#aged badly

[redsrandomrants]

Let Me Tell You Why Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Has Aged Badly

With the current writing strike going on I remembered how good this was and hoped this strike will produce a sequel but… man, this aged badly. When I was a teenager and I first saw it I loved it, I loved that dichotomy and harmony of My Eyes and I thought Billy was sympathetic and his fall tragic. Um yeah, that’s not the case anymore. 

Billy gives off major incel vibes. He stalks this girl, doesn’t know a thing about her, and the things he finds out he doesn’t like but lies to her and pretends he does literally to get in her pants. He scoffs at the things she's passionate about, creeps on her dates with Hammer, says the actual line “Penny doesn’t seem to care that soon the dark in me is all that will remain” as if it’s Penny’s concern what he does with his life. She doesn’t even know him; she bumped on him on the street once, he was a dismissive ass about her petition, and that’s it. They’ve had ONE conversation that lasted two minutes, and she’s supposed to care about this rude stranger? What I thought as a teen was really cool about their duet I now see as a woman living her best life and some creep trying to claim ownership of her. 

The emotional core of the story is the connection between Penny and Billy, and it’s just done very poorly. Why does he care about her? He doesn’t know her. She looks pretty and that’s it. Penny is the epitome of woman in the fridge trope, just someone who’s there for the men to fight over and dies to further a man’s development. What pushed Billy to murder is not that Hammer was treating Penny badly (he wasn’t) but that he’s gonna have sex with her and “take” what Billy wants. Forget the fact that Penny might want to sleep with the guy, what do the thoughts and feelings of the object matter, am I right. It’s not that Billy is sad Penny has feelings for Hammer and not him, no, no. It’s that she will be claimed by someone else, how dare we think it might be about Penny and what she feels.  In addition to that, the framing of Hammer is that he’s only doing the hero thing about the attention and he doesn’t really care, but does he? Sure he taunts Billy in the laundromat, but he didn’t date Penny just to spite him -- he started dating her before he knew that that they knew each other. Penny is “not his usual, but nice”, he discards the cue cards he could have easily just read from and talks about how Penny is helping him flex “the deltoids of compassion and the abs of being kind”. If we must have a story about a woman being emotional support and making a man better, why can’t it be about a guy who is already doing good for the wrong reasons and she helps him be a more fundamentally compassionate person? Why must it be about the incel who wants anarchy without even knowing what that is? “Anarchy! That I run! It's Dr. Horrible's turn!” — that’s not how that works, Billy.

The music is great, and all the actors are so charming, and I really think the third act works in isolation, but the relationships in the first and second are too toxic to build a good foundation to that. Maybe instead of Billy having a song about how he’s obsessing over a girl he’s never met, it could have been about this girl he does know and what he actually likes about her? Maybe instead of getting mad that Hammer is taking something that “he wants” he gets mad that Hammer is abusing her? Or like just any legit reason to get mad that’s about her and not his own feelings of inadequacy? Maybe instead of him lamenting that “Penny doesn’t seem to care” about a guy she doesn’t know, he laments how she seems to be falling for Hammer’s lies while he, let’s say, checks out other women on their dates? 

I know this was made in 2008 but man. It could really use a rewrite to make the core relationships a little stronger. 

[captainpirateface]

R.I.P. Forever bud.

[lgbtlunaverse]

There's a version of the "don't go grocery shopping while hungry" rule specifically for writers where you should never under any circumstances be allowed to touch your draft within 3 hours of reading a really good story. Because sometimes when you read something great your head goes "fuck this is so much better than my stuff I should make that more like THIS instead!" Look at me. That's the devil talking and you should close the document NOW.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

i love the DLC man

[sgrimp]

stall him huh

[maripolifan]

If MHA was just a little sillier...

The biggest question left in the series unanswered (so far)... 

Who is Hisashi Midoriya? Who IS Izuku's father????

Ik I'm playing Russian roulette rn with how things are going in the manga lmao

Note:

Endeavor is here because Izuku being his secret love child is an actually funny theory (to me)

All Might is here because he's def hitting that

AFO thinks he's the top dog, but he is, at most, a clown

Mystery guy. Ignore him. Maybe he got lost on his way to the restroom?

[timethehobo]

Emmy being self-conscious of his age, and maybe even about how he looks. 🥺 Rook loves him anyway.

[lillotte17]

I have been in the solavellan fandom for...A While. (do not count the years, i beg) and everyone has their tropes and themes re: wolves/halla and hunter/prey and the New Herald being worshiped/the Old God nearly forgotten, and tbh I like bits and pieces of all of them, but like...

For me, the most compelling story is that Lavellan is just Some Guy (gn).

They meet Solas and accept that he is like them. He's an elf. One of The People. You are like me. I am like you. We are The Same People. And because of that, I will protect you with whatever power the humans around us have given me, because I know this is not the safest place for either of us.

And it just fucking... gets him, right? Because that's his whole deal. The world is broken because the people aren't People. He's not like them. They're not like him.

I just love the idea that this impossibly old, incredibly powerful sort-of-god, trips into a hole and nearly throws his entire game away because a regular person (albeit one who was thrust into extraordinary circumstances) decided to be kind. Offered him protection and friendship. Asked him to tell them stories. Grieved with him when he lost one of his oldest friends.

He could not deny that they were a person, because they treated him like a person.

I love how ordinary that is. How simple. How devastating.

'You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't.'

[fangsandfeels]

Playing Veilguard and making it everyone's problem

I am going to rant, and I will rant a lot, and there will be spoilers, so if you're not afraid of them and the game criticism, buckle up.

Elves and their gods

I am absolutely fucking livid about how Veilguard handles the Dalish and elves in general. The events of Trespasser made it clear that the elves started flocking over to Solas, including the elves working for the Inquisition:

After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned.

Solas had multiple spies working for him during Trespasser, and If I remember correctly, there was even a note, left by one of the elves - they were anticipating the great change and the return of the elven glory. Anyways, the established fact is that: elves learned that the stories about their gods were true and one of them now was going to restore the world as it used to be. At least, this is how they interpreted it (maybe, this is the version Solas didn't debunk) and so they started following him.

You might think, the Inquisitor and their allies are going to have a huge problem with breaking it to elves that their chosen leader isn't going to make things better and that their gods don't love them. Especially, if the Inquisitor is a human or anyone who isn't an elf. You'd imagine any attempts will end in failure because of course elves aren't going to listen to outsiders trying to explain their own culture and gods to them. You'd imagine that their trauma caused by centuries of oppression and discrimination will make it impossible for the Inquisitor and anyone else to make them see the truth.

You'd assume anyone who tries to find and stop Solas will be sabotaged every step of the way, feeling themselves horrible for having to clash with people desperate for a chance of a life without injustice - even if it means burning the rest of the world down.

You'd imagine that they will only change their mind if/when they see the harm done by Solas' actions and get to witness their gods true intentions by themselves - which would lead to a massive crisis of faith and schisms happening between elven tribes and groups.

You'd imagine will get all this incredible drama in the Veilguard, with elves initially resisting the group's attempts to stop Solas, then trying to pull themselves together after the revelation. You'd assume there will be zealous groups doubting Solas (because the Dreadwolf is a liar and a deceiver) and intending to use him to actually free the elven gods. You'd think this is how actually some of them get out.

But, NOPE. Not only Solas ends up working alone, with none of his followers throwing themselves at Rook and the party to buy him time, but also all elves now hate Solas because...Varric said so?

You meet a group of Veil Jumpers (elves devoted to exploring their ancient culture and history, learning more about their gods and reclaiming their heritage) and their leader instantly calls Solas an asshole. Based on WHAT?

I get it, Varric had met them before and told them that Solas was Fen'Harel...

(needless to say if you expect players to find and read other media in order to make sense of the events in the game, you are doing something wrong)

...but why were they so fucking calm about it, instantly eating up the "yep, he's bad" version? Even if the Dread Wolf is vilified in the Dalish mythology, wouldn't they be curious about what that means? Wouldn't they have gotten tempted or excited by the implication that other gods exist too? They weren't told the full story - why the fuck did they instantly accept the "Solas is an asshole" narrative? Especially when Solas comes with a promise of a world for the elves like it was meant to be?

WHY?

The Veilguard has no response for that. I guess, Dalish never cared about their history and traditions, and city elves were dandy about Alienages and oppression, so they easily believed some randos over a literal god promising a new, better world.

I don't even play Dalish, but I love their plotline and arcs - and I was bracing myself for some downright painful choices and conflicts during the next Dragon Age. But it felt like the writers couldn't be bothered with developing such a nuanced narrative, so they just waved it all down with "Nah, elves are chill now and they never really cared about their gods in the first place".

[elfcollector]

Don't leave me alone. Please...please take me home... — Okay, Shianni. Okay. Let's go home.

[shittyutmv]

why did he use the dt twice? is he stupid? geno and after by loverofpiggies id below

[ID: a rough drawing of geno sans quoting a tumblr post by @\n1ntendos. "I AM HAUNTED BY A PAST I CANNOT GO BACK TO !!!!!!" he screams, before immediately turning back and saying "anyways." After (the other 8/9ths) is visible in the background saying, "can you stop doing that in public." End ID.]

[archonfurina]

The Hinterlands

[captainpirateface]

Oh boy... 😳

That didn't age well.

[chalkrub]

svanhildr my beloved returns

[apollos-boyfriend]

psychological torture smp strikes again by having an unfathomable shapeshifting monster disguise itself as a man’s dead daughter on his BIRTHDAY

[kats-chaotic-wonderland]

*Slams book on desk*

You!

*Pointing at everyone in the Warhammer fandom*

I've got a bone to pick with all of y'all! How come the fandom representation of Fulgrim is so damn empty compared to his actual novel depiction!? Why did no one tell me about all the people on his damn ship pre heresy?!?!?

All anyone ever talks about with Fulgrim is the hee hoo slaanesh primearch, or the smug artist boy. But no one has mentioned that the first description of his eyes is that they're friendly. Or that he's introduced in his horus heresy novel by walking in and gently asking a wonderful musician to continue her concert after a noble disrespected her. I know about all the creepy and horrible shit. But why did none of you ever mention he's absolutely sweet?!?!?

*takes a deep breath*

Anywho, I'm reading Fulgrim visions of treachery, it's pretty good.

....

....

How dare none of you mention Ostian, Serena, or Bequa! Those three goobers are exactly what I wanted in a Warhammer novel and they deserve more attention!