighters, and more than that he likes her specifically because of the part of her that everybody else hates. the important part here is that he encouraged her to switch sides, he didnt make her switch sides.

id say fiona's character in a writing sense is an exploration of the failings of the freedom fighters to support a trauma victim, and how those failings, while unintentional, lead that victim to specifically turn against them. she says "ok actually screw all of you guys" and gives up on trying to be good because nobody ever gave her any real encouragement and decides to put herself on a path of self-destructive revenge and inflicting her misery onto the general population. we can also recall at this point that this motivation is entirely removed from scourge and you can literally break them up and still keep her evil.

the other important point here is that she purposefully chose that path of turning evil as opposed to leaving the freedom fighters or going somewhere else or like literally doing anything else. she literally could have just left but she did not and thats what makes her Interesting. prompted by her unhealed trauma and personal baggage she made those bad choices for herself, and frankly i cannot for the life of me understand why people think that walking back that character development (and yes i mean character development. character development can also mean getting worse) for ..... what. snarky but with a heart of gold generic protagonist girl? come on guys

[solisaureus]

What was it about Will and Nico that drew you to them, individually and/or as a ship?

nico has always been my favorite character!!! well technically that's not true it was annabeth until battle of the labyrinth (and i still love her very very much) -- i read the original series as each book was coming out so when titans curse came out in 2007 i honestly thought nico was so annoying LMAO and i thought bianca was going to be the new addition to the cast. so when she died i was totally shocked and i didnt know how to feel about nico until battle of the labyrinth came out. and then he had that dark and edgy character arc, and my dark and edgy emo 14 year old self was like "ok this kid rules actually" and hes been my fave ever since. how long has it been. (checks watch) ive been stanning nico di angelo for 15 years.

i have always loved nico because i've always related to him -- i have a lot of the same problems that nico has (catholic repression, internalized homophobia, trauma, mental illnesses, feeling like you dont belong, i could go on) and seeing him fight so hard to survive just for the chance to see the day when things might get better...it was really inspiring to me. it sounds corny but this character helped me get through some really difficult times in my life. the way that nico strove so hard to survive in heroes of olympus when he basically had nothing he wanted to live for really gave me strength to keep going too.

And thats part of why solangelo immediately appealed to me! Nico di Angelo finally finding love and laughing and allowing himself to be close to someone after i watched him endure ceaseless torment since 2007 was so gratifying. ever since their initial interaction in blood of olympus i have felt like will was so right for nico -- he was never afraid of him, he treated him the same as everyone else, he went out of his way to make nico feel wanted and refused to let nico fall back on his old self-destructive habits. and i thought it was really fitting that nico's love interest would be someone new, someone unentangled with nico's twisted past, someone he could look to the future with and heal with.

so i started liking will because he was nico's love interest, but once trials of apollo came out I got really invested in will as his own character too, and this feeling has only strengthened with the sun and the star's release. I have actually been waiting for an Apollo demigod to be a main character since I was like 12, because I've always identified with Apollo (I've had a lifelong special interest in Greek mythology lol). And Will was exactly who I was waiting for -- i love how gentle he is, i love that he's a healer, i love his relationship with Apollo, I love how much of a dork loser he is, i love how much he cares for people, and i love his dynamic with nico so much. i ended up writing my fic Solace because I couldnt stop thinking about how will was there in the background the entire time, he lost his siblings, he pined for nico, he was forced into leadership roles when he wasn't ready. and after reading tsats i LOVE how much he is filled with self-doubt and anxiety and how he loves nico so much and wants to support him and make him feel safe and loved in the ways that nico needs. he is so so so fucking good and i adore him and he is truly unlike any other character in this series.

i love nico, i love will, i love solangelo, i love how they contrast each other and yet are the same in so many ways, i love how they overcome realistic relationship obstacles to be together because after all theyve both been through they deserve to feel secure and at peace with someone they love, who they know loves them back.

[teamconductors]

im actually super excited for an emmet """"redemption"""" arc if thats where we are going. emmet understands how selfish he was and works to be better than that, promising himself that he will not only apologize to elesa, but recognize everything shes done for him while he was grieving/kinda losing it (because seriously, anyone that sticks with their friend like she did for him through that deserves an award and 10 years of therapy) when he gets back, and that hell try to do better than let his pain consume him like it did- even if ingo DOESNT end up coming back with him!! because even though grief is a horrible, painful thing, life has to go on, and i think if theres anything all these pmd adventures did, it was allow emmet to get back into experiencing that part of living where hes dedicated to helping the people around him, something im sure was difficult to pursue while he was on his downwards spiral (which wasnt helped by almosy nobody listening to him tbh). maybe emmet REALLY has to experience a path of solitude where he does some rescues on his own, so the two of them can both work on being apart while remaining functional, because that separation anxiety is very real and very bad for the both of them! im focusing on emmet with this because he never really healed(i guess you could say ingo never did either, since amnesia and the pearl clan kinda gave him the chance to be an individual all on his own. even if he felt lonely the entire time, he still managed better than emmet. not that doing that was very difficult.), and essentially got what he wanted (in a horrible, twisted way which hurt both of them) by letting his mental state go downhill, and he STILL hasnt gotten past his severe attachment issues and trauma(considering what he went through it is pretty difficult to blame him). so......id really love to see where you go with all that!! heres to hoping emmet and ingo come out of this as a stronger individuals.

anyway, meanwhile ingo gotta work on letting go of his need to always put others in front of himself (or himself in front of others, if we are being literal) to a self destructive level and recognizes he doesnt always have to be the one providing a service for others!! let everyone have ingos back always. big brother instinct be damned.

That is a lot of thoughts, my dude! Given the trajectory of the fic rn, I'm not sure if I'd be able to explicitly cover everything suggested here... I hope that isn't too disappointing and that you continue to enjoy the story anyway!

[daylighteclipsed]

tbh (and PLS dont take this as me telling u not to ship it, i dont mean it that way AT ALL), ur last post is why i stopped shipping sns back in the day. specifically the part in shippu when naru told sasu that he would "break every bone in sasu's body to drag him back to konoha" like, sasuke's lit here knowing konoha massacred his entire family, his entire clan, is seriously fucked up on a fascist level tbh, is fighting against that & tryin to make change, & is like

saying "i cant go back to that" & naru is out here saying "idgaf, i want u in this police state regardless, i will lit break ur bones & chain u up to make it happen" like, at that point it feels like he doesnt actually care abt sasuke AT ALL, he cares abt what HE wants, fuck sasuke's feelings or needs. i love & support sasuke so much i cant stand for him to be treated like that. fuck team 7 tbh theyre the worst (except sasuke hes an angel & were glad hes here)

again tho im NOT telling u not to ship it, pls dont think i am!!! just sharing some Thots since u brought up how sasuke was the only one to criticize konoha in shippuden but ultimately was made to bow down & serve konoha & i just. man. its still so upsetting. not to mention how sakura basically raped him to make sarada (tho thats not saradas fault & i do feel bad for her... just goes to show if ur an uchiha ur life sucks i guess :/)

Phew there is a lot going on in this message. Okay, I don't know anything about Sarada and how she was conceived, so I'm not going to touch that. I like Team 7. Yeah, they're a mess, but I like them. I haven't finished the series yet, but I have been spoiled a lot. As far as I know, Naruto's "break every bone in your body" comment is during the first VotE fight when he's 12. If he says that again during the war arc or something --long suffering sigh-- And I don't think Sasuke's an angel lol If I’ve given that impression, it’s probably because people criticize Sasuke more than Naruto. I think all of the characters are flawed. Neither Sasuke nor Naruto have perfect ideologies or completely noble motivations, and that makes them interesting to me.

I went through like 5 long drafts trying to explain why, aside from bad writing, Naruto might keep asking Sasuke to come back to Konoha even after finding out about the massacre only to come to a conclusion that is so obvious in retrospect. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s not the only reason, and I’ll talk about possible others ones too, but this feels pretty right.

When Naruto talks about bringing Sasuke back to the village, it’s not about Konoha. It’s not about the place. It’s a less intimate way of saying, “Come back to me.” I know there’s good in you. I know you don’t want to be alone. I know you’re suffering. Let me help you. Come back to me.

Because I think, I really do think, that if Sasuke accepted Naruto’s support/stopped making self-destructive choices but still expressed dislike/discomfort towards the village, Naruto would understand that. He wouldn’t force Sasuke to stay there. He wouldn't let anyone else force Sasuke to stay there. And if Sasuke still wanted to destroy the village, well, that’s where the murder suicide pact would come in, I guess.

On the other hand, maybe it is about the place. Maybe Naruto thinks that Sasuke can heal if he comes “home” and accepts support from all his “friends” because that’s what worked for Naruto. That’s how Naruto was cured of all his issues, right? 😐

Naruto approaches everything on a personal level, and on a personal level, his philosophy of compassion and forgiveness works, but not against the larger, political picture. Not against fascism. You can’t forgive a fascist system the way you would forgive a friend. You can’t give it another chance. Using violence against fascism isn’t fighting hate with hate. It’s fighting for your freedom, for your life and the lives of others. We’re talking about a state that decided Sasuke’s people do not have the right to live. How can Sasuke possibly call that “home”? How can he call people who support that “friends” or “family”?

If it’s about the place, then it’s absolutely bonkers to me that Naruto doesn’t see that. He has to. He’s either extremely, stupidly naive or insane or... It’s bad writing. But let’s pretend for another second that it’s not. The only in-universe explanation I can come up with is: Naruto admitting that Konoha is bad for Sasuke would mean Naruto admitting that Konoha is bad for him too, and he won’t. He won’t address his trauma. Otherwise, his actions really contradict his supposedly empathetic nature. After Kage Summit, there’s no reason he wouldn’t realize that Sasuke would be miserable in Konoha. There’s no reason he wouldn’t admit that Sasuke is right and do something about it instead of insisting that Sasuke come back. It doesn’t make sense.

All that is to say, I understand why Naruto’s behavior would upset you because it bothers me too. Most likely, it’s bad writing on Kishi’s part, refusing to let Naruto grow and change and admit that he’s wrong. He’s right about compassion and forgiveness on a personal level, but the system is not redeemable. Working within it to solve problems is useless because the system is the reason those problems exist in the first place. But in general I like this series more for its potential than what it actually is anyway. It’s so absurd to me that Naruto and Sasuke don’t work together to change anything in the end, that Sasuke just ends up serving Konoha and not getting any justice, that like I can’t even treat it as canon.

[suf-lives-rent-free]

Fragments

Everything below is just my opinion; I am in no way trying to say that how I feel about this is the one correct take or whatever.

I know a lot of people like this episode and what happens in it, but I don’t.  I totally understand that some people just don’t want to see any negativity, period, but negativity is not inherently bad or wrong.

Negative opinions, even about something you enjoy, can be valid too - regardless of whether you happen to agree with them or not.

Also I get very salty near the end of this, and that might be entertaining to people who stan this episode?

I am aware that a lot of people – the majority, I’m pretty sure – think that the episode is a masterpiece. And on some level, I see where they’re coming from with that assessment.

The episode is boarded beautifully, the backgrounds – especially during the training montage – are stunning as always.  The music is fantastic, and the performances are great too.  In these respects, Fragments is a stand-out episode; I agree.

(Like look at this.  Gorgeous.)

However, something that’s bothered me since I saw the episode is the writers’ decision to write it into the story that Steven shatters Jasper.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: I just don’t get it.  I’m purposefully misinterpreting the story to say it’s bad.  Steven brings her back to life; and it’s not like he meant to do it in the first place.  I just don’t have the capacity to understand the sublime nature of the show’s storytelling.  I’m an SU crit and all I want to do is make the real fans feel about themselves for liking it.

Uhhhh... no.  Nah.  That ain’t it chief.

It’s true; I am not a writer.  I’m just a passive consumer of media.  However, I do not agree with the viewpoint that in order to properly understand or critique a thing you need to have the expertise and/or experience in order to make something similar.

For example, if I were to put something I drew when I was 10 years old next to something I drew yesterday, it shouldn’t take a person who has had an education in fine art to tell you that the latter drawing is better-looking than the former.

That’s how I approach media consumption and criticism; when I criticise a writing decision, I am doing so as a consumer.  I’m not saying I could write it better, or even that my opinion is objectively correct and the writer is wrong or bad.  I’m just saying that I didn’t like a thing.  Which, I would hope, is allowed?

Okay, defensive hedging over, back to the point; I don’t like that they had Steven shatter Jasper.

[I get markedly saltier from this point on, fyi]

Full admission of bias here: one of the things I really cherish about the original show is how they wrote Steven’s character; he’s a boy with interests that don’t rigidly conform to gender stereotypes.  He likes ‘boyish’ things and ‘girly’ things, and that’s okay; thats just him.  In cartoons when I was growing up, characters like Steven would be the butt of jokes about being ‘girly’ or thinly-veiled homophobia.  I find him very relatable, and I want to acknowledge that yes, that is probably a significant part of why I have such an issue with this episode’s twist.

I am not trying to say that he’s a perfect baby angel or whatever; Steven regularly gets frustrated and angry. He does some pretty manipulative and dickish things to people around him (stop trying to make Larsadie happen, Steven. It’s not going to happen).  He is a flawed character who fucks up sometimes. And he’s not 100% peaceful either; he acts violently when he defends himself against corrupted Gems and Homeworld Gems (and Crystal Gems on occasion *cough*Bismuth*cough*).  

However, he has a pacifistic temperament; whenever it’s possible, he prefers that problems be solved without needless violence or hurt.  And I like that; in most media, it’s rare to have a male protagonist who wants to solve their problems without jumping straight to punching things.

When he accidentally frees Centipeedle, he convinces the Gems to step off and allow him to try and rehabilitate her peacefully; he even notices that the Gems’ weapons are a trigger for her, and make them put them away.  He frees Lapis against the Gems’ wishes because he recognizes that keeping her prisoner is wrong, and when she steals the ocean, he talks it out and heals her so she can leave Earth peacefully.

He tries to aid Jasper when she starts corrupting, fixes Eyeball’s gemstone when she’s cracked and tries talking Bismuth down when she attacks him with the breaking point.  In all of these situations, his words and help are ignored or rejected; he’s forced to resort to violence.  And it traumatises him.  

We get an entire episode dedicated to the fact that he’s been struggling with processing these awful things that happened.

Even in Future, Steven shows hesitation about engaging in unncecessary violence; he gives into Jasper’s goading for a fight after what’s implied to be dozens of failed tries at making her come to Little Homeschool, and he spends an entire episode trying to keep Lapis from squashing the two rogue Lapis Lazulis. 

The only time he hops into a fight willingly is after Eyeball and Aquamarine hold Greg hostage, and even then they pose a clear threat to his and Greg’s safety and have made it clear that they want to hurt him emotionally and physically.  Even at that, he stops and switches tactics to talking them down as soon as they lose their focus and start bickering with each other.

(I mean, he fails.  But it’s the thought that counts.)

I personally find it really jarring that the writers found it appropriate to write it into the series that this same character – over the course of three (3) days – goes from disliking mindless violence for mindless violence’s sake to happily engaging in the destruction of plants and animals* and has done a total 180 on his willingness to spar with Jasper, to the point that he instigates their rematch.

*(You best believe plenty of small mammals and birds – y’know, like the nest Steven saved in the first episode – died as he and Jasper felled tree after tree, not to mention all of those displaced by the destruction of their habitats, and the potential loss of food sources from some of those trees.)

You’re telling me that it’s a reasonable character beat for this boy to gleefully laugh like an anime supervillain at his sudden new-found joy in fighting, then pin Jasper in place, taunt her for helping him get so strong, and hit her so hard that she breaks into pieces and dies?

You’re telling me that that’s an in-character thing for Steven Quartz Diamond Cutie-Pie DeMayo Universe do to another character?

(And yes I am purposefully dancing around talking about the mental health stuff because if I did that I’d have to go on a whole other tangent about Growing Pains and fuck I just don’t feel like it right now lmao)

Going back to Mindful Education, another big thing we see Steven struggle with is the idea that his mother shattered Pink Diamond.  This knowledge sits heavily with him; it makes him sympathetic to the Diamonds, even under the circumstances in which he sees them (escaping from the Human Zoo, and being on trial for said murder). 

He sees their grief, and he feels awful.  He questions who Rose Quartz even was.  He knows, based on what Garnet said, that Rose had to do it; there was no other way to free Earth.  But he still feels awful seeing the pain that Pink’s loss has caused Blue and Yellow Diamond.

In Steven Universe, shattering is clearly equated with execution/death multiple times.  When Pearl and Garnet fret over the crack in Amethyst’s gemstone worsening.  When Blue Diamond threatens to break Ruby.  When Bismuth introduces the breaking point, and Steven recoils at the sight of what it does.  If you want to take the fact that Gem shards are sentient and desperate to become whole again into account, you could even argue that it’s a fate worse than death. This particular act of violence is treated very, very seriously.

When we find out that Rose shattered Pink Diamond, there is a season and a half long arc unpacking the implications and consequences of this one action, and how this knowledge forever alters Steven’s mental image of his mother.  And she didn’t even kill anyone.  It was a lie!

In Steven Universe Future, Steven shatters Jasper 4 episodes before the end of the series.  And it’s only brought up twice; once for a big *gasp* moment during his breakdown in Everything’s Fine, and in I Am My Monster by Pearl, when she has to fill-in Bismuth, Lapis and Peridot.  Notably, it is never discussed around or by Jasper.  Y’know.  The person who actually died.

No indication of how (or even if) what Steven did is affecting his own self-image after his initial breakdown, how Jasper feels about what she went through beyond falling back into the Era 1 and 2 mindset.  No inkling of how the knowledge that Steven killed somebody has affected how anyone in his life thinks or feels about him; when Pearl brings it up in I Am My Monster, she seems to not even really believe it’s true.

If there are any consequences or talks about this incident, they’re skipped over between I Am My Monster and The Future, and we’re expected to assume that Steven and his therapist are dealing with it, I guess?

And yes.  It was an accident.  He did bring her back to life.  But it still happened.  If you hit someone over the head and they stop breathing, just because the paramedics are able to resusitate and stabilize them afterwards doesn’t mean you never hit them.

But here, it’s shoved aside because dwelling on it would take far too much time, and risks framing Steven in an unsympathetic way when he’s meant to be on the cusp of a breakdown.

It just feels like careless writing to me.  They really, really wanted their big action scene with Steven and Jasper, but didn’t think (or maybe weren’t interested in thinking) about the seriousness or consequences of what Steven shattering someone would entail.

In my opinion, Steven shattering Jasper is one of the cheapest, laziest things they could have ever done with his character (and hers, for that matter).  To me, the entire thing feels entirely out of character.  It’s pure shock value; nothing more.

So yeah.  That particular writing decision just does not work for me.  And if you disagree... well that’s fine?  It’s fine.  We can agree to disagree?  I’ve read a lot of defense/praise for this episode, and honestly even after processing all of those opinions and all the time my thoughts about this plotline have been stewing in my brain, I still feel the same way.

[thebibliomancer]

50 More Days of Comics! 35/50: TIMEWALKER #6 (1995)

Harbinger Wars Part 1 of 3

Ah, Valiant Comics! A Valiant effort to offer something different to Marvel and DC!

Of course, this is in 1995 so Jim Shooter has already been kicked out of his own company. And also after the disastrous Deathmate crossover that followed that ousting.

As near as I can tell, Timewalker is like Quantum Leap but with time travel. Ivar the Timewalker is immortal and can sense time arcs that connect different time periods. But he has no control over which time periods the time arcs time go to so time after time he has to walk through time hoping that in time he finds the time arc that will take him back in time to ancient Egypt and the woman he loves.

Judging by the futuristic tanks on the cover, he’s goofed up again.

He finds himself smack dab in the literal middle of East Las Angeles 2062 AD between the Harbinger forces and the resistance at the dawn of the Harbinger War. Part 1 of the war, in fact.

Both sides shoot at him, each thinking he’s with the other, but a geomancer named Lucinda tells the resistance soldiers to stand down, recognizing Ivar.

And in one of the best time travel tropes, while she knows him, he doesn’t know her yet. But he pretends he knows her because that’s just simpler and his linear timeline gives him a headache.

Toyo Harada’s Harbinger forces are basically taking over the world and very few people actually want to get involved enough to stand up to him so there are few and far between ‘free zones.’

The New York free zone is thanks to Aric Dacia and the XO Manowar armor. Which Harada is actually after.

So we see Aric sending the armor into deep space where no one will find it just before Harada shows up pissed off.

They fight and Aric dies but not before fatally shanking Harada. And he would have gotten away with it too except Aric’s young wife walks in on the bloodbath and Harada transfers his mind into her body. Because he can do that.

Harada: “I’ve beaten you, Aric! And I’ve cheated death in the process!! My bones had grown weary... old... With my mind in your wife’s body, I’m young again!”

This is actually vaguely familiar. I think the cliff notes of the Harada Wars were covered in the Rai #0 book which I have for some reason in a non-box. I should really do a Number Days of Comics: Random Comics I Got When I Was a Kid Edition.

Its mostly Spider-Man and mostly falling apart but there’s some other stuff in there too.

Anyway, without so much as an establishing scene, Ivar Timewalker has ditched the resistance group to head to a temple of Ladakh in Tibet to recruit Faith Herbert aka Zeppelin.

Since she was one of the original renegades that fought Harada before the turn of the century, Ivar figures the resistance will listen to her when she tells them to stop fighting and end the war.

Ivar has seen the destruction that the Harbinger Wars wreck and he wants to try to avoid it.

The resistance is generally demoralized right now because they’ve heard that Harada got a new, younger body so any hopes that he’d just eventually die of old age were dashed.

But Zeppelin is here to give a rousing speech!

Zeppelin: “When I was a teenager, I attended Harada’s Foundation school. Then I found out he was just trying to breed an army of Harbingers. My friends and I went renegade. He killed some of them before we were in our twenties. Others were brainwashed and made to do... despicable things. Twenty years ago, I lost one of my best friends. I gave up fighting after that. But the war went on. That’s why I’m here today. We must end it. Now. By taking the battle to Harada!”

Ivar is not pleased. That wasn’t the direction he wanted the resistance to be roused in!

He chastises her on the plane ride to the Final Battle for escalating the slaughter.

Zeppelin: “I know that I’ll have to live with my decision for the rest of my life.”

Ivar Timewalker: “Well, if things go the way I think they will, that’s not going to be a hell of a long time.”

I’m not entirely sure what Ivar’s game plan was anyway. He wanted the resistance to stand down annnnnnd just accept Harada’s iron-fisted and body swapping fueled IMMORTAL rule??

But he argues that actually the Harbinger Wars will be worse than any conflict and carnage in the history of Earth and will result in the end of humanity.

Zeppelin: "Don’t preach to me about something you can’t possibly know! You saw a possible future! Now get off my back!”

When they get at Final Battle, a powered person named Blast gets fastball specialed to the top of Harada’s Tower and promptly explodes himself in an attempt to kill Harada.

It does not work.

And a pissed off Harada flies down to confront the resistance and Zeppelin personally as the issue ends on a pretty cool two-page spread.

Also Ivar gets shot in the shoulder while he’s yelling at everyone to stop fighting.

Not bad. I feel like I’m missing a ton of context here but people look like people and a time traveler trying to stop a war even if it means accepting a dictator to save humanity is... Something. Something new. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a time travel plot go quite like that.

Also, psychic Toyo Harada and his school of gifted youngsters feels like its probably at least taking on the idea of the X-Men darkly.

To this end, he established the Harbinger Foundation to recruit others with paranormal abilities, whom Harada refers to as "harbingers of the next step in human evolution". 

YUP THATS X-MEN ALRIGHT

Also, while wikipeding that I also learned that Zeppelin only has the power of self-levitation. So the person with only flying is going to try to beat up the super psychic guy.

Hats off to Faith Herbert Zeppelin. Whatever else she is, she’s no coward.

[unintelligible-screaming]

god im far too exhausted and busy to make this post and im about to go to sleep anyways but im gonna post this as a reminder to myself. i gotta write a post about vriska's development post retcon because she really did have character development post retcon! it's there and it's important and it's a huge reason of why shes my fav! I actually find post retcon vriska more interesting than (vriska) and it's always weird to read posts that view the retcon as an erasure of (vriska)s arc rather than an elaboration on/movement past it? i guess i understand the reasoning behind that interpretation but i don't agree with it personally.

also there should be more conversation about the fact that vriska is essentially on some level *aware* that she is an antagonist in the narrative and that her entire existence is about overcoming that. (vriska) eventually decided to give up on becoming a hero and faded to peaceful irrelevance in the dreambubbles, which was good for her in many ways but also meant giving up all her agency in her own story and didn't fit the overall MESSAGE that vriska and her arc send in fhe context of the entirety of homestuck. post retcon vriska's conversation with terezi makes clear that she went through a lot of the same self-confrontations that (vriska) did and despite being a huge asshole -- she's... definitely still vriska -- is far less insecure and far more capable of caring in a healthy and fulfilling manner for the few people she chooses to care for, esp terezi. post retcon vriska actually manages to save the world, become a hero, and ACTUALLY BECOME the vriska she always wanted to be -- someone worthy of the respect of people like terezi.

it doesn't mean she's nice or a completely good person -- far from that-- but her arc was never about that! its not about becoming a better person! thats, like, a fun side effect. there are other characters who exemplify it more. her arc was about abuse and control and self image and taking back agency in your own narrative.

also??? people talk about dave and vriska having a lot to talk about / a lot in common but there isn't too much of a conversation about how the message of their arcs are inverses of each other?? dave was forced into a toxically masculine "hero" role that he learned to step away from (which is why in collide he was shown with the meteor instead of his quest bed) but vriska was forced AWAY FROM the hero role esp by doc scratch, very intentionally, and had to learn to carve her own path and achieve agency/overcome her inner demons by defeating lord english, the core force of destruction that indirectly guided her into being the quite terrible person her upringing made her. anyways i gotta write this more coherently at some point