#Thoughts on the 3rd Arc

[kokodrawings]

It's ok, Minato asked for permission first

[fragariamemories]

"Wolf, don't cry... I'm sorry. I won't go anywhere. I'll complete the Ultimate Spell & protect you all."

[crowncastlehermit]

For everyone wanting the new Jude card I'm so sorry he's busy making my life hell

[project-sekai-facts]

is kohane5 and ena5 our only arc enders for this rotation of them so far?

yeah, i reckon wxs will be in 1 or 2 events time for them. the others i'm not certain. i do reckon all the remaining arc enders will be within the next few events for each unit though.

[owensgrumpyoranges]

So since I'm in denial I've been thinking-

Back in 1955, Ein and Tesla would have been considered dead. They were stabbed through the heart (dang, Coralie gets a matching scar to her mom. . .. no? too soon) and they were sitting around for probably ~ a half hour while Erwin and Otto fought and Erwin figured out how to work Abyss Flower. You can bleed out from a stab wound to the chest in five minutes. And while there's the whole leaving-the-stabby-in-keeps-blood-in, Tesla at least was actively bleeding from several places.

So they were probably *legally* dead for quite some time before Schro did her thing.

All this to say that Abyss Flower did it once, it can do it again, and as for Ein?

She'd never had a chance to give her an answer. Back then, she hadn't known what it would be- her mind said no, I can't subject you to this kind of torture, but her heart screamed yes, yes I would, I would do anything to keep from losing you too.

And now, as she waited- the answer was crystal clear.

Yes.

I'll always save you.

You're the only one I can save.

I cannot be alone forever.

[worstloki]

Fortesa Latifi, We Were Young

[bibibbon]

Hello Bibibon!

What I want to say is, I really love your To Be Hero X posts and also some of your MHA/BNHA meta posts (even though I haven't watched MHA and only into two episodes of Vigilantes and couldn't continue due to school.)

What I want to ask you is, what TBHX arc are you excited for?

For me, it's definitely GhostBlade's. With Episode-10 coming out and "Fear" being publicly recognised, we heard from the reporter guy and Mickey that people have been experimenting with fear before. In GhostBlade's PV trailer we see frames of some...lab? Something of the sort. So GhostBlade could be connected to the experiments with Fear. Also, can you believe that guy is 41?? Gee.

Hi @akuji05 👋

Thank you so much for the compliment and I am glad that some of my meta posts have brought you some joy!!!

To answer your question, there are 2 character arcs that I am really excited about, and they are ghostblade and dragon boy. Ever since Yang cheng's arc I have wanted to know more about MG and uncle rock and how that company navigates especially since from the looks of it all of their top 10 heroes all seem to have incredibly dark pasts and almost act as foils to the DOS trio. I do think that it would also be really cool to get some moments of the MG trio together and what they think of one another and how they interact with one another.

However, to go deeper into this from character perspectives. The reason why I am so interested in Ghostblade is similar to the reasons you have stated above. With him being 41, it means that he is one of the few who has experienced the aftermath of the dawnfall incident in his earlier years of life, which most likely shaped him into who he is today. Furthermore, the time period ghsotblade was raised in and became familiar with had a huge focus on the act of smiling and appearing friendly. This most likely would have been further emphasised with Smile being X during that time period. To me, it almost seems as if society is trying to forget about the dawnfall incident, smiling past the pain and trying to look towards a brighter future.

I have a theory that before ghostblade became a hero, he used to be either a commission agent or he used to be against the commission.

From what we see in the PV, ghostblade seems to quickly kill a group of people in suits, and from what we have seen in episode 12 the commission agents seem to wear black as their primary uniform with hints of gold which can link to ghostblade being a government assassin or it could link into him killing commission agents. However, from another PV, we also see a female character telling ghostblade that everything imposed on him will be lost if he quits being a hero so there is a possibility that the experimentations that were being done on him were by the commission to craft him into something similar to Hawks or lady nagant from MHA.

It also seems like ghostblade has a whole family that we aren't fully aware of. His presumably dead wife and child who is heavily implied to be Loli's friend. For a guy who is quoted not to be able to express any emotion, we do see him express quite a few emotions within arts and the trailers. For example, we see him express worry over his daughter saying that he will kill anyone who bullies her, or we are shown 2 scenes of him crying/screaming. I do wonder where the whole thing of him not showing emotion came from if it was something due to the experiments that he was made to go through or if there was never anything wrong with him but society deemed the way he expressed emotions as inherently abnormal or wrong and something to be fixed.

Also, your point about ghostblades arc possibly being connected more to fear makes him even more interesting as there's the possibility that the lab experimenting on him was the one that the flyers guy mentioned in lucky cyan's arc or there is the possibility that ghostblades abstract understanding of emotions plays a vital role into the fear and trust system overall. Ghostblade himself also seems to have an interesting sense of justice with him claiming that he kills only those who deserve death, which is interesting because how does he know who deserves death? It seems that all the MG boys have a twisted sense of justice and duty.

Moving on to dragon boy! I personally started finding dragon boy way more interesting when it was revealed that he wanted to be the next zero. There seems to be a lot of similarities between the MG heroes with Yang cheng, dragon boy, and ghostblade, all most likely being orphans or not having strong connections with family members. Both yang cheng and dragon boy being shown to be bullied when they were younger and all of the 3 heroes having a past where they weren't accepted by people because of something that they couldn't control.

Dragon boy wanting to clean "trash" before and once he becomes the next zero is also eerily similar to Queen and I do wonder if the show is going to make Queen and dragon boy parallels as they both want to be X, both are in the top 3 almost always being beaten by X, both want to overturn the system and serve justice. Even with all of those similarities, their differences are pretty funny to me as dragon boy ikes classical music but has a punk adjacent style while Queen likes heavy metal/rock music and has a very classic style.

Furthermore, what are the markings on Dragon Boy? Were they there since he was a child, or did he get them due to the rise in his trust value? Maybe like ghostblade he was also experimented on as a child, causing for the marks to appear?

Also, why does he want to become the next zero? In my opinion, it definitely has something to do with serving justice and most likely bringing his parents back. If dragon boy can essentially become 'god' he can do anything and that means cleaning garbage and bringing justice and people he cares for back.

[spaeccadet]

if anthony lockwood can pull off big dark eyebags then So Can I

[camp-counselor-david]

I was wondering what bugged me about the season 4 Cameron Campbell redemption arc, and I think it finally clicked for me. (And yeah it's 95% David related)

Tw for talks of abuse under the read more.

(Spoiler warning for s3 & 4!)

My relationship (from a character standpoint) with Mr. Campbell is very iffy. He's meant for comedic relief, as is his treatment of David within the series.

Side note- I know that the wolf in "The Forest" being a metaphor for Campbell's abuse of David isn't technically canon even if it's pretty widely accepted by now, so I'll be excluding that part in my analysis.

Mr. Campbell goes through a lot of changes within the series. He starts out as sort of a criminal mastermind type. Self-serving, a blatant scammer, and someone who is seen abusing David in particular many times in the show, physically and verbally. That's not even mentioning the scene in "Jasper Dies in the End," where he attempts to murder a young David for witnessing Jasper's near-death experience. Despite this, David looks up to him and idolizes who he is as a person.

Up until when things peak in season 3, where it's revealed to David that he's not only a terrible person, but he has attempted to frame him for the camp being a scam. Season 3 handles Campbell the best in my opinion, up until the ending of "Camp Corp" where it's decided that Cameron Campbell is more of an idiot than a mastermind, so his new punishment is staying at the camp under David's watch.

Season 4 is where it takes a turn for the worse. As per usual, David is on board with the idea of redeeming Mr. Campbell and places faith in him changing for the better. This didn't bug me until the episode with the escape room where the series begins to explore a different side of Campbell. There, it's revealed that despite how awful as a person he was, he secretly has some type of heart! He still had feelings for the woman he ghosted for 17 years to the point of never once seeing another person in all of that time. Not only does that feel impossible to believe, but given how he acts when he's coming back from the club in "Keep the Change," it feels a lot more like a retcon to me. You're telling me that someone as greedy as him would make such a responsible choice when it comes to any of his personal relationships? In 17 years? While regularly being under the influence of alcohol and other drugs throughout that time period?

It felt like a quick "See? Mr. Campbell isn't actually that bad of a person!" To which I feel is not the right angle to take with his character, at least not so quickly. I understand that characters can have nuance. They can have good traits and still be bad people, but these traits have to line up with what makes sense for the character, and from my perspective, it didn't.

They then change the approach with Campbell and start making him a lot more reasonable of a person in the way he talks. "Time Crapsules" ending with an admittedly nice message from him about change using the camp itself as a metaphor for his own character growth, which becomes apparent in the last prominent Campbell episode, "St. Campbell's Day."

This is the episode that urks me the most. Since the very beginning, David has had full faith in Mr. Campbell. He spent time making excuses for him and going out of his way to prove that change is really possible. But (spoilers, sorry!!) then this episode features the very first time that David stands up against Mr. Campbell. He sees the fake holiday that he's making for presumably self-serving reasons and decides that Campbell is showing his old patterns again-- because why else would he make up a holiday revolving around making money?

David ruins the holiday by stealing the holiday supplies and reporting him to the presses as a con artist. Then, the show reveals that David was overreacting, and this was really pushed by the campers rather than Campbell himself. They wanted to raise funds for the camp to get new things like the outhouse, and David feels bad. Afterward, there's a happy moment where David apologetically fixes everything with the help of Gwen and QM, which is admittedly very sweet, and Mr. Campbell forgives David for jumping the gun and assuming the worst.

While I don't hate this, it just rubs me the wrong way that the one time David stands up against Campbell, he's punished by the narrative. He apologizes to Mr. Campbell, a thing that Campbell never properly does for David, the one who actually deserves it.

This episode could have been a good opportunity for there to be some reflection on how David, who vouched ceaselessly for his redemption, might have some mixed feelings on his abuser. Exploring this side of things more would have made this a better episode and overall a better arc for me rather than "Silly David!! You've ruined the one good thing he tried to do!".

The concept of David wanting to be happy about the changes but finding that part of him guiltily thinks that Campbell doesn't deserve it is something I really wish they explored a lot more.

The tl;dr of this is that the Mr. Campbell redemption arc isn't a bad angle to shoot for! Some of it was handled decently, but the loose ends that we'll likely never see wrapped up leave a sour taste in my mouth. A few kind moments don't make up for around 14 years of abuse, and that's not even mentioning the death of Jasper as a consequence of Campbell's actions.

I love this show a lot, and this is by no means hateful towards it, I just feel a little put off by how they handle the Campbell-David stuff.

[madicham]

"Xie Lian did nothing wrong" NO! he did ONE wrong thing and that is be mean to Yin Yu

[pinacoladamatata]

"if you fancy Astarion, you might want to consider therapy. He's so damaged I must have him! Enjoy the fantasy and then call a therapist. It's a two step thing and it's very important you do both." - Amelia Tyler what do your narrator eyes see? 😂😂😂

[sunbeetle]

have been ranking c.lone wars episodes 1-10 as i watch them & this shit is difficult man... ill say Yup enjoyed that! lets put it at a nice 6 or 7 . and then go look at other episodes i ranked 6 or 7 and get massively confused because either this episode does not compare to those episodes, or those episodes cant possibly compare to This episode. but i dont want to rank it any higher because it simply was not an 8 or 9 or god forbid a 10. and such. how do people do this

[swiftsaltsweet]

Me: I'm going to start writing the 2nd arc of Two Knives. :) I hope I get a lot of this chapter done! Me: *blacks the fuck out* Me: *comes to* Oh god. Oh. What happened? What time is it? Where am I? Oh, right... I was going to write- Oh the google doc is open let's see Me: ...... Me: WHERE DID THESE 10,000 WORDS COME FROM ;A;

[tothelasthoursofmylife]

Happy June 4th, cricket tournament day!!!!

No fic from me this year, but next year...

[comradecowplant]

bitch, how did jimmy fucking dore or glenn greenwald or jill stein help? all while not mentioning any credit to palestinians or the axis of resistance, or even the protesters who sabotaged Elbiet systems? this is exactly the unserious shit that has me so jaded about Seattle-area politics 😤

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

Gray Serpent upon meeting Stigma 15: Why do I hear boss music?

Stigma 15 upon meeting Misteln: Why do I hear boss music?

Misteln upon meeting Vita: Why do I hear boss music?

the start of salt snow arc is still unbelievably funny to me because you have this setup for a story about how humanity rebuilds their own home after transcending finality for the first time in history and also about the grey serpents, what it means for them to be a collective vs an individual and what is the cost of independence. but then a wild misteln appears and the arc takes a sharp turn into a completely different direction. the grey serpent storyline is never touched on again