#Third episode of season 2.....final episode of season 15....

[r0b1ee]

I am unwell about this

[quasi-normalcy]

Every "Nu Trek" (2017- ) Series Ranked from Worst to Best:

Very Short Treks (2023): There's really no words for just how terrible this series is. I mean, I know that it only barely counts because it's explicitly not canon and has a total combined run time of about 15 minutes, but *my god* is it bad! Only one of its episodes is remotely funny, and even that manages to feel like it's driven its main joke into the ground by the end of its 2-minute runtime. The only thing that I can say for it is that is that it gives me an easy, uncontroversial choice for worst Star Trek series, not only of the last 7 years, but of all time.

Picard (2020-2023): Listen; I know that this series is unpopular with the Tumblr Trek fandom, but it actually breaks my heart to have to put it so low on the list. It has, in my own opinion, the best dramatic acting of any Trek series and among the best directing, and almost every individual scene, in isolation, is compellingly watchable. More than that, it has fascinating worldbuilding choices, you can really *see* the passion of the writers for what they're creating (at least in the first and third seasons), and Agnes in particular is among my favourite characters in anything ever. It's got a lot of great moments, too! Picard and Seven bonding over shared Borg trauma; Soji uncovering the truth of her identity; Jurati hacking the Borg Queen's brain; Picard's final farewell to Q; Shaw's Wolf 359 monologue; Geordi's reunion with Data...I could go on. And yet, it just feels like so much *less* than the sum of its parts! Incredible ideas are introduced and then just shrugged off to pursue much more boring ones. Story arcs feel pointless if not actively offensive. Absolutely baffling writing choices are made throughout, with no indication as to why. And the nostalgia baiting , particularly in the final season, becomes so intense that it just chokes the plot to death. One comes away haunted by the feeling that this series should be so much better than it is.

Discovery (2017-2024): Really, this is two separate series: a twisty, grimdark, sci-fi war drama and a gentle queer coffeeshop AU about scientists who talk about their feelings. Both of them have their moments, but they each fall down in the same way: a focus on epic, high-stakes mystery box storytelling that undermines one's ability to really get invested in the characters, or even know who they are when they aren't off saving the universe. Without that, while I liked many of the characters and loved seeing them science the shit out of things using teamwork and the power of math, it's kind of difficult to get invested in this series one way or another. In spite of its absolutely gorgeous visuals, it comes off feeling weirdly...flat.

Short Treks (2018-2020): Not a lot to talk about here; just kind of an anthology series of short films adjacent to Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds. Mostly they're varying shades of mediocre, but a few of them are as brilliant as any episode of Star Trek ever made, so the series gets to be relatively high on the list.

Strange New Worlds (2022- ): This is the first entry on this list that, in my opinion, belongs on the top shelf with some of the best of the older series. And it achieves it basically by adopting the same formula as the original series or the next generation--socially conscious planet-of-the-week adventures with enough wit, cleverness and joie-de-vivre to keep it interesting. I remember in 2017, there was plenty of discussion of how it's possible to update Star Trek's formula for prestige television; how funny that the solution turned out to be "don't change it at all, just give it modern special effects and actual character arcs." That said, the series is a bit *too* beholden to the original, with focus primarily on a bunch of characters who aren't allowed to grow or change too much because we already know how they'll turn out. It would be even better if it were about a new ship and a new crew full of nobodies who we can come to love. Which brings us to...

Lower Decks (2020-2024): Above, I said that Picard felt like it should have been so much better than it was. Lower Decks, frankly, should have been so much worse. How is an adult animated sitcom with Rick and Morty style animation and constant memberberries this freaking good!?! Every episode is a master class in efficient storytelling, with 22 minute runtimes often feeling like they contain as much story and character work as episodes twice as long. And the characters are incredible--like TOS and TNG, they feel almost archetypal, and even though you've never seen them before, they slide so seamlessly into the Star Trek universe that it's hard to believe that they weren't just *always* there; that there was ever a time when you could imagine the Star Trek universe without just intrinsically knowing that Tendi and Shaxs and Mariner were off somewhere in the background. It's greatest success though, the reason why it's comedy works when it really shouldn't, is that it's only *slightly* sillier than the serious series. What we end up with a fantastic series with an ethos that is pure Star Trek, and in fact, if I had written this list a month ago, it would certainly be in the #1 spot. However...

Prodigy (2021-2024?): The first season of Prodigy is...charming. It's got some fun characters, some spectacular visuals, some interesting premises. And if the plots tend to be a little too simplistic to be engaging to an adult, hey, it's a kids' show. It's good. Solid. Above average. And if I had only the first season to go on, it would probably be in third position on this list. But then, a few weeks ago, it went ahead and dropped the best season of Star Trek in a quarter-century, and I really...I just cannot recommend this series highly enough. The sheer, ambitious scope of the narrative; the arcs it puts its character through; the cleverness of the writing; the fricking GORGEOUSNESS of it! And it does all this while redeeming deeply unpopular characters and plot points from other series, in a way that never feels forced or pandering. Not only is it the best Star Trek series of the 21st century, it's one of the best children's animated series since AtLA. Go. Go! Watch it! Watch it now!

[crowleysgirl56]

Ok, so here are some of my rather long rambling thoughts. I’ll start off with some pros and cons and then provide some speculation:

My initial negative reaction:

- Compressing 5 hours worth of content into 90 minutes feels like things will be rushed and we won’t get a good story.

- HOW do you take a month to rewrite six 45 minute long scripts into a movie length feature and have it still be good?!

- the compression of the story means we will likely not get any more flashback sequences. Admittedly I actually thought we probably wouldn’t get more flashback scenes in season 3 anyway, but this definitely proves the case that we won’t. There won’t be time for it.

- who has re-written the script? Because here’s the thing about Pratchett adaptations. They’re fucking shit. No one (in my opinion) has been able to successfully transfer that man’s unique sense of humour and writing style onto screen. Every single Discworld adaptation has been on a scale of awful to kind of meh. EXCEPT for season 1 of Good Omens. As much as we hate him now. As vile as he has become in our hearts, the thing about NG is that he understood Terry’s unique style. He understood what worked and how to transfer that to the screen. And that breaks my heart on so many levels. Because he was all we had. And we certainly didn’t want him any more. But still, who THE FUCK has written the finale script now?

Now here are my positive thoughts on the situation:

- NEIL GAIMAN GOT HIS SORRY ASS FIRED! GOOD!

- Consequences. The industry has signalled consequences. Finally!

- We are getting a conclusion! It could very well have been cancelled and we would have been left with the final 15 forever. We get to see them again. That deserves a Wahoo!

- thinking back over season 2, which I enjoyed, I actually do have to say a lot of it was kind of unnecessary filler. The flashback sequences were great. But the actual core of the season’s arc involving Gabriel was just a bit boring. I’m forever grateful for it because we got to spend almost 6 hours watching Aziraphale give Crowley heart eyes and Crowley do beautiful acts of service proving his love back. But the meandering stuff with Nina and Maggie and trying to work out why Gabriel lost his memory wasn’t all that interesting. I was here for A&C.

- so I think MAYBE that means the compression of what had already been written for season 3 means it’ll cut out the plot bits that drag. Hopefully this means it’s faster paced and tighter and more focused on A&C.

Speculations:

Thinking back to the last time NG interacted with the fandom, he had confirmed the first three episodes were written and were with Amazon for approval, episode 4 was almost done, the last part of episode 6 had been written, and he had started plotting episode 5. We never got a confirmation if he ever finished them. So this maybe indicates that the finale is lifted exactly out of these scripts. My assumption is they’ve brought in a script doctor to edit what they’ve already got and wrap up plot points. In which case, on the one hand it gives us close to the story and idea of what Terry imagined. On the other, the far more negative connotation, it’s still NG’s work. The articles that have all come out so far merely states “Gaiman is not involved with the production and the finale is based on his work”. This could be Prime distancing themselves without actually confirming how he’s contributed. Which is still largely disappointing.

So, once again I feel very conflicted. A lot of the fandom have been very adamant about not wanting to support the show if Gaiman was involved, and in the end he wrote the show. Even if he had been removed as producer and showrunner and wasn’t allowed on set (thankfully it seems all three of things have happened), I know that wouldn’t have been enough for some fans because he would still have ultimately been responsible for the product that we eventually see. And I don’t know how to feel about that.

I’m happy he’s gone, I’m disappointed the show has been gutted, I’m glad we get a conclusion, I’m sad it won’t be exactly what we wanted.

I’m SO THANKFUL that the women get some semblance of justice, that there is a consequence for a perpetrator, that a big ass company is finally listening to fans and moving with the times and signally this kind of behaviour isn’t appropriate and that repercussions can and will be felt.

Finally, I’ll remind everyone that there are going to be a lot of different and conflicting feelings from the fandom. I would ask that everyone try to be nice to one another. If you have a differing opinion, maybe rather than debating it you just allow that person their feelings and move on. Do not go after someone if you feel like they’re not reacting the “right way” to the situation. Just be kind please. It’s what Terry would have wanted.

[curlyhairedbooklover]

How many times do Will and Hannibal say each other's names?

I have had this data sitting around finished for over a year (and started collecting it three years ago) and have finally decided to just share it! I’m splitting it up into three posts, this one is about how many times Will and Hannibal say each other’s names, the next adds in Jack and Alana, and the third is a bit of a departure as it’s about the gender split of the murder victims in the show!! 

Very quickly I’ll go over the format! I was particularly interested in what form of name people used so it’s split into first name, title, and full name (slightly varying depending on the needs of each table) as well as whether the character is speaking directly to the person whose name they are saying or if it’s to someone else!

Adding a disclaimer that I did this for fun so I haven’t double checked it meaning there may be some mistakes, but I tried my best! 😌

Getting into the data itself: first of all, Will says Hannibal’s name 109 times throughout the entire series, 29 of them are while talking to Hannibal himself and 80 are while talking to others. Will only uses Hannibal’s first name 48 times with none of them occurring in s1 and only 6 being while talking TO Hannibal himself… (Though the s2 one is in conversation with both Jack and Hannibal being more directed towards the former but Hannibal is present so it counts babeyy!!) He likes calling him just “Dr.” doing so 5 times but the majority of the time he uses “Dr. Lecter” when speaking to Hannibal making up the remaining 17 times! When talking about Hannibal he uses his name the most in s2 at 42 times but only 14 of those are his first name. He prefers to use a more impersonal form in s2 as opposed to s3 where he uses Hannibal’s name 34 times in conversation but a whole 28 of them are his first name!! He really said I’m on intimate terms with Hannibal now 😌. (Especially if we remember this is the season where he addressed Hannibal by his first name 5 times too….) 

Hannibal on the other hand uses Will’s name almost double the amount of times that Will uses his! Hannibal’s total comes to 204! Most of them are in s1&2 at 88 and 75 respectively, before dropping down to 41 times in s3 (2 times less than Will that season!) He also uses Will’s first name Significantly More at 184 times, in fact he only full names him 20 times! The only two times he uses Will’s full name while talking to him are in 1.11 when Will has a seizure in his living room and he’s doing the “It is [time], I am in [place] and my name is Will Graham” routine. Interestingly he uses Will’s full name 9 times while talking to others in s2 but they are exclusively in s2a, once Will got out of prison he went all in on ‘Will is my best friend’. Although I want to note that in 2.1 he uses Will’s first name while talking to others 10 times during the episode…… There are only three episodes in the entire show where he doesn’t use Will’s name and they are all in s3 (3.3, 3.4, and 3.7) he really tried to have his Hot Girl Summer and forget about his ex though luckily (for him and us) it did not last. And in 3.9 he uses Will’s name 15 times that episode and all of them were his first name, he’s down bad!! He simply can’t help it!! Across s3b he uses Will's name 32 times which is 78% of all the uses in s3, turns out going to prison for a man just makes you talk about him More!

This table also includes a side table of every time they talk to or about each other! Not much to note there except that they talk the most in s1&2 resting at 39 and 43 respectively before dropping to only 25 conversations in s3 but they are separated for 5 episodes so I think we can forgive them for that 🤷‍♀️ although they do have a few flashback or hallucination conversations (on that topic the two conversations in 2.4 are hallucinations from Will and the single conversation in 3.8 is technically the letter Hannibal sent Will but I felt like they deserved to be counted!!) When talking about each other Hannibal initially does so more, having 24 conversations in s1 as opposed to Will's 7 about him. Whereas they are more evenly matched in s2 with Will at 33 and Hannibal at 27. In s3 Will completely overtakes Hannibal talking about him 36 times to Hannibal's 13! It’s interesting that despite Will talking so little about Hannibal in s1 he ends up the ultimate winner at a total count of 76 conversations to Hannibal’s 64! But it's safe to say that with those totals they are both completely obsessed with the other 😌

To f i n a l l y let my English degree in for a minute it’s very telling that Will uses Hannibal’s first name sparingly, indicating that it took time for him to build intimacy and trust with him. If we look at the occasions in which he deploys it when talking to Hannibal he uses it as a weapon to induce Hannibal into doing things BY referencing their intimacy this way and letting it bleed into his words. This convinces Hannibal that he needs to go to prison so Will could always find him and later to go along with Will's plan to break him out. Hannibal on the other hand readily uses Will’s first name from the beginning and in fact does so More at this point than later on. This shows how he was fostering dependence and creating trust that he could then use to break Will and watching him break would in turn feed his curiosities about Will. There is also a notable jump in 3.8 in his use of Will's name since the beginning of the season, it marks the first time they have seen each other in 3 years. Now Hannibal is trying to re-ingratiate himself to Will while simultaneously throwing barbs at him to try to inflict some of the pain he felt in their separation and to test if Will felt the same anguish (which we know he of course did however much he denies it..)

I hope that this data has been interesting and most importantly has illuminated how insane they are about each other!! I would love to hear any other thoughts people have in the tags or comments!

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3)

Shoutout to @will-gayham for going insane about this with me for the past two years and being as enthusiastic about ✨data✨ as I am, love you! 🫶

[neo-zone]

Sweet Home 3 Official Trailer Personal Breakdown

Some little narration from monster Hyun-su with flashbacks of the last two seasons moment of them. Neat, I like it

Yi-kyung's daughter seems surprised (and kinda scared). Maybe when she realizes who her father is or she's realizing how bad the situation is in the stadium once it's already too late to go back to her peaceful garden? But who knows

Alright, how we go from monster Hyun-su having no sense of privacy at the last episode of season 2 to a scene of him and Eun-yu laying down separately like a divorced couple sleeping on different beds in season 3?

I guess the scene where Hyun-su parted with Eun-yu is after the night attack or well whatever, the main point is it's before the time skip. Also this is most likely the last time we see him with his best hairstyle before he went back to his older one and wearing some fancy clothes because why not. As for Eun-yu and Chan-young, maybe they went back to the stadium? But I don't know

What's this last step of monsterization Eun-hyeok mentioned? I thought it's just stop at the infected regaining full control over themselves after 15 days and got a cool superpower (although most are just variations of fleshy kinda icky stretched limbs, no not you Hyun-su your wing is cool) 🤔 Second power-up stuff, maybe?

So monster Hyun-su attacking Chan-young might have just been a red herring (gladly because whatever the reason they fight it does not make sense for both characters). There's another nasty murderous monster near the hospital at night and Chan-young probably planned a suicide attack with the explosion because duh what else a feeble human like me gonna do against a monster immune to firearms. Monster Hyun-su ofc got his shared abandonment issue with Hyun-su triggered and his immediate response is unconventionally grabbing Chan-young away before he could do something reckless. Hopefully that's what actually happened

On the other hand, THIS (Hyun-su vs Eun-hyeok) is the actual fight (more like little brawl you saw on school tho before Hyun-su uses his wing). Does remind me that the first thing Hyun-su did after waking up in S2E1 is beating up Sang-won (though unsuccessful in the end because he's skewered like a kebab on the vehicle ceiling shortly after). I could see it as both reference and parallel with the scene I just mentioned: Hyun-su saw what he thought is a Green Home survivor he knew who "died" in season 1 and then got into fight with them inside a large vehicle. He probably thought Eun-hyeok went through a similar unfortunate fate like Sang-wook, so he fought him out of anger. Except Eun-hyeok is Eun-hyeok and his corpse is not possessed by someone else with a penchant of pushing Hyun-su's buttons *side eye to Sang-won*. Also he's very much alive and in control of himself. Notice that the outcome is also both of them talking in peace and some bromance bromance vibe

I just noticed that Hyun-su's wing is covered in fire! He's very much ok, so this is an improvement and could be vital in a fight against the monsters

I'm not sure how it really went when the Neohumans going to the stadium? Is it peaceful until the soldiers start attacking? Or is it attacking first before they comply? Or they start attacking after the time skip? Once again, Sergeant Tak, I know you 100% don't trust that motherfucker, so it's not too late to burn Sang-won with your gasoline stock. And make sure not even his ashes remain this time. He's kinda slippery so make sure he does not slip away and find another corpse to possess for the third time

You could see how obvious the "I don't wanna be here" look on the facility girl's face when the Neohumans gang are on the stadium. Poor girl

"Oraenmanieyo" (⁠◔⁠‿⁠◔⁠) ah, Hyun-su finally met with Sang-won again after ages. Can't wait for the unlimited stabbing and flirting 👀 Their long overdue meeting probably happened during the epic showdown at night between Hyun-su & Eun-hyeok (& others if there's any who's willing to die) vs evil Neohumans for the final battle, because it's on night as well and there's fire

Um so what's going on between Yi-kyung and Hyun-su? Whatever it is, I have a bad feeling about it, just like their fight last season

Please do tell me or correct me in the reply if I still missed something (ofc outside the repated scenes from first teaser or ones I had discussed in the previous breakdown) or wrong at something. Thank you

[konggodzuko]

A Little Salt

Man I totally thought the "Katara only talks about her dead mom" meme/"joke"/complaint was finally withering away after it sprung back to life with ATLA being put on Netflix but holy shit I keep seeing people post it seemingly without irony.

You wanna know how many time Katara actually talks (i.e. excluding phrases like "My mother's necklace!") about Kya? Six times. Three in the first season (Once in the first episode when she mentions it to Aang. Once to Haru, Once to Jet) Twice in Book 2 (in the swamp where she SEES her mom, and once to Zuko in Crossroads) and then there's the Book 3 episode about her loss.

Damn. Six times over a 60-ish (depending on how you count the multi-parters) series. Average of ONCE every ten episodes, but really it's 3 in the first season, 2 in the second, 1 in the third. Wow yeah she really talks about her dead mom a lot. How dare this teenaged girl who saw her mom seconds before her death and then saw her mom's CORPSE bring up her mom 6 times over the course of in-universe MONTHS.

And not only that but she NEVER brings it up in a way to invalidate someone's loss. She brings it up as a commonality between her and Jet and Haru, she was forced to see the vision of her mom in the Swamp, and she says it to Zuko both times as an expression of anger she has with the Fire Nation.

Nevermind that Aang probably brings up the Monks as much or more often. But you don't see posts like

Sokka: [spits into a bush]

Aang: The Monks used to say that spitting into a bush is very spiritually harmful!

Because that's kinda stupid and frankly you know why Aang has that attachment, yeah? So why is Katara different? "Oh she was mean to Sokka that one time-" get OVER it. She's a 15 year old dealing with immense trauma who said something hurtful. Wow! Stop the presses and call the cops and send her to jail forever! Grow up.

I'm sorry, I don't like to rant like this but I am so tired of this stupid thing sticking around for so long.

[genericpuff]

The Mishandling of LO’s S3 Mi(n)season Hiatus - Part 3 2/2

ALRIGHT. THIS IS THE LAST PART. I MEAN IT THIS TIME.

I had completely forgotten how long the mi(n)season finale for S3 was, but I suppose it makes sense considering it was operating as the true cliffhanger before the 4 month break.

If you haven't read the first 3 parts of this episodic breakdown, please go check these ones out first:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 1/2

Alright, let's get this show on the road!

CAUTION: THIS IS PART 2 OF THE THIRD PART OF A 3 + 1 PART SERIES IN WHICH I WILL BE SPOILING MUCH OF EPISODES 251-253. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS TOPICS SURROUNDING SEXUAL ASSAULT. THIS WILL BE A LONG POST. BRACE YOURSELF.

We've gotten delusional Leuce. We've gotten erasure of the SA. We've gotten a complete bastardization of the original myths that this story got its claim to fame on. The dread has set in, and all I want to do is get off Mr Bones' Wild Ride. But we have one more stretch of mind-numbing track to go, because the reveal of Persephone starting winter was not the end, oh no. The true cliffhanger of this episode - upon which the fans and critics alike have sat on for 4 months - proves that when we think Rachel has gotten crazy enough in this circus she calls a "retelling", she manages to prove that yes, she can make things even crazier, and no, you will not have a good time.

Ironically, despite that opening, I actually have a lot less to say about this last part of Episode 253 than I did about the first part. Obviously there's no feasible way to top "Persephone causes winter", but this episode does come rather close in its absurdity. Ultimately, if these essays have proven anything, it's just how much Rachel retcons things, to such an extent now that she seems to be retconning or outright forgetting information that she established just a handful of episodes prior. You'll see what I mean here as we go along in this.

As soon as it's hinted at that Persephone has started winter, we cut away to Apollo. Because, as per LO tradition, we can't spend longer than 10-15 panels on a single scene.

Already this seems like... really odd framing.

This is Apollo. A character who has been a villain since basically the beginning of the comic, when he sexually assaulted Persephone. This is not something that's up for debate. This is not something that can be refuted, as much as the comic may try to erase it or twist it into something else.

And yet, the vibe I get from this is, "Misled but good-deep-down character being taken advantage of by a sinister being." This isn't the type of framing we should be seeing around a character like Apollo.

I mentioned it ages ago in my post about the SA erasure that it really feels like Rachel is slyly trying to make Apollo empathetic, from giving us an entire episode in his perspective to adding extra panels into the books to making Persephone weirdly reminiscent of feelings for Apollo that she never had.

One thing I also touch on in that post is how Apollo is framed against Zeus. Zeus is also a villain character for much of the series, and even after he's "redeemed", the fanbase still considers him largely to be an antagonistic force. So to have Apollo be trying to take down Zeus comes across as very "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and I really don't like seeing that framing when it's regarding a rapist.

And this scene largely feels the same. It feels like Rachel's trying to sway the audience into believing Apollo is like Draco Malfoy - a misled boy who "didn't know any better" and was being manipulated by a greater evil. If you haven't guessed by now, that "greater evil" is Ouranos.

Why is it Ouranos? In my opinion (so take this with grains of salt) this is because they need to somehow "one up" Kronos and give Persephone and Hades a tangible force to fight against, to draw a clean line in the sand between "good" and "evil" so that we, the audience, will be forced to categorize Persephone and Hades as "good" and someone else as "evil".

But really, why Ouranos? We're told that he manipulated Gaia to use her powers in an attempt to create "hierarchy" (whatever the FUCK that means, I don't think Rachel really understands how societal hierarchies are created) but there's NOTHING to imply that he was tyrannical or "evil" in the same way that Kronos has been depicted. Rachel's basically submitting this whole plotline to "well it's in the prophecy" but there was NOTHING dictating that she had to try and write a "prophecy" storyline to begin with. So as a result, it feels very tacked on and it's hard to tell what the point is, it really just seems like Rachel watched too much Marvel one week and decided that Lore Olympus - a fantasy romance - needed a big bad.

And by extension it feels like Apollo is being used as a pawn in this dynamic. By making him subservient to an "evil" force, it means he can labelled as definitively "evil", and thus it gives Rachel a vehicle to have Apollo taken down - or even perhaps empathized with much like in the Draco Malfoy sense - without having to touch the SA plot that she set up and never resolved.

He was evil before, but he wasn't the kind of evil that Rachel could write around. Because she doesn't know how to write SA or give her female characters any sense of retribution or agency. We've seen that already with her robbing Demeter of winter and Persephone of her feelings regarding the SA. There was never going to be a chance in hell she was going to be able to write herself out of a plotline she's been procrastinating for 4+ years.

That said, this is just a vibe I get, so I'm not gonna speak on it much more. This is one of those "we're really not gonna know until the comic returns" situations.

Once again, Rachel's trying to make Apollo seem like a "master manipulator", but she's also trying to make him seem like he's the one being manipulated, but she's ALSO trying to write him as a big dumb idiot who literally can't grasp consent. Apollo has to be one of the most inconsistently written characters in the entire comic, and yes, that includes Persephone. Again, it just goes to show she hasn't been able to fully commit to the SA plotline because Apollo's motivations and intelligence levels change with each passing episode. Sometimes he's being nefarious and plotting to overthrow the King, other times he's literally asking a nymph if she'd be willing to cut her hair to look like Persephone. The comic can't choose and so we, the audience, can't tell why Apollo is even still here.

Again, this is SUCH bizarre framing. If we're to believe that Persephone has been "cursed" by no longer being able to create Spring, only Winter, then does that make Ouranos and Apollo the heroes here? Because Ouranos is right, if Persephone is causing winter, that's going to kill the mortals, which is the complete OPPOSITE of what she's trying to do. So what are we left with? A plotline where Apollo and Ouranos might actually have a point about how she rushed into a marriage with the King of the Underworld and sacrificed everything that gave her agency and power - both metaphorically and literally - in the process?

Again, this is why Rachel fundamentally misunderstands the original purpose of The Hymn to Demeter and how she's, by and large, made her retelling worse in an attempt to be "subversive". It puts the plot and character motivations in a place where it's hard to tell what the story is trying to say, I can understand if maybe Rachel's trying to write a conflict where Apollo uses this information to manipulate her, but it doesn't help that knowing EVERYTHING we know about the H x P relationship within the context of this comic, Ouranos has a point that Persephone's union with the King of the Dead is problematic. It might not be the same "problematic" that we're all thinking of, but it really just reinforces the criticisms of this relationship. Is the comic really asking us to say "fuck the human race, they're in love" ??? Because that's NOT what the point of the original myth was in the slightest and it's just a really weird place to put your audience in.

It's 4:45 AM right now as I'm typing this so my thoughts are a little scattered, but all this really feels like is an attempt on Rachel's part to create a new "big bad" for her to use as a distraction from the SA plot and to give Persephone a "flaw", but that "flaw" really only takes away the strength of another character.

Oh, and by the way? This whole "you need the fertility goddess" thing? THE COMIC HAS ALREADY TOLD US THIS WON'T WORK BECAUSE SHE HAS TO BE IN LOVE WITH APOLLO FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO USE HER POWERS. SO RACHEL'S ALREADY WRITTEN HERSELF INTO A CORNER THAT SHE'LL EITHER HAVE TO SOLVE OR RETCON ENTIRELY. DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS SO ABSURD???

This line is kind of jarring because we had the Kassandra prophecy at the beginning that talked about the herb, but the prophecy Ouranos is talking about is the one about the sons of kings overthrowing their fathers. I definitely forgot about that one for a hot second reading this, I didn't get how this sequence related to the poisonous plant thing because they're framed as completely separate prophecies. It's not like Kassandra said in her initial prophecy that this plant would be used to overthrow a King again, she just said that the plant still existed and Psyche figured it out on her own that Apollo was gonna use it on Zeus. IDK that's just something that bugged me (also again, why are they believing her prophecies when we literally just had it established an episode ago that no one believes her prophecies LMAO)

Because if it wasn't enough for LO to have one Evil Robot Jeff Bridges villain, it had to throw in another one for good measure. It's just a line of dads and grandpas going back centuries waiting for their turn in the ring with Persephone.

lmao I love this 'hint' at Apollo being the one to write the note from Hebe and leave the cupcake for Zeus. Like... duh? We already put that together as SOON as Psyche said gasp "Zeus!" and then it showed Zeus eating the cupcake while Psyche called him on the phone telling him Apollo was gonna try and harm him. This sequence of 'revealing what really happened' doesn't work here because we've already been told what happened.

Except we know he won't. There's no tension to this whatsoever.

That's Hebe by the way.

It's odd that Apollo is embracing this prophecy when he has a kid himself. He literally has a fully grown son in this comic. I guess Apollo forgot about that, just like Rachel.

And that's it. That's the midseason finale. Ouranos is the new twist villain and Apollo is... whatever the fuck Rachel plans on doing with him.

Now, this leads me to my original motivation to create this series of reviews. It spawned from a conversation we were having in the Discord, discussing what it must be like to be a free reader who hasn't paid for the FP episodes that are still behind a paywall. This is not standard for LO, it hasn't kept FP episodes behind paywalls in the past during long hiatuses like this. I can even prove this with screenshots from the Wayback Machine, during the last midseason hiatus:

(whoof, that rating has dropped. I know it doesn't seem like much but for a series with millions of readers, by law of averages it takes a LOT of poor ratings to pull that number down compared to a series that only has a few readers)

Point is, this is the first time Rachel/WT have done this. Now, I will make this perfectly clear, I don't think this was a decision that was purely on Rachel. WT controls much of the backend like paywall costs, release dates, etc. so I'm not gonna go pinning this on her.

However, I do think this is a completely bungled attempt at trying to get people to pay up. LO has been dropping in views steadily but surely since the midseason break for S2. It's not pulling in the peak numbers that it used to, while it does still pull in a lot more views and money than other series on the platform, it's nowhere near the juggernaut that it once was in terms of record-breaking numbers, and I think WT knows that. So this really comes across as a stunt to get readers to FP, assuming that people will HAVE to pay if they're left waiting for 4 months.

But here's the flaw in that logic - people are still going to have to wait 4 months anyways. Reading those 3 locked episodes, especially all at once, will still leave you in the same place as you were beforehand.

And it shows in the numbers that people aren't falling for the bait.

Again, 17k likes still isn't anything to sneeze at for a FP episode, but it's still just barely above the new average that LO has gained over the past two years. I remember a time when those like counts would be 30k+. And now, despite being on break 4 months with these episodes still locked behind a wall, it's barely able to scrap by its new average of roughly 14-15k, and that average is when episodes are actually updating.

Obviously like counts = / = viewcounts but when they fluctuate, we know that the views have to be as well by extension, at least to some extent, and that's still engagement that's dropped of in and of itself. And we can also see a rough look at how the views have dropped off through the comic's landing page. Now, it's hard to compare data because there was a time when WT actually didn't give follower/view counts on the landing page (this was also when the like count capped at 99k) but we can still see a downslide in growth very visibly in the view count, sub count, and most of all, the rating, which has been steadily dropping for years now.

August 2020:

May 2021:

November 2021:

March 2022 (don't get confused by the 995 million, this is where view count comes in):

September 2022:

March 2023:

Today (October 24th, 2023):

Again, there's no way to get a true clear picture of LO's stats beyond this surface level data, but it does show that LO is just not getting the rapid growth it used to. People are moving on from it. And while its view and sub count are steadily increasing (albeit slowly for a webtoon that gets as much marketing as it does) the average rating is going down. It's clear that the majority of LO's growth happened between 2018 and 2020, which would make sense as the series was still relatively new compared to how it's become old news today, and Webtoons experienced a boom in 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdowns - a boom that they think still applies in the year 2023, judging by their attempts to import as many series onto the platform as possible and capitalize on an audience that just isn't there anymore.

All of this leads me to wonder - what's in it for free readers after all this? Because if you recall from where we started, the cliffhanger they started on was Hades - possessed by Kronos - attempting to strangle Persephone, a cliffhanger that was resolved within seconds for FastPass readers. If they don't FastPass after that, they'll be met with numerous reveals that don't even make sense for the plot as a whole (such as Leuce making up the text messages).

Again, I don't want to claim that this was a decision on Rachel's part, but it really seems like either she didn't plan this hiatus, or her inability to write naturally without the need for addictive-style formatting as a crutch made it so that the free readers would be given the worst midseason premiere ever.

And what are we, the FastPass readers, going to return to? There are still so many plot threads that have been left unresolved, multiple villains being setup, and as far as Webtoons and Rachel have revealed during NYCC, LO is supposed to end by the spring. That's 20-30 weeks TOPS, which isn't exactly a whole lot of wiggle room for a writer like Rachel who's chronically bad at pacing and getting to the point of the plots she's established.

I know there are so many readers right now anticipating the return of this comic, some of whom genuinely believe this comic is "better than ever" and others who are critical of it but hope that the comic will come back in a better state after the hiatus. But right now there's so much evidence to support the contrary - that LO is about to come back in as bad, if not worse, condition than it was in when it left.

And through all this, for a comic that's finally ending after 5 years, I have to ask - where is the hype? Why are Webtoons and Rachel keeping the finale of this comic behind closed doors? Where's the promotional art, the hinting at what's to come, the attempts to generate any semblance of excitement for the readers who are still left after clinging onto this ride for 5 years? Why were the fans themselves barred out of their own communities during the majority of the hiatus?

And that just leads me to an even more discouraging thought. This is not meant to accuse Rachel or make assumptions. It's simply a thought that I had while thinking about what the series could possibly pull upon its return, so please, take this with MOUNTAINS of salt. It's one thing I hadn't considered with the knowledge that LO will be returning with 3 episodes still behind a paywall, a 'buffer' in and of itself for Rachel to work off of.

Rachel only technically needs one episode ready for the release. Not three as she normally would if the episodes had been unlocked like in previous hiatuses. That's not including whatever buffer episodes she would need beyond the upload schedule, but she's proven to be chronically bad at maintaining a buffer as well since day one.

We haven't seen any promotional art. No hinting. No hyping beyond what's been seen for her "Rachel Smythe Presents" series.

With all that in mind, I have one question to leave this on:

Has Rachel even started working on Episode 254 yet?

[oodlyenough]

I pretty much agree about arcane. I'm still enjoying it, but I feel like both acts so far would've been better suited for a whole season each tbh.

Yeah, there's a lot of story in all of their ideas and we're just kind of getting the cole's notes I feel. It's a shame. I remember thinking S1 felt breakneck sometimes, especially just from the pov of someone who loves writing fill-in-the-gaps fic and had a hard time finding gaps lol, but season 2 has the additional burden of having to be the final season and it's just not enough.

I'm not sure about act 1 was a season unto itself, but episode 6 could easily have been a season 2 finale leading into a third season. We should've seen more than a montage of commander Caitlyn, the black rose stuff started off cool to me but now feels like a huge sidequest in an already-packed season, Caitvi simultaneously needed more time together and more time apart, it's crazy that Jayce and Viktor's whole everything is happening over like a cumulative 15 minutes of screentime... Ekko wasn't even IN act 2...

AND Caitvi fans were/are still really hoping for a sex scene somewhere in there lmao 😭 there's no time for anything

From a purely practical standpoint I can see why Riot looked at the long development time for each season and thought "nope". But the product suffers for sure.

[merlinfromberlin]

A Little Left of Right

"Apparently our cross-dimensional counterparts belong to the more faint of heart," said Optimus. His words sent a cold shiver down Bumblebee's backstrut. "Weren't they keeping pets, too?" asked Arcee, the cold sneer that accompanied those words basically audible. "Pathetic. I don't know what anyone could ever find in these squishies. It's a shame we're stuck here with them." ::What?:: bleeped Bee.

Or: When Bumblebee wakes up after a crash in the desert, something is not quite right with Team Prime.

Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, experimental style, Shattered Glass, Ableist Comments, implied cross-dimensional stalking, attempted botnapping Chronology: Somewhere smack dab in the middle of TFP Season 2 - after Operation: Bumblebee but before Smokescreen shows up. Chapter: 1/? Wordcount: 1823 words

Apparently merely the first chapter of a longer story (against my consent).

Written for @angstober - Day 15: False Hope. Prompt list can be found here: X

I'm aware that this does not exactly fit the 'false hope' mold. It's more a 'false sense of security'. But well. This idea stole my brain and by the time I got it back I didn't want to go back and change it anymore.

Story below the cut or on AO3 (I would recommend the AO3 version because of the formatting - looks better over there).

[Initiating system reboot.]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[Rebooting sequence successful.]

[Running automated system diagnosis.]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[Energy level: 53%.] 

[Fuellevel: 49%. ]

[Malevolent foreign coding (Aut#Rt-4c7.SG) detected.]

[Isolating code.]

[…]

[…]

[…]

[Malevolent foreign coding (Aut#Rt-4c7.SG) isolated.]

[Starting analysis.]

[…]

[…]

[…]

[Analysis complete.]

[Malevolent foreign coding (Aut#Rt-4c7.SG) identified as Forced Shutdown Protocol (Aut#Rt-4c7.SG).]

[Complete system scan recommended.]

[Scan now?]

[Yes (X) No ( )]

[Initiating scan.]

The first thing Bumblebee became aware of as he woke was coarse grainy desert sand grinding into his joints and burrowing itself below his plating. The second thing was a processor ache almost as bad as that one time he had fallen from Optimus’ shoulders as a sparkling. The third thing was his HUD as well as several other core processes rebooting.

His internal navigation system positioned him somewhere between Jasper and Autobot Outpost Omega One which was good because it was where he remembered being before… before he had been knocked out by whatever. At least Bee had not been botnapped. That would have been inconvenient. Being botnapped sucked. And he really did not want to miss this week’s episode of Avatar.

Bee’s comm link pinged four Autobot signals around him. As he could detect no other lifeforms—apart from an armadillo—nearby, Bumblebee decided to take that as a good sign. He was probably relatively safe right now. Still, he was cautious as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Safety was never permanent. It was one of the first lessons growing up in a Civil War older than yourself taught you.

When he finally onlined his optics, a new surge of pain shredded his processor. His whole visual feed was grainy and drained of colour except for a violently pink tinge in the upper right corner that would have fried his optical sensory circuits if they had not already been glitching. Shaking his helm did not help with the problem in the slightest. Instead, the movement just aggravated the pain and made him nauseous. With a small groan, he pressed his thumbs just below his optical ridges. The sensation of cool digits against heated metal helped momentarily, allowing him to tear his focus back to the present.

Through the static Bumblebee could, albeit barely, make out the shapes of Optimus Prime and Ratchet standing in front of him. The medic was kneeling in front of Bee, already scanning his charge for damages. To his sides he could make out two more vague frames—one slithe, the other bulky. That had to be Arcee and Bulkhead.

::What happened?:: Bee beeped after a moment of tense silence while he slowly, so as not to aggravate his processor further, turned his helm up towards Optimus for answers.

“Our… scanners detected your distress signal,” replied the Prime after a short pause. His tone of voice sent a chill down Bumblebee’s backplating and caused his doorwings to shoot upwards in rigid tension. Optimus sounded uncharacteristically angry and... almost arrogant. His cool intonation and aggressive glyphs grated on Bee's processor. Maybe there was something wrong with his audials, too? Because that was just not what the Autobot leader was supposed to sound like. “So we came to investigate.”

::I don’t…:: Bee started slowly, cycling his optics sluggishly as he scoured his memory files for hints as to what had happened. ::I was driving back to base… I had just brought Raf home. Then… there was this… I don’t know… light, I guess… a flash of blue light. And…. Then I don’t know. I woke up here.::

[Error in Optical Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127) detected.]

Who woulda thunk.

[Restart of Optical Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127) necessary.]

[Restart now?]

[Yes (X) No ( )]

[Initiating restart of Optical Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127).]

“Mh… There is some minor damages to his sensory network,” reported Ratchet just as Bumblebee’s visual feed offlined itself. He heard someone heavy, probably Bulkhead, shift their weight from one pede to the other on his left side.

::Yeah:: Bee piped up. ::My self-repair is already-::

“Du-uh-uh. Let the grown-ups talk. It's impolite to invade conversations you know nothing about.” He was cut off almost immediately by the medic which… ouch. His carer tended to be grouchy but that… that had just been mean. Unnecessarily so in Bee’s opinion. Ratchet had never before spoken to him like that. Tentatively, he attempted to reach out with his EM field but was met with nothing but distant static. Dejected, he pulled it back to his frame, curling its tendrils tightly around his protoform for comfort. “Otherwise, there seems to be nothing amiss with him. Well, except for the obvious.” Which… again. Ouch. What had gotten into Ratchet?

::Maybe it was M.E.C.H.? I mean… it would fit their method is all:: offered Bee after a moment of terse silence.

A silent hum from Optimus was the only answer he received. Until an impossibly familiar voice spoke up.

“I thought we had squashed those pests decicycles ago,” said Cliffjumper of all mech which… apparently Bee’s audials really were glitching because there was no way that Cliffjumper could be here. Cliffjumper had died months ago in a Decepticon energon mine. And Bee was absolutely certain of that because he kept reliving that dreadful cycle in all its gory details in his dreams. He could not be hearing Cliffjumper because Cliffjumper was dead. Offline. One with the Allspark. Gone.

"Apparently our cross-dimensional counterparts belong to the more faint of heart," answered Optimus. Again, his words sent a cold shiver down Bumblebee's backstrut.

"Weren't they keeping pets, too?" asked Arcee, the cold sneer that accompanied those words basically audible. "Pathetic. I don't know what anyone could ever find in these squishies. It's a shame we're stuck here with them."

::What?:: bleeped Bee. His servos were shaking slightly. His vents came in too fast. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong here. None of this made any sense. Please, Primus, let it be a glitch with his audials or something like that. At least he would know how to fix that—or Ratchet would.

[Query: Initiating scan of Auditory Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127).]

[Scan of Auditory Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127) has not detected any malfunction.]

[Query: Initiating scan of Auditory Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127).]

[Scan of Auditory Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127) has not detected any malfunction.]

[Query: Initiating scan of Auditory Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127).]

[Scan of Auditory Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127) has not detected any malfunction.]

[Restart of Optical Sensory Relay Network (Bas#B-127) successful.]

[Rebooting now.]

As his visual feed came back online, Bumblebee flinched heavily. The jerking motion send a shard of hot pain through his processor that buried itself deep behind his right optic. He did not care as he shuffled backwards in a panic. After only a few metres his doorwings collided with a rock behind him, stopping him in his tracks and trapping him in place.

[Initiating Energy Preservation Protocols (SpOp_Sc#B-127).]

[Initiating Energon Preservation Protocols (SpOp_Sc#B-127).]

[Initiating Emergency Pain Suppressant Protocols (SpOp_Sc#B-127).]

[Initiating Stealth Protocols (SpOp_Sc#B-127).]

[Initiating Scouting Protocols (SpOp_Sc#B-127).]

[Initiating Infiltration Protocols (SpOp_Sc#B-127).]

[Initiating Combat Protocols (SpOp_Sc#B-127).]

As his processor ache slowly faded to the background, the scout's gaze kept shifting wildly from one bot to the next, skipping from white plating accented with teal on Ratchet's frame to an Arcee whose dark blue main colour had been exchanged for pitch black. For a moment, Bee's focus lingered on the dark blue Cliffjumper to his left. This mech had a lot more horns and studs than his own Cliff had ever possessed. All of their optics glowed red. Then his attention narrowed down on the tallest bot of the group surrounding him. The one who shared Optimus’ frame but neither his colour scheme nor his gentle warmth. Instead, the semitruck was mostly violet, his optics glowing in a sickening purple the scout had come to associate with Megatron. 

::You’re not Optimus:: Bumblebee finally said, his vocalisation trembling slightly. The fake Optimus just laughed. The sound of it was grating to the youngling's audials and he pulled his pedes even closer to himself. His doorwings flared up wide behind him. They were flapping furiosuly, lower halfs scraping against the rock behind him with every stroke.

The fake Ratchet scoffed: "He is a truer Prime than your pathetic pacifist archivist ever could be, little sparkbyte."

Bee shivered at the term of endearment. It sounded wrong when it came from this mech—cold, dangerous and mocking when it should have been one of the, if not the safest word in the entire universe. How did this sorry excuse for Ratchet even know it? Ratchet—his Ratchet, his medic and his carer and the bot who had raised him with Optimus and Ironhide and Elita-1 ever since the destruction of Bumblebee's hometown—made sure never to use it publicly. He was not even sure if their human allies, if Raf, knew the term.

::What did you do to Ratchet?:: Bee warbled quietly, cycling his optics to focus on the medic's faceplates now. He was shaking silently, although he was not sure if from fear or fury.

"Wouldn't you like to know, little one?" The grin on the mean doctor's faceplate split even wider. That was Optimus' nickname for him. It took Bee way too much effort not to cower.

"Ratchet," interrupted the fake Prime suddenly, his voice cold and coloured heavily with disgust. "As amusing as this conversation may be to you, you can continue it back at headquarters. There, you will have our little guest all to yourself without having to worry about Decepticons interrupting you."

::I'm not going anywhere with you!:: protested Bumblebee vehemently, his cables tensing underneath his armour as he made himself even smaller, preparing to strike in surprise. He was sure as the pit not going to go with these creeps. He would rather face Megatron.

"That's not for you to decide, bug." It was the fake Cliffjumper that reacted first to Bee's challenge.

[Initiating transformation sequence (COM-SpOp#B-127;α).]

[Rerouting energon to Combat Line (COM-SpOp#B-127;α;1).]

[Rerouting energon to Combat Line (COM-SpOp#B-127;α;2).]

The blue mech stepped forward to try and pull the smaller bot to his pedes. He stumbled backwards as Bee leapt up from his curled up position on the ground, blasters drawn. The scout used the older mech's surprise to slip past besides him, gaining some space while using the fake Cliff as a shield from the rest of his perpretators. He stayed there for barely a nanocycle before aiming a few weak shots at the older mech's chassis and diving over the top of the rock he had just been leaning against. Midair, he fired a few more shots in the general direction of these weird, dark Autobot mimicries before folding down into his alt mode to speed away as fast as his wheels could carry him.

[physalian]

On Fight Scenes (Or, getting creative with your magic system)

This is coming from a reader’s perspective, not a writer’s, in what I like to see and what my thought process was when writing my fight scenes—I hate these things and can’t call myself any authority on the matter. They’re tedious and translating what’s in my head onto page is always frustrating.

This is also for fantasy and sci-fi: Fight scenes that have some magical or technological element to them, not a straight-up action story with two dudes punching each other. This includes anything from fights in Harry Potter to battling a Xenomorph to bending in ATLA to a throwdown between superheroes.

Side note: I really, truly hate “two dudes punching each other”.

—

I have a friend who loves comics, specifically DC Comics, and watches all the DCAU films. When we lived together, I often watched a lot with them. My favorite remains Constantine: City of Demons because unlike literally every other DCAU movie, it doesn’t drop the ball in the third act and devolve into a stakes-less fistfight. This dude faces *consequences*.

I’m not a comics (like actual, paper comic books) fan, but without fail, every time the setup is good, the characters are good, the first 2/3s are good with pacing and usually a mystery and passable character development like Batman: Under the Red Hood…. The last 15 minutes or so always abandon what had been a good plot for just superheroes punching each other and I get so bored. I’m invested and then they rarely deliver any payoff.

But I do like Constantine. Dude needs a nap.

Point is: On top of those fight scenes not really mattering, by the nature of what comic books are in that they can never stray too far from the status quo, or if they do, it doesn’t stay that way for long, the people who made these characters don’t get all that creative with their powers.

I think, actually, I liked Constantine so much because his stuff is rated R and it doesn’t shy away from the more realistic effects of living in a superhero society… without being gratuitous like The Boys.

I just get bored. The fight stops when the plot says so. Knockouts are arbitrary, power scaling is arbitrary. Someone can get thrown through a wall and walk it off but the villain or their buddy can come up behind them and hit them really hard on the head and that’s enough.

Anime is its own thing and would take far too much time to address here but I do want to talk about My Hero Academia real quick, following up on a previous post about tournament arcs.

Season 2 of the show has three main arcs: The tournament in the first half, and the Stain fight/final exams in the second.

For a while, the show actually seemed to take injuries rather seriously (for shonen, at least), and got insanely creative with characters’ very niche powers. In season 1, their teacher, Aizawa, gets pretty brutally beaten by a horde of villains and his powers are permanently impacted by his recovery—he can’t use them for as long as he used to, and he has a new scar.

Midoriya, too, whose powers break his bones on the regular, has consequences for overusing them, like his hands and forearms not healing properly despite superpowered medical intervention.

Power scaling, too, was fantastic…. Until the Stain fight.

I will never understand the thought process behind this logic:

“Hey let’s show how powerful Todoroki is by having him manifest an entire glacier in about 3 seconds!” *9 episodes later* “Hey let’s make this fight with a dude who only has various blades to work with super tense by making Todoroki completely nerfed in a legit life or death situation!”

Buddy couldn��t take two seconds to yell at his friends to get the fuck out of the way? Was he worried about damage to the buildings? I feel like nepotism could have spared him from some consequences if breaking a few windows meant him not getting murdered. It wasn’t like he had daddy issues over his ice powers.

The rest of the show (until I DNFed) had similar issues. Powers were as competent as the plot allowed at any given moment, which I guess is the nature of shonen, but if you’re going to go out of your way to establish realistic rules and consequences really early on, breaking them willy-nilly because it looks cool later is annoying.

Which is applicable across all fantasy sub-genres: Consistency.

I might not be the best at writing the step-by-step choreography, but damn it if I don’t know how to make sure I’m not opening up plot holes in how much damage my characters take and dish out.

—

So. How I approach fight scenes as told by Eternal Night and my sci-fi WIP.

Before anything else, establish a reason that this has to be a fight, that it has to happen now, and what’s happening beneath the combat to keep the story progressing. The plot will not stop just for fisticuffs.

A magic system is only as cool as what its characters cannot do with it, and breaking those limits ruins the magic system.

Make sure this is a fight that can only happen in this story, taking full advantage of the various powers/abilities/magic system rules, if this is meant to be flashy and grand.

Eternal Night is about vampires, thus my vampires, being immortal, can take a lot of hits and not suffer long-term consequences compared to a mortal. I adhere to a lot of classic vampire lore while also making up my own rules. They don’t have super speed, super strength, or compulsion, they just have a lot of experience and know how to use their weapons well, and can essentially go at 100% without mortal limitations of fatigue.

Basically: My vampires are only as strong as a mortal in absolute life-or-death situations, but that’s also dependent on how strong they were in life. Somebody who was a couch potato isn’t going to be as strong as a bodybuilder, and that carries over. I don’t have “younger/older vampires are supernaturally stronger” rules.

They have the same immortality risks as most versions: Stakes, beheadings, sunlight. Anything else is survivable.

Simple magic systems tend to be the most robust because there’s less rules available to risk breaking or forgetting (why ATLA's bending feels so real).

So when I was writing ENNS’s big fight, on top of making sure they weren’t all gods with their weapons—they missed shots, got tired, made bad calls—priority one was making sure I kept killing blows consistent, and when they’re temporarily “dead,” that the timing of when they revive isn’t determined by the plot.

Meaning: If I have a vampire who, idk, gets stabbed by a regular sword and it “kills” them, they have to stay “dead” for whatever amount of time I’d previously established and not wake them up early to participate in the plot again. Those are my rules and I have to work with them.

And in that way, yes the choreography is frustrating, but even if it’s an average description of a fight, I will appreciate that the writer respects their own rules and still be entertained.

With that, in the sci-fi WIP I had incredibly complex and diverse magic systems, 3 complete and unique practices split between two characters. One of which was incredibly OP.

This was a very reluctant OP character who wouldn’t use the full extent of his powers even to save his own life, often to the ire of his team who suffers the consequences of unnecessarily complicated battles when he could one-shot the enemy but chooses not to.

Internal limits tend to be stronger than external ones if you have an OP character, because they’re more believably toggled on and off without breaking the lore.

Even with OP character stubbornly making life harder for himself, he was still OP. He had two different magic systems at his disposal, and beyond his internal limits, they had two very easily exploitable external limits.

Magic system A was tied to a physical artifact he had on his person. If he got separated from it, he couldn’t use it. A is also a lot harder to use if B is also busted.

Magic system B was counteracted easily by users of Magic system A, and by the enemy military who’d developed weapons specifically to nullify those powers, and that weapon was everywhere.

Which meant my fights concerning OP character were rarely “why doesn’t he insta-kill them” it was “oh shit, he can’t insta-kill them, now he has to be clever to get out of this alive”.

One of my favorite fights was at the tail end of Book 2 where he was stuck with two of his non-powered teammates, on a ship dead in the water being overrun by the enemy. The ship had no power, the radios were dead, and the engines were fried.

He had already been sick for half the book and physically and mentally exhausted, and when the enemy arrived, they nullified the rest of his powers. All he had was Magic System A, but in his condition, it was like being asked to do long division on paper by hand, because his calculator was broken.

Dude was not having a good time.

Which meant he was basically useless, with two of his basically useless teammates, who all had to work together to get creative and clever with the tools that they had, on a ship they all knew like the backs of their hands.

So many things they would not have had to do in any other situation, with stakes so much higher because OP was powerless. The characters came first, not their powers, which I think is the most crucial ingredient to any fight you want people to keep talking about for years to come.

—

I can’t tell you how to choreograph your scenes, but I do think that why they’re fighting matters far more than what they’re fighting about, and especially in fantasy: What’s the point of writing magic if you don’t take full advantage of your magical characters?

[asoiafzambi]

Nerding out about show and booktimeline some more.

Condal and Hess are so funny, can't even decide what year it is on the show.

Rhaenyra is born 97 AC on the show.

Alicent is born 98 AC on the show since everyone (except Hess) now insists she was 14(!) when she wed Viserys.

(As birth month I put tenth moon for Rhae and eigths moon for Alicent because I can do what I want.)

In Ep 1: Viserys had been king for TEN YEARS!11! So if he became king 103 AC like in the books we would be in 113 AC already which doesn't work (or Hess is right that the girls are 15/16 and not 13/14 in that episode.) If they are indeed 13/14 we are in late 111 AC or rather early 112 AC and Viserys became king in 101 AC on the show. I guess Jaehaerys just immediately keeled over after the Great Council in this universe.

Ep 2: Sixth month have passed we are in late 112 AC. The girls have turned 14/15 respectively. Now Alicent being 15 when birthing Aegon finally makes sense. They wed on the last spring moon ('May') in 113 AC so Aegon should drop around the second moon of 114 AC. Helaena is pretty much exactly two years younger and born second or third moon of 116 AC. So yeah, Rhaenyra is most definitely 18 and not 17 during that hunt in episode 3. Vizzy kinda forgot, I guess.

Ep 4 & Ep 5: More than a year has passed because Aegon is now a 'princeling of three'. So we are somewhere mid 117 AC. Rhaenyra is 19 and Alicent close to it. Aemond is made 🤢 and will drop early 118 AC.

Jace takes a bit longer and if he is indeed close to 19, which Rhaenyra implies at some point in season 2, then holy moly we are at least in 137 AC already. If it were 132 AC as was assumed thus far Aegon would be 18 Healena 16 and Aemond 14 which is nonsensical of course. Especially as Daeron was said to be 16 now.

So yeah for the 'next gen' the ages that make more sense are:

Aegon 23

Helaena 21

Aemond 19

Jace 18

Daeron 16

Baela 17 (?)

Rhaena 15 (?)

So forget what the big season 1 time jumps say it's not working out.

Not sure why I'm doing this to myself tbh.

[kittycoolcat7]

II 15 SPOILERS

Theory time!!

When MePhone was talking about his vaycay he said it only took half a day and this is confirmed by the other characters,,, how?? How could that possibly be the case??????

FIRST THEORY: Season 3 never happened. Nobody in season 2 ever truly addressed what happened in season 3. Sure, Paintbrush says that Lightbulb "missed a lot", but that could easily have been referring to events within the hotel. If this theory ends up true I'm punching somebody

SECOND THEORY: Season 3 took place within multiple repetitions of a 24 hour long time loop, which started in the very early morning after episode 14 (or maybe a few days later? who knows..) and would have stopped at that time the next day if MePhone hadn't left it during the day at the end of season 3.

This would imply that at least 20-or-so times, an alternate version of the final four experienced a day without MePhone being present at all. However, because he returned at about noon, he arrives back in time for the fifteenth challenge.

This also implies that, despite remembering previous iterations and complying with changes in the game such as eliminations, the cast experienced the same calendar day over and over again.

THIRD THEORY: Season 3 takes place within a pocket dimension in which time functions differently than in the "real" world. This is very similar to the theory above, except that instead of the season happening over one repeated day, it actually takes place in multiple days that are "squished" into half of a day. It's unclear whether it taking up half of a day was intentional or just how long it ended up taking.

Anyway that's it,, I might follow this up if I think of anything else but don't count on it :/

[traffic-crossing]

Traffic Crossword - Week 1

Here's a fun refresher crossword for before the new Life Series comes out! There are 5 questions for every season.

Questions Below!

Third Life Questions:

Down-

2. Where was Skizz’s last stand before being taken out of the series?

3. The axe Martyn used to kill Ren was named Red ______ is Coming.

11. This was the only season to actually have a _______ inside its borders.

Across-

7. Who did Grian think Scar betrayed him for in the final episode?

16. What animal did the Desert Folk give to Jimmy and Scott as a peace offering that Jimmy misspelled the name of?

Last Life Questions:

Down-

4. This season, Scar was known for selling magic ________.

9. What type of armor wasn’t allowed, starting this season?

15. What mob stole Scott’s final kill on Ren, therefore winning him the series?

Across-

13. What was the signature item of the Southlands?

14. Who in the Castle alliance betrayed Cleo by boogey killing her?

Double Life Questions:

Down-

1. Scott’s last words to Pearl are a play on a common _______ vow.

8. Who burned down the Relationship?

10. What was the weapon used to kill the Warden ‘Ranchers Revenge’?

Across-

17. What biome was the area the enchanting table was located this season?

18. Where were Martyn and Pearl during most of session 1 that caused them to miss out on meeting their soulmates until the end of the session?

Limited Life Questions

Down-

6. What mechanic from Last Life returned after being absent in Double Life?

13. Team TIES created a system of pathways in the air, what were they called?

Across-

2. By what building did the final battle between Martyn, Impulse, and Scott take place?

5. What event, hosted by Martyn, did the Bad Boys interrupt by dropping TNT minecarts on it from above?

12. Who subbed in for Cleo when she couldn’t play in session 6?

Important Notes!

If the answer is a specific player, then the word will be their IGN but without the numbers. Example: BdoubleO, Smajor, BigBstatz.

Answers will be posted Wednesday at 6:00pm BST.

If you would like to print out the crossword out to do it on paper, here's a link to the PDF!

Week 1 Crossword

[barcodeboyz]

My top 10 favorite South Park episodes, no one asked but here we go

10. With Apologies to Jesse Jackson

This is a controversial episode to put here because of how offensive it is, and truthfully, I didn't care too much for the A plot. But the B-plot makes up for it. Watching Cartman and a Midget fight to Get Down with the Sickness is so hilariously absurd.

9. You're Getting Old/Ass Burgers

This is the second/third episode I remember watching before I got into the show. I included them both in one spot because Ass Burgers is a continuation of You're Getting Old, but each have their own separate charm. I definitely shed a tear when Stan moved out to Fleetwood Mac's Landslide and split my sides laughing as Kyle yelled at Cartman for sticking the burgers up his ass. I also heavily relate to Stan's meltdown in class in Ass Burgers, because that's real emotion. An amazing storyline overall.

8. Make Love, Not Warcraft

I mentioned that the previous two episodes were some of my first episodes, but not THE first episode. That title goes to this episode. When I was born, my brother was 15, and as I grew up, I often watched him play World of Warcraft. So this episode is very nostalgic to me, not just because him and I watched it but because as someone who plays WOW nowadays (very inconsistently), it's so nostalgic to see how much has changed.

7. The Losing Edge

This is just a classic episode. The boys don't want to participate in baseball and try to get out of it by losing, but the other teams have the same idea. I think we all know who the real star of the episode is: Randy. I thought this was America!

6. Trapped in the Closet

Subtlety is completely ignored in this episode. As Stan is praised as the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, his comments about Tom Cruise send him literally into the closet. I think my favorite bit in the episode is R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet verses, specifically when he pulls out a gun in Stan's room and everyone in the hallway runs away.

5. Major Boobage

This episode is... beautiful. The animation is impressive, and the story is hilarious as well. Kenny and Gerald cheesing and then getting into a fight, Cartman reliving the Holocaust with the cats, and the funny ass press conference given just solidify this episode as legendary.

4. Le Petit Tourette

This episode introduced my favorite one-off character, Thomas. But even more than that, it gave us a great story and a chance for us to see Cartman's plan blow up in his face. While it ultimately never came to fruition due to Kyle's actions, it's satisfying to know that he definitely revealed a deep secret or two in exchange for almost slandering minority groups on national TV.

3. Follow That Egg

I have vague memories of watching this episode as a kid, but I don't consider it as one of my firsts because I could only really recall them running through the crowd trying to save their grade. But it's a fantastic episode. Ms. Garrison's attempts to stop gay marriage from being legalized, to Stan's comical bitterness towards Kyle and Wendy, it all comes together and compliments each other well.

2. D-Yikes!

I didn't expect to get so personal on a South Park top 10 list, but it's the honest truth. South Park became a major comfort for me after my assault. And this was the first episode I watched that made me burst out laughing since the attack; Ms. Garrison screaming "scissor me timbers!" has got to be one of the funniest lines in the show's history. And overall, it's just a fun episode to watch.

1. Guitar Queero

This is an underrated masterpiece of an episode that more people should watch. The plot of the episode feels so fluid, and everything about it makes sense to me. The rise to stardom, falling to drugs (well, video games about drugs), losing it all and returning to give it one final shot just encompasses what South Park can really do when given the right tools. Maybe I'm biased because Season 11 is my favorite season, but something about this episode just really scratches my brain.

Anyways, that's my list! Thanks all for reading.

[animesavior]

Clark: “One week ago, Earth faced an alien invasion. You’ve heard different versions of what happened, but we at the Daily Planet have a duty to bring you the truth.” Jimmy: “The truth is that Superman and his cousin [Supergirl] saved us. But they weren’t alone.” Lois: “The people of Metropolis came together to help them, putting aside their differences to protect our home.” Clark: “The invader was defeated, and justice came to those who those who tried to benefit from fear and pain.” Lois: “But even as this brought out the best in many, it brought out the worst in others. And there will always be new threats to face.” Clark: “No one knows what will come next for Metropolis, but there’s one thing we at the Daily Planet know for certain…” Jimmy: “No matter what the future holds…” Lois: “No matter what is thrown at us…” Clark: “We will face it together.” -          My Adventures with Superman (Season 2, Ep. 10)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for the month of July 2024. During these past few weeks, fans got to enjoy the final two episodes of My Adventures with Superman season 2, among other great moments. And as July is the month of San Diego Comic-Con, Toonami viewers got to enjoy some big announcements in regard to several upcoming shows.

During the night of the airing of the penultimate episode of My Adventures with Superman season 2 on July 13-14, #MyAdventuresWithSuperman would trend on the USA on Twitter, while One Piece trended on Tumblr. And during the night of July 20-21, where we saw the season 2 finale of My Adventures with Superman, #Toonami would trend in the US alongside #MyAdventuresWithSuperman and #NarutoShippuden. #Toonami also trended on Tumblr. The night of July 27-28 did not see any trends, as Toonami showcased a MAWS marathon of season 2 during SDCC week.

As for Toonami Rewind, #ToonamiRewind would trend in the US during the broadcasts of July 12, 19, and 26, though on July 19, Sailor Moon and Naruto would also trend in the US, while Naruto also trended on Tumblr. Which isn’t bad, especially considering that on July 26, both the Olympics opening ceremony and Comic-Con were occurring at the same time.

As mentioned, San Diego Comic-Con took place at the end of July, and in case you missed it, Toonami fans got to enjoy several announcements during the convention. The big news was that we got a brand-new show announcement in Rooster Fighter by Shū Sakuratani.

Adult Swim announced that the English dubbed version of Rick and Morty: The Anime will premiere on Thursday August 15 @ midnight EDT/PDT, while the Japanese (with English subtitles) version will air on Toonami on Saturday, August 17 @ midnight.

Also, towards the end of the Rick and Morty panel, Jason DeMarco also revealed that we finally have a release date for Junji Ito’s Uzumaki after several years of delays: September 28, 2024 at 12:30 a.m., following premiere episodes of Rick and Morty: The Anime. Back during Anime Expo 2024, the Uzumaki cast was revealed by Production I.G, with Abby Trott as Kirie Goshima and Robbie Daymond as Shuichi Saito. In addition, Lazarus, the newest work of Shinichiro Watanabe, will be scheduled to premiere in 2025.

Finally, during the Demon Slayer panel on Saturday night, Aniplex announced that Demon Slayer’s third season, the Swordsmith Village arc, will begin airing on Toonami this August 10.

Meanwhile, for those who have been wanting to see more Lycoris Recoil, it’s been announced during the show’s second anniversary program that there are six short films in the works, that will depict the daily lives of Chisato, Takina, and others in the LycoRico cast. While Director Shingo Adachi will return in supervising, each of the six movies will feature different people handling direction and storyboarding, including character designer Imigimuru will be in charge of some of the scripts. A release date is to be announced.

Of course, this won’t be the end of My Adventures with Superman, as DC is hard at work creating the show’s third season, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we’ll have the trending rundown for the first few weeks of August, including the premiere of Demon Slayer's Swordsmith Village arc and the premiere of Rick and Morty: The Anime, out in the coming days, as with other articles and interviews from San Diego Comic-Con coming soon. Until next time, Be sure to register to vote for this year’s elections if you’re eligible and haven’t already, and let’s go Team USA.

Legend: The shows listed are ordered based on their appearance on the schedule. Show trends are listed in bold. The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the Twitter tweet counts, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

July 12, 2024 Toonami Rewind Trends

United States Trends:

#ToonamiRewind [#25]

Tweet Counts:

#SailorMoon [2,303 tweets]

July 13-14, 2024 Toonami Trends

United States Trends:

#MyAdventuresWithSuperman [#26]

Tweet Counts:

#MyAdventuresWithSuperman [2,539 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#one piece [#8]

July 19, 2024 Toonami Rewind Trends

United States Trends:

#ToonamiRewind [#17]

#SailorMoon [Trended with #ToonamiRewind]

#Naruto [Trended with #ToonamiRewind]

Tweet Counts:

#SailorMoon [3,307 tweets]

#Naruto [14.3k tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#naruto [#9]

July 20-21, 2024 Toonami Trends

United States Trends:

#Toonami [Trended with #MyAdventuresWithSuperman]

#MyAdventuresWithSuperman [#7]

#NarutoShippuden [Trended with #MyAdventuresWithSuperman]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami [#8]

July 26, 2024 Toonami Rewind Trends

United States Trends:

#ToonamiRewind [#2]

Tweet Counts:

#ToonamiRewind [1,552 tweets]

#SailorMoon [4,244 tweets]

#Naruto [8,515 tweets]

If you wish to send me a tip for the work on the trending rundown, donations can be sent to PayPal.Me/DanielLimjoco.

Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.

[vanmarkus]

What was your favorite episode (with fav moment or overall) this season? :)

oh this is such a cute question!! also really hard to answer agxvsg

I feel like every episode was packing sooo much this season, there was just a lot going on constantly... I mean between the cruise ship and Devin coming back (twice!!) and Bobby's third begins episode and madney getting married and Kevin!! Lee!! and MARA and the grant nash house burning down and the bi Buck of it all and many many more in just 10 episodes... if I'm only allowed to pick one hmmm

I guess I'm gonna be a bit basic (and cheat a little) and say that 7x05 was my fave — excluding the first 15 minutes which was nothing but one secondhand embarrassment after the other, to the point that I actually scroll past it when rewatching the episode... and my fave scene was the coffee date.

I loved both of Buck's coming out scenes and I loved Tommy calling Buck adorable, but the coffee date is definitely my fave!!

for many reasons, but mainly because 1) Eddie does whatever Buck tells him to, when it comes to relationships and apparently Buck does the same; if Eddie says he should call Tommy, then he will and 2) that was Buck finally, finally taking charge of his own love life and making an informed decision on what he really wanted and going after it (not to mention... just how fucking cute he looked?!)