#This probably kinda incoherent

[questdrag0n]

Thoughts on Dark Might

Spoilers for You're Next below

So I just went back and watched the movie for the second time yesterday and I noticed some things.

Wanna preface by saying I loved the villain for this Movie. Dark Might was absolutely hysterical and flamboyant in a way that not a lot of serious villains are in this show, closest being Gentle Criminal who was meant to be a sympathetic villain who barely even qualified as a villain. Dark Might was a lot of fun to watch and a breath of fresh air, creepy scenes with Anna aside.

That said, there's something I noticed about him: The man has no original ideas. His entire villain plan was to try and recreate All Might's legacy, but in his own way. His fortress is plastered in All Might statues. While he did technically created his own villain name, he didn't do so until All Might said something that accidentally inspired it. His monsters? Clearly inspired by Nomu. Even his home base probably wasn't his own design, likely based on the Scervino home if his comment to Anna was anything to go by ("Do you like it? It was inspired by you" or something like that). Even that conversation with the erasure villain where he promises to "remember that for next time" is him taking something someone else said and planning to use it for the future to boost his own image. The only time where he appears to design something of his own was that horrendously bad outfit with the purple face paint, and then he gets mocked for it and never wears it again. Not even his face is his.

But this isn't bad writing or bad character design; rather it's actually genius. Here is a character who's quirk is the ability to create borderline anything (we don't really know the limits of his quirk without Anna), and yet he is unable to create something new; he instead plagiarizes from the world around him. It's deeply ironic, and is part of what makes the final face reveal so good. Once you strip him down to his own limits and his own ideas, all you have is a sad, pathetic man, with no original ideas who's power and money was handed to him on a silver platter. It's not just part of his character, it's the entire point of his character.

Tldr: Dark Might, while delightful to watch, has no original ideas and copies everything from those around him and it's genius writing for reasons I struggle to articulate

[dilemmalion]

Was anyone else confused when Cole got his earth punch ability and none of the other ninja got something similar for their own elements? Pretty sure in the sets this was called Cole’s “RX” form, so maybe I just expected the rest of the ninja to get an “RX” form? Idk, the earth punch ability just seemed so specific that it felt like it was setting up a new general elemental power ability or something imo

Random thought that I definitely haven’t contemplated for years now

[fantasykiri5]

Fabian and Riz to me are like. They’re like the definition of “a secret third thing” to me but not like in a qpr way. Their thing is just Their Thing, like they’re inseparable they drive each other fucking bonkers they care so deeply and they’re stupid teenagers and I don’t think they would even really think about it at all. I don’t think either of them can imagine a world where they’re not at least around the other, and like whatever their thing is definitely isn’t allo but it’s definitely not regular besties shit. They just like being around each other, I don’t think either of them would really even think to put a name to whatever it is they’ve got going on, and I definitely don’t think either of them would ever put enough thought into it to even figure out what a qpr is, much less label themselves in one. They’re just Fabian and Riz. The Ball and Captain of the Owlbears. They’re just them I think. Idk man.

[spock-adoodledoo]

i think one of the things i'll always appreciate abt maomao is that even though she's the protag, it's not really that the world revolves around her or that things always happen to her, it's more that she gets involved in things (usually at the request of other ppl but whatever) that usually don't affect her immediately. idk but it's nice that she's kind of our dispassionate window into palace life instead of the person everything happens to

[ice-sculptures]

ICE-SCULPTURES -> CITYSCREAMS

i don't usually change my url but i really wanted a taylor-related url for 1989 tv release week!! cityscreams isn't 1989 specific but it's from my fav taylor song and i thought it was so fitting for spooky season 🕸️👻

(for my non-swiftie mutuals....it'll be mostly the same content but with just a little extra taylor this week 🦋)

tagging a few people under the cut so y'all know it's me :)

@basiltonpitch @willelfanpage @lucasvenkman @pumpkinpadmes @callaplums @housewifebuck @questiontv @strandtk @henwilsons @likegoldintheair @shitouttabuck @thefabulousfab-3 @loserdiaz @captain-hen @mlchaelwheeler @madcleradin @mandycantdecide @babygirl-jonathanbyers @9thofoctober @astrobei @heroesbyler @wiseatom @byclairs @stranger-comet @lucassinclaer @pinkeoni @magentamee @howtobecomeadragon @elmaxed @mikeandwillel @talkingtothelights @stbyers @byeler @jesper-faheyss 💙

(i have no idea who's active rn bsjdfhlsjajks sorry if i forgot to tag you)

[meggie-moo]

he was my favorite in middle school

[kidfur]

Why is ur self ship blog 18+ if you're mentally 12? Wouldn't that be unsafe for you if you're mainly interacting with ppl 18+? (/Gen question)

basically my mental age doesnt have a lot 2 do with my ability 2 consent to things like that, i am not upset or uncomfortable by things like that unless someone is being flirty or something. being mentally 12 isnt Exactly literal when it comes 2 18+ topics

[kivaember]

For the couples, what’s one thing they like about each other? Like a core aspect of themselves.

HMMM okay let's see:

Rusty likes a few things about 621. There's the usual shallow stuff off he thinks he looks incredibly hot and is carnally attracted to him, but what really draws him is 621's brutal efficiency and cleverness on the battlefield. Rusty is attracted to competency, which there is a worrying lack of in a corporate setting, where people aren't promoted due to merits but nepotism or brown-nosing. So, seeing an pilot who can do sinfully amazing things with a junker of an AC gets him all kinds of hot and bothered...

What 621 likes about Rusty... well, he's not quite sure LMAO he likes that Rusty listens to him when he 'talks', and asks questions and seems genuinely interested in what he has to say. 621 is used to people brushing him off as strange or socially awkward, and while Rusty does think he's strange and awkward, he isn't put off by it and actively tries to understand him. Ofc those feelings became a little complicated when 621 realised Rusty was a spy and likely was profiling him as a future enemy BUT STILL. He liked it. It was Nice.

He does wish that Rusty stops being so confusing to deal with though...

Right, time for the jupiter lads. It'd be hard to get Walter to admit to liking anything about Michigan, but he does like some things about him. He gets easily annoyed with his loud and boisterous personality, and he hates how nosy he is, but he does like how Michigan just... rolls with things and is actually very open-minded, considering. Michigan is unbothered when Walter's in an anti-social and snappish mood, and knows when to give him space and when to pester him. Walter just likes that with Michigan he doesn't have to actually tell him things for Michigan to kind of get what he needs... but he wishes he stops being so fucking nosy lmao

And what Michigan likes about Walter is that he respects and admires how driven he is and all the hardwork he puts into stuff. Like, he understands that Walter had to work himself to the bone to succeed for that scholarship to Furlong Dynamics' pilot academy, that he began from a very disadvantageous position but clawed himself into something half-way decent. Michigan respects that kind of grit! He does wish Walter stops being so stubborn and acting like he's carrying the galaxy on his shoulders though...

(also michigan likes that walter bussy ok)

BONUS ROUND: freud/rusty time. Freud likes that Rusty is seemingly on the same wavelength as him when it comes to refining their craft as AC pilots. All the other Vespers are pencil pushers, with the exception of Snail who's. well. Snail. Freud also likes that Rusty presents a very intriguing mystery for him to pick at, because quite a few things in his past don't make sense, and O'Keeffe should've picked up on those discrepencies but hasn't... so there's a mystery for him to unravel here... it seems like a fun time :)

Meanwhile, Rusty hates Freud bc he's a corporate dog, but he respects his skill as a pilot and somewhat empathises with his position (from decoding, where he realises that Freud has little to no control over his life, thanks to Arquebus micromanaging everything). I feel that if Freud was an independent merc, though, Rusty would be just as attracted to him as to 621 because... competency, brutal skill on the battlefield... Rusty finds that so hot...

[templeofvengeance]

❛ did you do something to them? ❜

🐝  *  ―  𝑬𝑷𝑰𝑪: 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑴𝑼𝑺𝑰𝑪𝑨𝑳 𝑺𝑬𝑵𝑻𝑬𝑵𝑪𝑬 𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑺.

"Something, yes. What, depends on them."

A taxi cab goes driving by, the flat-cap-wearing driver obscured by angular lights and shadows of the city. The god stayed behind for now as it vanished down the street, considering if it was worth giving more than that.

Most mortals didn't even get that much from him, after all. Avi was special, though.

"Those crooks have information-- connections to something that interests me. Imagine my surprise that someone beat my Fist to the punch." He sounded impressed, or at least encouraging-- Avi turning to vigilantism without hardly any pushing from Khonshu felt like destiny. "Don't worry. We'll be sure to put them back in their proper place, Avi Anders. Continue your work. I'll be watching."

[mimiso-soup]

someone needs to do a study on vocal synths that are more than one engine and have decent sized separate communities to them

since this is rlly long, please read under the cut if you're interested!

take Yuzuki Yukari for example. when she was first released in 2011, she was the first vocal synth to come as both a vocaloid and a voiceroid at the same time. however, that doesn't mean everyone sees her as both, and either leans into being seen as either. as of recent, yukari's on a couple synth engines, but primarily still being seen as either vocaloid or voiceroid

meanwhile, vocal synths that were initially released on one engine before being added to another (Kkzuna Akari, Kotonoha Akane & Aoi, Otomachi Una, etc) seem to lean more towards that first initial engine. however, Haruno Sora seems to be a special case, despite being similar to Yukari and being released on vocaloid & voiceroid at once. from how it seems, since vocaloid 5 wasn't doing so well at the time, Sora seemingly appears to be more well-known in the voiceroid community than the vocaloid

and i think it also really depends on the popularity of the engine as well because Tsurumaki Maki has been around since 2010 as a voiceroid, and was decently popular in that community. now it feels as though more people know her as she's on popular singing engines, cevio and synth v. at the same time, i've seen more usage of her synth v compared to her cevio

from my limited perspective, talk engines don't seem to do as well as singing ones, although there have a handful of insistences where i have seen them being used!

this isn't a major thing, but a more interesting thing to add is the shipping amongst the different communities. like i mentioned at the beginning, Yukari is popular on both vocaloid and voiceroid. in the vocaloid community, her most popular ship is with IA whereas in the voiceroid community, it's with Maki. similarly, Otomachi Una's most popular ship amongst vocaloid fans seem to be with Rana (tho i could be mistaken) while with voiceroid, it's with Tohoku Kiritan

the vocal synth community is built up on thousands of smaller communities, and i think it's smth that should be explored a bit more

[chibishortdeath]

Hmmm I kinda want to make a side blog for RPG Maker game development related things to be able to talk to more experienced people in that community, but at the same time I both don’t really think I’d get much attention and don’t want to accidentally spoil my own game (^^ ; ).

I have a rough story, concept doodles, a tileset, some character sprites, an enemy that walks around but can’t initiate battle yet (if I even decide to have a battle system), a couple rooms with some events, and a functioning run button, but I’m still lost on how to do much else at the moment. Especially since this program has the ability for scripting, meaning I’ll probably have to learn and actually retain another coding language.

So, I’m not very far at all lol. Idk how well that’d go over on the established fandom website, but eh.

[semisentient-entity]

Thinking about how suddenly being free after being trapped your whole life can be such a joyous experience but also the worst you've ever felt. When you had to hide yourself and bottle everything up that now it's all spilling out uncontrollably.

You're thrilled, you're exhilarated, you're furious, you're inconsolable, you're terrified. You want to run, you want to curl up and cry your eyes out, you want to leave forever, you want to go back, you want to scream to the heavens because how dare they abandon you. You miss them all, you want them all to rot, you want to go back, you miss that one person who was kind to you, you want to leave it all behind.

You're glad you left. How dare they kick you out? You're the happiest you've ever been. What did I do wrong? You're laughing and crying and screaming and-

Just. Sudden freedom.

[navree]

Question for you, oh ASOIAF/F&B analysis queen: Do you think GRRM will ever actually finish ASOIAF? I feel like no, and like he should just hire his former assistant (half of James S.A. Corey) to finish it because GRRM clearly doesn't want to (or feels pressured from the reaction to the show idk). I know you appreciate Dany as a character - do you think that, if the books ever actually did continue (lol), she would've ended up like she does in GOT? (Also, side note: sometimes I think you interpret female characters in ASOIAF with more nuance than GRRM himself appreciated/intended, but maybe I'm just not giving him the benefit of the doubt.)

Unrelated: I don't watch HOTD (I just like Rhaenyra because Emma D'Arcy is a great actor), but sorry they did the B&C scene incorrectly. They should've owned up to the choices Team Black makes.

So, the thing to know about me is I am an eternal optimist. Not unrealistically so, but I am someone whose first instinct is that things are gonna work out in my favor, even if it takes a while. So I do think that GRRM is gonna at least finish The Winds of Winter, if only because he has been actively working on it for, like, ten million years. I'm a bit more iffy about A Dream of Spring, if only because George is not a particularly young man and I wouldn't be shocked if he ended up dying of old age before completing it, especially since the length of wait time seems to double with every new release. If TWOW gets finished this year, than we're supposed to expect ADOS by, what, 2044? By which time George while be in his mid-nineties? Winds also doesn't need to solve every dangling plot thread, since it's still not the last book, which is good because I think part of the issue and wait time, based on George's context clues, is that he's kinda written himself into a corner on at least one key thing and has been struggling to figure a way out of it (along with what I assume is more pressure due to the show's catastrophic ending).

I think it's possible we'll see a version of what we saw in the show with book!Dany, because the issue most people had wasn't necessarily with how Dany's arc ended, but the steps taken to get there, which were rushed and sloppy and made no sense and grotesquely out of character. But I think it's going to look very different, because the show and the books literally cannot end in the same way. The choices made in changing character motivations, character storylines, and even straight up cutting arcs and plots and whole entire swaths of people means that ASOIAF is an entirely different narrative to GOT, and the stories cannot line up in their conclusion. That's part of what sunk GOT, David and Dan knew key beats of how the story ended, but had switched around so much in getting there that all these characters are functionally different people in a different plot, so trying to force them into book storylines didn't work. Like, the whole thing with "the bells". There is a character in the books, Jon Connington, who has a trauma response associated with the bells of King's Landing that could lead to him making dumb decisions that would eventually result in the destruction of the city. But the way that would go about in the books is nowhere near what we saw in that fuckass show. @turtle-paced has a post about how that would work that I cannot for the life of me find but the gist of it is that there will be some bells ringing to signify surrender during the conflict between Dany and Aegon/fAegon, but that Connington will likely ignore it and keep fighting because trauma response, Dany will then continue hostilities herself in the face of that, and at some point the fires involved, cuz she has dragons, are going to reach the cache of wildfire Aerys hid all over the city and blow everything sky high, because that wildfire has been given way too much significance to not matter. Very different from Dany seeing abject surrender and just deciding to become She-Hitler on a whim, because it involves characters that the books set up, like Jon Connington and Arianne Martell and Aegon/fAegon and the involvement of the Golden Company, who were literally all cut from the show. So Dany likely will have a moment where she causes mass destruction in King's Landing, she might even have a moment where she rules and might exhibit some darker tendencies, and she might die (I'm still on the fence on whether that'll happen or not), but it's not gonna be like we saw in the show, and the circumstances of any death on her part is going to be entirely different.

I probably do give more nuance to most characters, especially Fire&Blood characters, than GRRM intended, it's that eternal optimist in me that wants to believe that stuff is well written. But for F&B I at least allow that part of it is straight headcanoning because of how muddled and sparse the information is, especially when it relates to characters from the Conquest. Is there any evidence in the text for my firm belief that Visenya was a lesbian and the real "love triangle" was her and Aegon both super into Rhaenys? No, there is not, but I will go to my grave believing it.

God I wish Emma D'Arcy was in more stuff so I could see more of them, they're so good and I'd kill to have them act out scripts that are, like, well written. Honestly finding out the leaks about how they were doing Blood and Cheese really turned me off of watching season 2 even though I was tentatively back on board due to the Aegon dad stuff, because it's just badly written, and the cop-out excuse of "oh there's some stuff you can't legally do with kids involved" makes no sense because y'all are making a TV show, you're filming, you know editing and cuts and multiple takes and different angles exist. Do you actually think that D&D were having Lena Heady and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau simulate graphic sex, including elements of nudity, literally right in front of ten year old Isaac Hempstead-Wright? No, of course not, they edited that together from two separate takes, oh wow how novel that's never been done before. And they did that because Bran catching the Lannisters fucking is, like, important to the plot, and honestly Blood and Cheese doing what they did in the way that they did it is too. It turns the smallfolk hard against Rhaenyra and her faction, which is important because it's a smallfolk uprising that leads to her fleeing King's Landing and ultimately dying and losing the war, and it's part of a broader trend in ASOIAF about how monarchy is a bad system. Rhaenyra sanctioning Blood and Cheese and not punishing Daemon in the slightest for this egregious action shows that she is not, in fact, the right choice for the Iron Throne. And neither is Aegon. Because there's no right choice, because this war specifically was entirely useless and that's why, narratively, it's the beginning of the end for House Targaryen, and broadly because birthright monarchy is a scam and should not exist. There's a reason why all the kings who've sat the Iron Throne in ASOIAF are bad, that Tommen is a bad king, that Joffrey was a bad king, that Robert was a bad king, that Aerys was a bad king, that even a lot of claimants aren't really gonna be good kings (Renly was an idiot and Stannis, for all I love him, is too hard headed and rigid). And conversely, there's a reason why the rulers we see who are the best morally tend to be the ones who've come the closest to being democratically chosen, Robb was chosen by his bannermen by popular decree, Jon was elected by the Night's Watch in a democratic vote, Dany was willingly followed by free men and women who were given the option not to (and even all three of them have issues when it comes to ruling and are far from perfect monarchs). There's not really such a thing as a "good king", not firmly, because a monarchy is inherently unjust. Rhaenyra's claim is inherently as illegitimate as Aegon's, it rests on "Daddy said it's mine so it's mine" rather than "Mommy said it's mine so it's mine", because that's how hereditary monarchies work and that's bad. And having Rhaenyra allow acts of senseless brutality in her name due to personal hangups is a part of showcasing that. There's no good side in this civil war, there's no good and righteous claimant, and whitewashing so much of Team Black's actions weakens the overall story (but at least makes their stans look like the hypocrites they are, considering they were all about book purity when it came to, like, the concept of sapphics in Westeros but now all the people chanting "we support all of Team Black's war crimes after that boring ass plank of wood got eaten" have gone dead silent about the deviations when it comes to making Daemon and Rhaenyra not be monsters, shrug dot emoji).

Also, how are you, as a writer, gonna say that the core of the story is Rhaenyra and Alicent, and then not include Alicent in Blood and Cheese? Like, she was there, she was physically attacked, by this thing that happened as a result of Rhaenyra's wants and wishes! And you don't do anything with that? You don't want to give Emma D'Arcy the chance to perform that delusion conflict, that she wanted revenge but didn't even get it, and worse, someone she loved so dearly, still deep down loves so dearly, was assaulted and put in real danger as a result? If the leaks are true and Rhaenyra and Alicent are gonna have a secret meeting in the next couple episodes, imagine how wonderful it could be if Rhaenyra has to confront that not only has her side hurt Alicent emotionally in torturing her daughter and murdering her grandson, but physically as well. Imagine Rhaenyra, full of righteous "the throne is mine" crap but having to confront the still healing physical wounds on Alicent's body. It could be so good for Rhaenicent character interaction, even for Daemyra character interaction if they wanted to still whitewash Rhaenyra and have it be Daemon going off script against her wishes, but at this point I'm not entirely sure Ryan and Sara are good at their jobs.

[gillianthecat]

The non-gendered urge to sit out in the sun to do my homework vs. the modern reality that I can’t see my screen in the sunshine.

[always-a-joyful-note]

Okay but you have to understand how READY I am to get a live action ORV film series. Quick disclaimer that I honestly know really little about film/visual media (and even less about East Asian media), but...

On a story level, it simply sounds like a Bad Idea. I mean, how do you translate a story about stories told through the medium of words into live action? How do you translate the way it makes sure to tell you that this story works as reality because you can't see it, because there concepts that you can really only visualise in your head through the written word?

But then again, they could go the direction of using the medium of film itself as Dokja's fourth wall. Make it seem like a cool but generic live action with subtle hints here and there that it's more than it seems. Have Dokja be hot rather than his plain and average...have fight scenes and choose which thoughts or not we get to hear. I mean, seriously...the film doesn't have to be cohesive or accurate to the book. It could literally just be the way Dokja wants you to experience his story and his narration - the film could be a depiction of his unreliable narrative. And as he and the walls begin to crack, so does the story...and maybe we'll get to see those thoughts and cracks in the beginning of the story through flashbacks rather than real time (could make the inner speech filters sound nicer but idk).

Or if it's truly just Bad(tm), it's still fun because yeah...guess who took on the role of the Star Stream and forced a story and its characters into a tale to pander to audiences simply for capital gain? (Or what if they really do make big changes to the ORV story so as to accommodate the medium of film as story? Make it so that the film itself is the Star Stream?)

And also, a last slightly less ironic and overenthusiastic observation....just that, yeah, I do wish ORV was animated instead of live action. But given that their animation industry is somewhat small, currently, and that means they might have to rely on Japanese studios, I prefer they just stick to live action. There's no telling how Japanese studios will localise Korean names/settings/history, as they've done with Solo Levelling and Raelina. Again, I have NO idea if this is a right assumption to make, so if someone knows more about it, I'm happy to be corrected.

The point is, though, that ORV live action has the potential to be spectacularly bad or good - either or. I don't think it's possible for it to be just mediocre or average and I wouldn't want it to. It's either KimCom definitely made this movie post-Dokja return to make money off their leader's stupidity or the studios will capture the essence of how stories and humans are fatefully intertwined but through the medium of film.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

hmmmmm