#also like you mean to tell me her whole character arc was for death? feels very god forbid women do anything

[stealingpotatoes]

EVERYONE GREAT NEWS REWRITE ANON RETURNED AND BLESSED US W MORE! i'll copy & paste the rest of the asks under the cut ⬇️ it's pretty long but worth the read (ive left my own notes in pink)

[continued from screenshot] We didn’t come up with a new name for Kylo Ren/Ben Solo but we did come up with a new arc and I put him in a traditional Alderaanian cape in the concept art sketches because he deserves to be an Organa (potes notes: YES!!!). I also gave him a lightning scar instead of a lightsaber scar because it made a bit more sense.

Our general plan was that yes, he’s still evil, at least a bit. His parents and uncle are awe-inspiring war heroes as well as being incredibly busy making sure the entire Galaxy doesn’t collapse in on itself in the power vacuum left behind by the Empire. Luke is part of a humanitarian aid/Geneva Convention type wing of the New Republic and Kylo finds himself both feeling like he lacks the means to prove himself and like they’re not doing enough to squash the threat of insurgence - which is still a clear threat and there have been multiple attempts on his mother’s life that have left the family scared. He absorbs certain parts of his mother and father’s political conduct; Leia’s willingness to fight for what’s right and Han’s general impulsiveness.

Anyway keep that in mind. He makes a stupid bid to try and prove himself by trying to fight off a whole imperial remnant cell alone “Just like the Jedi used to do.” and ends up going completely missing. Tl/dr: he’s super close to death and the big bad of the movie steps in to save him, teaching him what he always wanted to learn - how to fight and defend the people you love rather than focusing on connection to the force. Kylo doesn’t see the significance of that side of things, both because his parents don’t have an interest in it and because he’s grown up with tales of the daring exploits of Master Luke taking on ten people at once and chopping robots to bits. He just wants to make people proud of him. (OHHH THIS IS SO GOOD SO SO MUCH BETTER)

He’s pretty young when this happens too, and eventually his mind is twisted to believe that the only way to keep everyone safe is dictatorship. He’s grown up in a long, slow, difficult democracy with constant political unrest and everyone’s described how powerful and stable the Empire was his whole life - doesn’t matter that they were talking about how cool it was that they beat it. He still absorbed all that. (THIS IS SUCH A GOOD CHARACTER MOTIVATION and also great setup for themes/discussions on radicalisation and its like poetry it rhymes w anakin's fall omg)

Anyway, flash forward to the time of the films. He’s not a Sith, he can’t manage to push himself that far into the dark side. But he wants to be. He’s got a complex about it, he’s obsessed with getting stronger because then maybe they’ll be proud of me. He loses his first fight with Rey, not because she’s strong in the force at this point, but because he’s trained himself to the point of exhaustion after being reprimanded for a minor failure in interrogating Poe. He can barely move and he’s on the verge of fainting when they corner him in fact. He’s practically addicted to the pain of overtraining himself because that pain is what connects him to the dark side. (GOOD FIX!! 10/10 writing omg)

When Rey actually becomes a more formidable opponent in the force, he asks her “Who trained you?” and she tells him it was Han, not knowing the blow this is going to strike. This gets in his head. Badly. Han never understood the force when he was a kid, and was still not the best at being emotionally vulnerable (he was a great dad! But he was still the man who said “I know.” to “I love you.” (oop yep ok see ur point LOL)). Kylo isn’t to know that Han was FORCED to overcome this stuff through a brief stay in absolute hell. He asks what she can possibly have that he doesn’t, how is she better than him? And when he lashes out at Rey, telling her about the Han he knew, she doesn’t believe him and calls him a liar and a terrible son. This fight (which takes place on water) ends up with Rey almost drowning as Kylo throws a massive force tantrum, and Kylo having a breakdown under the sea in a force air bubble after the fight is over.

I think I’ll do a couple more asks because this one has been super long! I’m sorry if this was a chore to read I just thought I’d share if you liked the last one hah.

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Rewrite anon again! I’m sorry if this is getting tedious!

We had a general plan for Kylo Ren’s redemption where Rey would be in danger of falling to the dark side by the end of the second film (IM LISTENING), and Kylo would already be on the path to questioning things after some hard hitting blows

Death of Luke (his master) (;-;)

Rey was trained by and kind of adopted by Han and has become the galaxy’s beacon of hope. Maybe it is all on him. And she loves Han so much that it’s hard for his new master to twist the facts on him anymore.

The third film would be a fucked up family reunion type bit where Kylo begs for forgiveness and him and Han set off to try and save Rey together. (YESSSSSSS!!! omg this is everything to me holy shit)

Thanks for the listen! I hope these aren’t too annoying. (IM LOVING IT)

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Rewrite anon again (sorry). Wanted to mention Leia, Poe and Finn.

Leia is dealing with a massive insurgence threat which is why she sends Rey (galaxy’s last hope) away with Han (good at hiding. Also the only person she could both trust and spare).

Finn and Poe both comment a lot on how Rey’s galactic significance makes her blind to people’s lives. The New Order might keep her alive because she’s valuable, and Kylo might listen to her, but Finn and Poe are both canon fodder to both Kylo and the New Order. Hierarchy of lives and all that. (oooo yes that'd be such a fun like... counterpoint to the whole Skywalker Saga & fate-destiny-soap-opera)

Poe used to be a fighter pilot but is now more of a political leader and provides a necessary voice in the senate to backwater outer rim planets. He’s Leia’s political mentor (i assume you meant mentee/student?) with none of her royal manners and all of her intensity.

Finn isn’t exactly a clone, but he is grown in a lab. He’s more of a super-soldier than a clone, designed at the genetic level to be basically eugenics’ perfect man. (puts on my CATWS stan hat im listening) He becomes a field agent/espionage/sabotage type guy after defecting from the New Order because he doesn’t want to be involved in active combat any more, even though it’s hardwired into him and he has to fight it the whole way. Luke takes a liking to Finn before his death and teaches him about the importance of forging your own identity first before you start to think about where you’ve come from.

Hope you like the ideas lol we had a lot.

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Final (?) ask from rewrite anon maybe. It’s about Han because we did kinda just make the Han movies I realise.

Han saves Rey from pirates after she finally cheats herself offworld for the first time and finds herself overwhelmed. After losing Kylo to the New Order he has long since realised his shortcomings in parenting and while he works up the courage to reach out to his son, he uses Rey kind of like a do-over child. (...healthy!)

Han ends up stuck with Rey after Luke’s death and with Leia pinned down on all sides, and as well as trying to give her super DIY teaching, he realises she can talk to Luke. Understandably this hits him like a truck while he’s grieving his friend, and him and Luke have a kind of Haymitch and Katniss communicating-without-communicating relationship. Han can’t see or hear Luke, but he knows when Luke’s trying to use timing to tell him something. (AGH I LOVE THISSSSSSSSSSS YES using a THG comparison makes me love it even more)

Han also survives until the end of the films. Harrison Ford would hate me for this he wants that guy to die so bad but no the smuggler from the fuck end of nowhere with no cosmic significance, no nothing, just the power of love and a gun makes it to the end. The survivor’s guilt is insane. (ohh LOVE THATTT!!! ESPECIALLY W UR EARLIER THING OF FINN N POE SEEING THEMSELVES AS CANON FODDER WITHOUT A GALACTIC DESTINY)

Hope you enjoyed reading these and that they weren’t too much of a bore. Maybe I’ll write some of this stuff down if people like it. (EVERYONE TELL ANON HOW MUCH YOU LIKE THIS RIGHT NOW)

---------------------------------------------------------

Rewrite anon again (sorry)

Rey does of course lose her hand (fair, as is tradition) and she replaces it with a shitload of gadgets massively egged on by Han and Chewie. I think she’d have a special glove for it kind of like the equalist gloves in LOK. (SICK!)

Would also be great to have a ‘jedi’ protagonist who is even less aware of standard practice than Luke and will try definitely illegal moves like changing the length of the blade mid fight or kicking sand in your opponent’s eyes. (LMAO amazing omg)

---------------------------------------- (that was the last ask)

Me and my friend had some fun trying to rewrite the sequel trilogy a while ago and I think the best idea we had was Luke dies and Han and Rey get stranded on some nowhere planet where he has to haphazardly attempt to teach her years of jedi training in like a week entirely by reading out of Luke’s notes (somehow even worse than Luke’s extremely DIY training in the OT).

This isn’t at all based on the ‘Han has the force’ theory it’s literally just crabby atheist old man Han Solo and his dead best friend’s religious texts that are totally useless to him vs the world.

i LOVE that, disney needs to get you two rewriting the sequels STAT

(commission info // tip jar!)

[jonathanbyersphd]

Anyways, if they kill Nancy I will consider that a GoT level of bad ending

[anneapocalypse]

On Wuk Lamat, and Female Characters in FFXIV

The Thing with Wuk Lamat is you can tell me you think she had too much screentime; you can give me numbers on how many lines she had or how many scenes she's in relative to other characters or other expacs; you can prove to me "objectively" that she gets more focus than other main NPCs; you're simply not going to convince me that this is something I should be unhappy about. And not just because it's silly to think you can use numbers to prove a story is good or bad and make someone else go, "Wow, you're right, let me just throw away all the joy I experienced with this story and revise my opinion because you've scientifically proven to me that I'm wrong."

Because while I love Final Fantasy XIV and I have greatly enjoyed its story in so many ways, fundamentally one of my biggest beefs with this game has been how much female characters have been denied complex character arcs and growth and agency and interiority.

Minfilia gets treated as a sacrificial vessel who lives for everyone but herself and doesn't even get to have feelings about her own death because that entire arc is focused on a male character's angst about it instead. The game tells us in the Heavensward patches that Krile sees Minfilia as her best friend and then just forgets about that later and never follows up on what that loss must have meant to her. Ysayle is basically right about most of what she's fighting for but harboring a bit of self-delusion is apparently such a terrible sin that she has to pay for it with her life, while her male foil is deemed so worthy of salvation that there's a whole plot point about how important it is that we risk our lives and others' lives to save him. Y'shtola is a major character who's been around since the beginning, and the game keeps dropping maddeningly interesting things about her (apprenticed to a cranky old witch in a cave! saved her own life and the lives of her friends with an illegal and dangerous spell and it worked! reserved and undemonstrative yet regularly through her actions reveals herself to be deeply caring! disabled!) and then shows complete disinterest in following up on any of those things with the kind of depth and care shown to male characters with complex arcs like Urianger.

In general there is also a repeated thread of female characters being portrayed as weak or overly emotional: Minfilia is weak because she doesn't fight and needs to be eaten by a god in order to gain "a strength long sought." Krile is portrayed as not being able to pull her weight with the Scions (despite the fact that she actively keeps five of them from dying in Shadowbringers) and the only thing they could think of for her to do in Endwalker was be yet another vessel for Hydaelyn (hmm, that sounds familiar) and it's not until Dawntrail that she gets much actual character development in the main story and even that has to come alongside "Look, she can fight now so that means she's useful." (And I love Picto!Krile, I'm just saying, there's a pattern.) Alisaie, despite having very good reasons for needing to find her own path apart from her brother, is portrayed as having to prove herself when she returns, that she's "not the girl she once was," and "will not be a burden" (while Alphinaud is repeatedly given the benefit of the doubt and reassurance and affirmation from other characters even after he takes on responsibilities he isn't ready for and fucks up big time).

And if you follow me you know I adore Urianger, and I love Alphinaud and Thancred and Estinien too, so please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here! I'm not knocking those characters, or saying we shouldn't also love them. I just use them as a comparison to demonstrate how the female characters have been neglected.

Lyse has some of the stronger character development among the female Scions, and while she's still kind of portrayed as being too emotional and hotheaded in early Stormblood, I think it's actually explored in more depth in a way that I like; Lyse has good reasons for wanting to fight for her nation's freedom, but having been away from Ala Mhigo for several years now, she needs to understand the stakes for the people who've been there fighting for years, what they've lost and still have to lose. She grows as a person and rises to the challenge of leadership, and I'm even okay with the fact that she leaves the Scions afterward because it feels right for her to stay in Ala Mhigo, and at least she doesn't die.

And by all accounts she was, like Wuk Lamat, widely hated when her expansion came out.

Unironically I think the other female Scion with the strongest character arc is Tataru. She tries to take up a combat job, finds that it's not for her, and decides to focus on where her strengths are instead. In doing so, she both holds the Scions together as an organization in the absence of a leader by capably managing their finances, and also comes into her own as a businesswoman and makes international connections that benefit both the Scions and her personally. In contrast to Minfilia, she's not portrayed as weak because she doesn't fight, and is actually allowed to be an important character who's good for more than being sacrificed. Tataru is still distinctly in a supporting role for the player character, however, and her character arc happens as a side story that takes up a relatively small amount of screentime over several expansions, which I think is probably why she doesn't evoke such a negative reaction.

But there is a pattern of the game's writing showing disinterest in the interior lives of female characters generally, and in making their growth the focus of a story.

So yeah, I'm going to be happy about Wuk Lamat! I'm going to enjoy and celebrate every moment of her character arc, of her personal growth, of watching her put the lessons she's learned into action. I'm going to love and treasure every moment when she gets to be silly, embarrassing, emotional, scared, grieving, confused, upset, seasick, impulsive, and still deemed worthy of growing into a hero and a leader. I will love her with all of my soul and you simply will not convince me that it wasn't worth the screentime after such a profound imbalance for basically the entirety of the game. We've never had a major female character get such a strong arc with this much love and attention put into it and that means more to me than I can truly say. The backlash to it is disheartening, as this kind of thing always is, but I'm not going to let it ruin the wonderful experience I had playing it and how much joy it continues to bring me.

And for those of you who don't want any of that for a female character, thank goodness you have Heavensward and Shadowbringers and Endwalker and no one can take those away from you.

(And if you follow me you know that I love Shadowbringers and Endwalker and have very fond memories of Heavensward despite some issues with it, so not only can I not take that from you, I am not trying to!)

Some of us have been real hungry for a character like this with an arc like this, so, I think, y'know, maybe we can have that. As a treat.

[iamnmbr3]

jk rowling: ok let's create a scene in which ginny is talked even by slytherins and that can be a build up for hinny. Such a hinny scene!!

Also jk rowling: ends up writing a drarry scene in which not only harry feels uncomfortable watching pansy stroking draco's hair, BUT ALSO DRACO SAYS GINNY IS NOT SPECIAL(can we talk about this??????!) *giggles*

I hate how suddenly in book 6 random characters who have no reason to say good things about her are suddenly acting like she's the Bestest Ever TM in order to tell the readers to like her - which really shows how weak as a character she is (in the later books - I think pre book 6 she was actually a good character).

We don't need all the Slytherins to go on and on about how awesome Hermione or Neville are. We don't need the Death Eaters to stage a conversation where they're all like 'dang! that Luna Lovegood sure is quirky and fun but also super good hearted and insightful and totally awesome!" or Arthur and Molly to be like 'you know that Snape sure is interesting and morally ambiguous. And don't even get me started on Voldemort - say what you will about the man, but he's got charisma! And what a fascinating backstory!" That would be ridiculous. And unnecessary. Because all those characters can stand on their own. Ginny can't and JKR over-compensates by trying to have other characters tell us how great she is but that actually just undermines her.

Which is a shame. Because Ginny had a ton of potential and I liked her way more in book 5 (and the previous books) when she actually had an arc and JKR wasn't flattening her out and trying to push her as the Love Interest TM at the expense of her character.

And yeah that whole scene is accidentally such drarry fodder. Here's the relevant passage.

I mean, Pansy mentions that people like Ginny and immediately looks at Draco but she can't be worried about Draco liking Ginny because Draco has literally just dismissed her. In fact, it's Blaise that she seems to be more worried about. And as soon as Blaise insults Ginny Pansy relaxes and looks happy. (So does Draco, incidentally). So Pansy looking at Draco seems more like she knows he might care about boys liking Ginny...boys like Harry Potter for example. Pansy's been hanging around with Draco for 5 years by this point. She's definitely noticed how he is about Harry. And yeah I know she's stroking Draco's hair but they don't seem to actually be dating. I think that's just Harry projecting.

And we know if they actually got together ever Harry would've mentioned it. So clearly Draco at least wasn't interested. And Pansy does end up marrying Blaise. So I read this scene as Pansy crushing on Blaise, Draco possibly lowkey crushing on Blaise and highkey crushing on Harry and also being super jealous of Ginny (bc he immediately clocked her fancying Harry...and Collin Creevey too tbh - just like Harry clocks everyone who even looks at Draco lol) and Pansy knowing it.

AND THEN after all this we get Harry hating on Pansy for looking like she's enjoying stroking Draco's hair followed by him getting hit directly on the head by a piece of luggage because he got distracted by the sight of Draco changing. And THEN he ends up immobilized and alone, entirely at Draco's mercy, while believing Draco to be a Death Eater (and being correct!) and he doesn't even feel worried that Draco will hurt him or hand him over to Voldemort...and he's right, because Draco doesn't. Absolutely wild. Book 6 is the drarry fic of all time. JKR did not intend or want it to be. But it is.

[coraniaid]

Buffy Summers is my favorite character on Buffy and (with a couple of exceptions that I prefer to put down to bad writing) I will always find her sympathetic, but. The only reading of the second half of Season 7 that makes any sense to me at all is that we are supposed to think Buffy is doing a pretty bad job of taking care of the Potentials, and that this is why they all end up choosing to gamble on Faith's leadership instead of hers. Like, yes, obviously Empty Places is a badly written episode and the central conflict isn't motivated very well and Dawn kicking Buffy out of her own house is absurd.

But I mean ... look, let's just pick a few of Buffy's inspiring speeches at random, shall we?

From Showtime, in which Buffy 'inspires' the Potentials by ... uh, fighting a powerful vampire while reminding them all how much stronger than them she is:

"Looks good [for the Turok-Han Buffy's about to fight], doesn't it? [The Potentials] are trapped in here. Terrified [...] and there's nothing they can do but wait. That's all they've been doing for days. Waiting to be picked off. Having nightmares about monsters that can't be killed. But I don't believe in that. I always find a way. I'm the thing that monsters have nightmares about. And right now, you and me are gonna show 'em why."

Or from Potential, the very next episode, when Buffy follows that up by telling the Potentials over and over again how likely they are to die:

"You’re all going to die. But you knew that already because that’s the cool reward for being human. […] Don’t kid yourselves, you guys. This whole thing is all about death. You think you’re different because you might be the next Slayer? Death is what a Slayer breathes, what a Slayer dreams about when she sleeps. Death is what a Slayer lives. […] The odds are against us. Time is against us. And some of us will die in this battle."

And from Get It Done, speaking after they just found out that a young Potential called Chloe killed herself:

"Anyone want to say a few words about Chloe? Let me. Chloe was an idiot. Chloe was stupid. She was weak. And anyone in a rush to be the next dead body I bury, it's easy. Just…think of Chloe, and do what she did. […] I'm the slayer. The one with the power. […] I've been carrying you - all of you - too far, too long. Ride's over."

See also, Buffy's speech in Selfless ("there's just me ... I am the law".) See also her admission in Conversations With Dead People that she thinks she's better than all the guys she's ever dated.

To me, it feels obvious that the intended arc of this season, however imperfectly executed, is that Buffy has a sense of herself as uniquely and especially "the one with the power'", but that she's never had any real leadership or mentorship role before and she doesn't know how to use that power to look after all of the Potentials. That she's afraid she won't be able to protect them all and so doesn't want to make emotional connections with them and tells herself (and them) over and over that some of them are going to die no matter what and they just have to accept that. That she tries to keep them at arm's length and hide how badly their deaths actually do affect her, and that she adopts a protective tough-love approach which backfires spectacularly. And that eventually she realizes this approach isn't working and that she should be trying to share her power with them instead of using it to tell them what to do.

And yet so many people on here seem to think that when the Potentials get (understandably) upset about this -- upset about being called weak and stupid by a woman who barely seems to know their names and can't seem to stop reminding them that she has power and that they don't -- that we're meant to think "oh, they are all so ungrateful and unpleasant and Buffy is a saint for taking such good care of them anyway". That her "arc" this season is that she is perfect and doesn't need to learn anything and doesn't have to change in any way, all while people keep giving her shit for literally no reason.

And I just don't see how that makes sense! I just don't find it an interesting narrative and I don't really see how the show itself supports it. The Buffy Summers who gives the speeches I quoted above wouldn't think of sharing her power with others. That's an idea she only comes to when she realizes that being "the thing that monsters have nightmares about" is no substitute for being a good leader and making real connections with other people.

[shadowed-dancer]

Villains and Their Fates - A Tragedy Would Have Been Fine By Me

I've seen a lot of people who try to write off frustration with the league's fates by saying "you just wanted them to survive" or "you're just upset your favourite character died". And while that may be true for a few people, I know that it's at least not true for myself (which must mean there are others who feel the same way). So today I'm here to share my thoughts. Despite liking the villains and wanting them to be redeemed, I was also willing to accept a well written ending if they died. I just wanted to ramble a bit about the three main villains (mostly Toga) and how I felt a tragic ending could have been improved.

The only villain I felt should have lived is Dabi, but that's more because of the awkwardness his unconfirmed death caused for Shoto (read this beautifully written analysis for more). If Dabi had to die, he should have died on the battle field OR in the hospital surrounded by family where he gets a few last words in. Leaving his fate unconfirmed leads to the ruined Shoto arc, but is also just weird for a character who has existed for so long. You're telling me that even Overhaul gets a confirmed ending but DABI doesn't?

I've also talked a bit about how Endeavor's survival ruins the subplot, and in 426 he continues by making Touya's final appearance about him (rather than the two brothers) but that's something I've talked about too much. If Endeavor has to be alive and hogging screen time, the least Hori could do is imply Touya will survive rather than die, so at least Enji isn't literally stealing time from his other family members to have some interaction with Touya.

If Touya has to end up in that machine, an ideal ending would have been the doctor saying "it will be a gruelling and near-impossible uphill climb to recovery" and then Shoto can smile and say "he's done it before". Boom. Simple as that. Leave it open, but at least on a positive note so we can assume that the family will have plenty of time to reconcile, as opposed to an unknown (but limited) amount of time that Enji vows to use to talk to him (yeah I know it's supposed to be a sweet gesture but even Touya calls bullshit on it). Let Shoto and Touya eat their soba, damn it!

For Shigaraki, my grievances extend to the writing of the entire final battle between him and Deku. As such, I don't have much to say aside from that because it really is just a product of poor writing. Neither were really allowed to talk before the big moment (hell, the vestiges were narrating Deku's emotions half the time like "he must be upset, this quirk meant so much to him". Why not let him tell us???) and the back-and-forth of Shigaraki being destroyed and then not only to be destroyed again was too much. It felt sloppy and hard to follow, and once you figured it out it just felt dumb. It's as if each chapter needed some massive reveal, but the story had done it so much at this point that it just felt tired and like it was happening "because Hori said so", and that should never be what drives a story.

Speaking of "because Hori said so"...

Oh Toga. Out of all the villains, I actually liked her confrontation the most. (Lies. If Dabi vs Shoto was the end of Dabi's fight, THAT would have been the best. But the Endeavor fight ruins it). Despite having limited screen time, Toga and Uraraka had a surprisingly well-built dynamic. Their few interactions were actually meaningful and created a strong foundation for a fight, and at the very least they had more of a personal connection than Deku and Shigaraki ever did. I think that Toga giving her blood to someone she loves (as opposed to drinking/taking their blood like she had said the whole series) is a beautifully tragic end to her character, but still something that could have fit.

To me, the problem comes with how she died. Let me replay the scene for you: Toga stabs Uraraka in the stomach and Uraraka bleeds too much because she keeps moving around. Toga then realizes she doesn't want Uraraka to die. To save her life, Toga has to do a blood transfusion with herself as a donor and she dies because she has to give ALL her blood.

Now... sure. Ok. Fine. Yeah. Maybe by real-world logic this makes sense. I guess. Whatever. But within the world of MHA, this setup is laughable.

Here's a list of things characters survived (or at least, they survived LONG ENOUGH to get to a hospital rather than dying on the battlefield): Deku shattering his bones with 1 million percent, whatever happened to Best Jeanist when AFO attacked him, Nighteye getting a massive spike through the torso, All Might with "his entrails strewn across the ground", Bakugo becoming Swiss cheese, Grand Torino being punched so hard a crater forms beneath him, Touya being a literal flaming skeleton, Bakugo's heart exploding, Edgeshot becoming a worm. Mirko getting a limb ripped off and then running full speed at Shigaraki. That's just off the top of my head, I know there's probably more.

But you want to tell me that Uraraka getting stabbed and then moving was a fatal wound that required ALL TOGA'S BLOOD? ALL OF IT? The reason Toga's death bothers me is that the setup cheapens the actual moment of sacrifice. It feels preventable, so when she tells us that Uraraka is going to die without her blood, all I could do is roll my eyes because I'm not allowed to use critical thinking skills, I have to just accept what Hori says and take it at face value.

If the author wants you to live as Edgeworm despite saying you were gonna die, you can. But if the author needs a stab wound to be fatal and require ALL of someone's blood? Well tough luck bud, that's just how it goes. Mirko can run and move all she wants after having a limb ripped off, but moving a bit after one stab wound is fatal. Why? Because I say so.

If Uraraka's wound was actually serious then this ending would have been a beautiful tragedy. But as it stands now, the ridiculousness of her wound makes it all feel preventable.

Oh, there's also the fact that Toga switching blood types when she transforms was never established, but I've rambled enough.

That's it. Thanks for reading!

[lollyposp]

okay im only slightly going insane right now about how MUCH i adore the way agatha is being portrayed in agatha all along. she's this awesome mix of horrible and sympathetic BUT not in the way that excuses everything she does. like, the other witches dislike her for good reason and even when agatha is nice to them or they realise she's got her own issues too like, that doesn't change what she's done in the past to get her reputation.

but ALSO it's so obvious that 90% or something of Agatha's personality is either a facade or an exaggeration of her bitterness because after everything we know of that's happened to her ("i can be good" "no you cannot", her son dying and rio's obvious involvement in that) it's like. how can she love. how can she trust when those she loved made her feel betrayed, or she lost them, or even both.

i think the first clue that a lot of her personality is a facade was the whole "just blast me" situation, because to me it felt like "well yeah Agatha's clearly nasty but how much of that is because she needs to annoy people into trying to kill her so she can grab their magic?" but I hadn't quite realised that there could be more to it than that

but episode 4 had SO MANY examples. i mean, Agatha's entire "no fucks given" attitude just fizzles out when the teen is dying and i feel like even the other witches picked up on it, like jen was clearly stunned by Agatha's grief as well as by Teen's condition. and then her sitting with Teen until he woke up, not even taking her eyes off him but as soon as he wakes up she pretends she just Happened to check on him Just as he woke up and that she didn't stay there the entire time.

and don't even GET ME STARTED on everything else. the scene at the fire where she very clearly struggled through having a positive interaction with the other witches?? and also the whole "she is my scar" but if i think too much about that i will actually go insane.

the scene that REALLY hasn't left my head all day is the scene where rio tells agatha that Teen isn't hers. ALL THE PROPS to kathryn hahn here she's an INCREDIBLE actress, but the way agatha just says NOTHING and slowly puts on a smile....😦 i was watching the episode with my housemates and the only thing i could say to them was "i literally saw the moment she put her act back on". because for all that agatha is so brash and loud, and no matter how much she might seek conflict with others, she runs away from all her emotional pain because it's too much for her to bear. because how do you even move on from the woman you loved being at least partly complicit in your son's death? whether agatha really DID trade him for the dark hold and regretted it immediately or whether the rumour IS just a rumour and nick and the dark hold aren't connected at all, RIO still is connected to either of those ideas.

(honestly as it stands right now im in whatever camp believes he WAS traded for the darkhold, but agatha somehow didn't realise he would be traded until after it was too late, because i feel like it's what explains her actions in WV and her hallucination the most. also it makes rio's actions all the more painful to agatha because it would have been a mistake she didn't mean to make, and rio would not budge even with that knowledge and OUCH. but that's neither here nor there)

honestly this whole incoherent essay was just to say that i love Agatha's character. i love that the question surrounding her isn't really "is she good or evil?" or even "can she be good?". i feel like it's clear there IS a good person in agatha but because she's ignored it for so long (some of that is probably due to the darkhold) the question kind of becomes "does it matter that she's got good inside her if she refuses to show it?". she's so firmly in the morally grey camp that while i do kind of want her to have a redemption arc and to have a whole found family thing go on, i honestly don't see it happening and i also at the same time DON'T want her to be redeemed when she's so interesting because she's this person who clearly has the capacity to be good and chooses not to out of pride and fear of being vulnerable and all the trauma she's accumulated.

oh i completely forgot to mention that im also obsessed with the sound booth scene???? i honestly can't figure out if she's just shit stirring when she projects her and rio's conversation for the fun of it, or if it's like a fucked up agatha way of trying to protect her new coven by giving them reasons to distrust rio and be wary of her, specifically because she thinks rio will betray her/betray them and reap them. I can't figure it out. it might even be both.

anyway live laugh love agatha

[deadliestgalaxy]

SPOILERS FOR GOTG VOL. 3 - DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED IT YET!

I have a feeling that everyone (who calls themselves fans) that didn't get the meaning of the ending in GOTG Vol. 3 has never read a single comic of them or is only a fan of some characters/relationships. Many complaints I've seen are about the end and Gamora and Peter’s romance, which sounds kind of childish. You don't need to agree with me, but I’d like to elaborate on that.

James Gunn's writing is always about the detail of things and he is not afraid to do something “bad” if it is the best for the STORYTELLING. This is what most of these people don't get: the most important part of these movies is the story they are telling. The characters help the movie tell the story, it's their story after all — but there's no protagonist or greater good that puts them above the narrative.

(This is different from Gamora’s death in IW btw. It was not the only way they had to make the story flow; they just wanted to “humanize” Thanos and by that, they chose to kill her character. It was an action ADDED not CRUCIAL to the story.)

Vol. 3 is about found-family and growing up; finishing cycles. They will always be family, as we will always be part of their story (that’s why we understand Groot now). However, life chapters end just like in real books, and these Guardians as a TEAM “chapter” has ended for them and for us.

This is very common in the comics. Most times they are all separated, doing solo missions, until something goes wrong and they reunite again. They never stop being friends, why would it be different in the movie universe?

But the end suggests they are not family anymore.

Did we see the same film? No, it doesn't. We can see that in James’ subtle writing: the way they all still respect each other, their understanding of one another, and how they all would die for themselves if needed. That won't change just because they are not physically together — just like when you finish school you won't ignore your best friends, even if you create new relationships (which you will).

But Gamora is not part of the family anymore.

Well, if you see it this way, I can't change your mind. What I can say is that the story IMPLIES that she still is, in fact. And the number one clue is that she (in 2 days) understands Groot. Remember, we also understand him because the fans are now part of the Guardians family — so understanding him and being family are correlated.

Anyhow, I know this is not enough for most people, so hear me out: Gamora’s arc is about respect and healing. She starts the movie skeptical about working with the guardians — she just wants the money— when in reality, she acts like this because she is AFRAID and feels PRESSURED to be around her “old” family.

Imagine: you died but then another version of you comes back without knowing anything of your present life. People will expect you to act in a certain way that maybe you started to act after you met them; they will expect you to like certain things you don't know of; people will EXPECT you to attend to their needs. It is a lot to swallow at once. You are afraid because you don't know them, you don't think you deserve all this love and commitment out of nowhere. So you run away. You run away to find things on your own, to grow out of this pressure you feel and discover the whole universe of possibilities you have ahead.

That's what Gamora did. But then, the mission went south and now she is stuck with her “old” team. The film shows us her character exploring the ship, listening to music... trying to understand them. At one point she even says to Rocket “You must be a very loyal pet for them to do all this for you” (or something similar). This is her way of putting into words how she visualizes the current scenario she was put in. Slowly she recognizes that they are a family, and by the way they act she finally gets how and why she also must have loved them in the past.

She goes from “I don't give a fuck”, not open to them, afraid and pressured to “I bet we were fun”, understanding and respecting them, even fighting for their family to survive.

(If she still didn't give a fuck she wouldn't have fought for them and with them when she could have just run away again.)

But she has already created new relations, so she goes back to those for now. It is what she is familiar with in this timeline. Does that mean she will never contact the guardians ever again? NO. Remember: James’s writing is about DETAILS, nuance. She is open to them again, and the final part of the movie shows this to us, especially her last interaction with Groot, Peter, and Nebula being friendly.

Oh, but Peter and Gamora will never be a couple again, their romance ended when she went back to the Ravengers.

… Again, if you see it this way I can’t change your mind. What I can confirm is that she doesn’t close herself to the team — especially to Peter — in the end.

When she says “I bet we were fun” it's the first time she acknowledges their former relationship without distancing herself from it. She could've said “I bet you were fun” or “I bet she was fun”, but instead she prefers to include herself with “we”. She pauses before letting go of Nowhere, stopping before entering her ship — what moves her forward is Nebula, who can see her sister’s changed attitude but still encourages her to take a step forward and go explore the galaxy, because she knows Gamora is not mature and ready yet for those feelings; just like she wasn't ready to be openly sentimental when Gamora joined the Guardians back in 2014.

And Peter is also not ready. Just like Gamora needs to find herself again and discover who she is, Peter needs too. He is lost without her after IW, we can see it during Holiday Special and in the beginning of Vol. 3 when he passes out because of alcohol abuse. Both don't know who they are in this new reality — and they will only find out with time. Time heals and reveals.

In the end, Peter doesn't have the same thought as in the begging: he doesn't want her to be who he once knew, he wants her as she is, this new version whom he still loves so much and wants to know more of. Although he wishes she could stay, he knows that she has her own time and while she learns about herself he will go do the same.

So yes, they’re not explicitly together as a couple in the final scene — neither they kiss nor make out, whatever you believe a relationship is made of — but they’ve changed and are open to one another. The last scene does not appear to me as an “I’ll never see you again”, but as a “Goodbye, see you soon”.

(Aside from all the small bits we had through the movie of a developing relationship between them; my favorite one being when Peter activates the auto-destruction code and Gamora smiles at him.)

Besides, you can't force anyone to fall in love in 48 hours!!

Yes, I also have some minor complaints about the story, but I can recognize that — with all the turbulence the characters and the production faced in the last few years — it was a satisfying end with a limited amount of time to a badass trilogy. The end is definitive but also open to future possibilities for all our favorite characters in their universe — some we might never see and it will only be to our imagination.

Again, you don't need to agree with me, but I had to do this, or else I would implode with thoughts. Thank you if read up here! My ask box is open if you want to talk more <3

[thesupernaturalhouse]

So I cant.....I can't anymore, Stolas fucking sucks

Season 2 as a whole sucks and gets rid of a lot of character depth that characters had in s1. But this post isn't about that-

I was recording clips for an edit, and you know in ep9 s2 when Stolas tells Blitz about "you couldn't be bothered to come save me"

Yeah.....Blitz TOLD him why he was unable to go and save him. He was even genuinely concerned and sent milly and moxxie in his place

You wanna know what Blitz said??

"Ah shit Stolas I can't today- I'm sorry I am literally on my way to take loona in for her very important hellvis S-H-O-T" and "it takes years to book it, it took 5 for me to get this one"

Aka, a rabies shot, which, racist will immediately kill you. You DON'T survive that once you get it and symptoms start showing up, it's a death sentence, and considering Loona is basically a sentient/anthropomorphic dog, if she catches it her survival rate is probably 0 percent

And you know what? Stolas gets it, and then in ep9, "the one who tried to kill em and you couldn't be BOTHERED to come help me"

Bitch he told you?? He sent people in his place?? He was getting his kid a really important shot?? Yiu selfish motherfu-

I hate this bird

I hate this fucking bird so much more now

This is just the finale straw for me that breaks the camels back tbh like......

Apology tour is just, Stolas and the narritive/writing basically gaslighting Blitz and its gross

I liked Stolitz and Stolas in s1, it wasnt a healthy relationship. The circumstances for both characters weren't super good, but it understood that and actually showed those flaws, It set up these characters future arcs

Season 2 is, frankly, a shit show. It has its moments, but ep1 ruined Stolas and Stolitz for me, and it just keeps on getting worse and it isn't even in a way of "Oh its rough, but they can bounce back

This is gaslighting. This is hypocrisy. This is guilt tripping. This is abuse.

Instead of building off of season 1 it is retconning it, it is destroying the continuity and timeline, it's making these characters so much worse then what they were

Instead of having Stolas face actual consequences for his actions the narritive is backtracking and going "Oh actually its not his fault" over and over again

Oh he cheated in the marriage? No worries Stella is a bitch so it's okay

Oh, he's neglecting his daughter despite them already having this arc? Oh, it's fine she just needs to cut him some slack

Oh he constantly belittled Blitz and made him uncomfortable in season 1? Actually it was all of Blitzs fault for misreading the signs of love!

He is constantly shown looking down and abusing other imps like his butler? Oh its fine, they aren't the main characters so what he does to them isn't important!!

Another thing is that Blitz tells Stolas how he feels. He points out his shitty actions. And what does Stolas do? He fucking cries like Blitz is being a big ol means for no reason

This trial is just going to further victimize him and make him seem in the right. The fact the sins might even be brought into it is also so fucking stupid.

The writing went from a 8 to a 1 with the characters. And it's only a 1 here because there are some good ideas in s2.

Their basically trying to cover up, retcon, Stolas's actions instead of having him deal with consequences and go through real development

Honestly the best ending for Stolitz would be Blitz realizing Stolas is toxic as fuck to him and just, not contacting him again. Stolas could get some real consequences in that trial and move on and become better in his own right

Butttt of course since Viv likes them so much it's gonna be dragged on for fucking seasons and then their gonna get together.

If I were to rewrite the season, I wouldn't even try to rewrite Stolitz.

[girl4music]

Those last 2 episodes. Appropriately titled ‘Heart Part 1’ and ‘Heart Part 2’ because my heart is so full. I have so much to say and have no idea where to start with it.

So much happened. Every lead character’s individual arc was thoroughly concluded in a very satisfying way. Even some of the recurring ones got an endgame so there’s a lot to cover in this recap of a fantastic finale and I feel so fulfilled on great storytelling and great representation packed into a neatly tied up ending.

MAJOR SPOILERS: do not read this if you have not seen the finale of ‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’.

I guess I’ll start with Shadow Weaver because she had an endgame that I had predicted. Well, sort of. I said that Shadow Weaver’s arc can only go in 1 of 2 ways. I said it was either personal attainment (villainy) or personal sacrifice (heroism). So I wasn’t surprised when it was the latter. But I wasn’t able to trust in her going that way sincerely until she started attacking that monster, told Catra that she was proud of her, took off her mask and then told them both ‘you’re welcome’. I couldn’t trust that she was sincerely helping them to achieve releasing and channelling the Heart of Etheria’s magic… which by the way, is what almost brought them to the brink of destruction the first time they tried to do it. However, I understood that because She-Ra was the conduit for that, that it could have a different outcome. Still destructive but destructive only to the opposition. I think anyway. I might have to rewatch that part again because I don’t think I fully understood what was going on there. But yes, Shadow Weaver went out in a heroes death rather than was the cause of her own demise out of hunger for power and a desire to attain the magic of the Heart Of Etheria for selfish aim. I was happy with it.

Glimmer and Bow: I decided to talk about these 2 lead characters together since part of their arc involves each other. It was no surprise to me that they would declare their love for each other. I mean Glimmer has always had a crush on Bow and they’ve been the very best of friends since they were children. I wasn’t sure about Bow at first but I knew intense romantic feelings would develop and I’m glad it was Glimmer who said it first. I am a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a kiss on the lips but I think I understand why that was. I’ll get there. Be patient. There’s way too much to talk about first and I really want to save Catradora until the very last section because I’ll have the most to say about them as a lot of their arc informs well… pretty much the whole TV show.

Glimmer individually had more of an arc in the TV show than Bow did so a significant amount of my meta goes to her. It was mainly how she was fairing as Queen but also how useful she could be to the team because of it. Then of course there was Micah. Reuniting with him but having to battle with him because he was an unwilling agent of Horde Prime. I laughed with pure joy when the influence on him ended and he said “Hi, I’m your dad.” I really felt for Glimmer when she was desperately trying to heal him and she said “I won’t lose another parent!” So it was so satisfying for me to realize she healed him and that she poured all the love she could into that heal and when she succeeded, the proud smile that he wore must have made her feel like Queen of the world, never mind just her little town of Brightmoon. She deserves it.

Likewise it was wonderful to see how proud Bow’s dads were of him when he gave that rousing battle speech to the reawakened masses of Etherians, telling them to be their own warriors and fight for their home. It was right that it was Bow to do that rather than Adora or Glimmer because that is what he had trained himself to do from the beginning. He wants to be an archer battling on the side of the greater good and not a historian. So to see his dads holding each other, proudly watching him… it brought a tear to my eye, I have to admit. So beautiful!

Hordak and Entrapta: I had no idea that I would get a closure for Entrapta, let alone Hordak. I did and I’m so happy about it because even though she was only a recurring character, Entrapta buried her way into my science, tech and engineering loving heart (with a spanner and a blowtorch? You will never know 🤣) but I am glad that she got over her obsession enough to focus on what really mattered. Saving her friends.

The fact that what stopped Horde Prime wasn’t Adora or Glimmer or who you would expect, but Hordak and Entrapta? That hit so hard with me. To give THEM the hero moment of defeating the villain. I was like “Oh my god! That’s brilliant!” Because it is. Think about it. Who do you think Horde Prime tortured the most? His Little Brother! I still don’t know if that was literally or not. 🤷‍♀️ Was he actually related or was he just another clone because he did call Catra his “Little Sister” too? That’s still so creepy to me. But yeah, for Hordak to get that moment of retribution was absolutely delicious for me and then for Entrapta to reach him when Horde Prime tried to take over through the Hive Mind? So, so, good! That made total sense and it was brilliantly executed!

Scorpia and Mermista: The only reason to lump these 2 characters together is because they were chipped and controlled the longest that they caused significant damage to Etherians. There’s not really much to say about them other than that they’re going to have huge headaches now that this is all over due to how far gone they were. I mean I’m glad that they were able to save them but I just don’t know what the aftermath will be for them or whether they will be the same ever again.

From the way I watched and interpreted the TV show, I understood that one of the main narrative themes of it was psychological conditioning and I’ve been in awe that this children’s show was brave enough to tell that very dark story,… let alone see it right through until the end because it’s an ambitious, elaborate and difficult narrative undertaking. Especially to do it properly,… which they definitely did. To tell the darkness of… well… basically radicalization and genocide but to do so in such a way that it could teach and motivate kids to develop on their innate judgement and discernment so if - god forbid - they ever end up in that situation, they’ll know exactly what to do about it. With team She-Ra being their idols, they’ll be able to fight conditioning. I can imagine that’s what the creators intended with this and I cannot acknowledge and commend them on it high enough. I think that ND Stevenson and the entire creative team are incredibly courageous and amazing to make this a main thematic narrative all throughout this TV show and handle it with skill and compassion that it does not once come across as too much for PG.

Catradora: (Yes, I’m using the ship name because the way they tie up their individual character storyline arcs seamlessly also ties in with their romantic arc and you do not know how hard it is to find this with WLW ships.)

First off, I want to point out something that may or may not have been pointed out before with Catradora but this is just how it came across to me in the narrative given I interpret psychological conditioning as a main theme within it. To me, a lot of the reason why Catra is the way she is as a villainous character when it comes to receiving love and affection has do with this factor. She’s so closed off and repressed to the point that she cannot even see that she’s corrupting and sabotaging herself. She is a lot like Xena in this way. But a major striking difference for Catra is that she physically loses the one person in the world that stops her from doing this, whereas Xena physically gains that one person. Trust issues, abandonment issues, parental issues all tie in together - but that was all tolerable when Adora was around her. As soon as Adora leaves her behind in the Fright Zone and, furthermore, begins to oppose her as the hero of Etheria, she spirals so hard and so fast that all of those issues - which were always issues caused by the abusive treatment from Lord Hordak and Shadow Weaver - come crashing down one by one on top of her because she no longer has the person who makes those issues just inconveniences for her. Not only that but … it feels like personal betrayal for her that Adora fights her. She genuinely does think that Adora hates her. I mean who wouldn’t if they were in her shoes (paws?) and had the “upbringing” and “nurturing” backstory she’s had? So Catra has this preconceived notion that Adora never cared about her and left her because she thought she was better than her and was chasing after heroic glory and believes that she was too weak to go with her. In a way it’s a personal vendetta out of misunderstandings Catra has against Adora and those feelings are intense not just because the Horde brainwashing is that deep and severe but also because her love is that deep too and she can’t differentiate which feelings are which. So she becomes She-Ra’s mortal enemy because in her mind, She-Ra is what has taken Adora away from her.

But obviously, from Adora’s side, She-Ra was sprung on her, Etheria was sprung on her. In fact her entire world upended once she recognized her life for what it was. A lie. That she was the villain brutalizing innocent people. She couldn’t go back to them even if she had wanted to because everything she had ever knew was fraudulent and she had been coerced and deceived into being a weapon. And what I really like about Adora’s individual arc is that eventually this was revealed to be true on both sides of the war. She was a weapon for evil and for the greater good. But all she wanted - as all heroes do - was just to protect and defend her loved ones. That’s it. Catra could never see it that way though and it makes sense that she couldn’t given her conditioning was even worse as it involved one-on-one attacks from Shadow Weaver as well as whatever the treatment was with the entire group. Catra’s psychological conditioning was much more personal, intimate and isolated so what was ingrained into her had much deeper and stronger layers added on to it. Hers was a solid brick wall built trauma complex. Those are always much harder to recognize and escape from but with the right therapy,… it can be done. Given her issues weren’t so bad when Adora was around her but got much worse when Adora left her… it is clear that Adora represented a sort of therapy for her. Adora helped her keep all the crippling thoughts of self-doubt and self-contempt at bay. But they were on full volume when Adora left and kept attempting to kill her.

Okay, so let’s finally get on to their romantic arc and how the finale not only concluded their individual character representation and development arcs but also ended their ship slow burn. It wasn’t until the fantastic episode of ‘Save The Cat’ did I realize they were going there. See,… to start with, I knew that they were going to become a canon WLW couple at some point otherwise I would have never started watching it. That was the draw for me. That they were both lead characters in a canon WLW ship in a children’s TV show. That floored me. But I was not prepared at all for what I got to see in the finale. It was groundbreaking. It was phenomenal. In fact I’m sure it was life changing for many queer kids to see that kiss happen the way it did. Or… just happen on-screen at all. Look, I am so used to the “implied” and “assumed” and “disguised” when it comes to WLW physical intimacy that I just do not ever expect blatant leaves-absolutely-no-doubt-whatsoever kisses. I certainly don’t expect WLW kisses written and portrayed as “the power of love” kind. It’s extremely rare. To see it in a children’s show nailed me to the floor. But furthermore - added on to that astonishing feat - is that both lead characters overcome all their issues and obstacles through that very act like… a fairytale story. It’s like… when the Princess kisses the Princess, all is well… there’s no stopping either from that point on. It seems corny but it all just depends on how it’s done. But the fact is you don’t see it done between WLW at all. So to see it done WELL alongside seeing it done at all… I mean Indy knew that he had an assignment with this but the phrase “he understood the assignment” doesn’t cover or justify what was accomplished with this and I can’t believe it’s took me this long to see it.

Every TV art/entertainment creator should watch this TV show and regard this finale as the perfect example of what queer representation can and should provide in TV because this was just the epitome of what true love is. But the fact it was between 2 female lead characters.

I can’t even begin to explain how much it meant to me but I will spend the rest of my life trying to express it because this really was a groundbreaking achievement and I will be adding this WLW ship to my very short list of WLW ships that shape and satisfy every piece of me.

I have had the best fucking time watching this TV show and I will be doing reruns of it for god knows how long because I am sure there is so much more there for me just like there is with Xena, Buffy, Charmed, Dragon Ball Z, Wynonna Earp and Arcane. All these beloved shows are timeless to me for a reason and She-Ra is the same.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my recaps of my very first watch of ‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. 🎄

[infpravenclaw5w4idkwhatelse]

Apparently its just in my brain rn but I wanted to make this list for me or for anyone out there who gets into editing before I do (pleas please please idk how to edit and unless I hyper fixate hard enough, I probably won’t take the time to learn lmao) but anyway this is a list of the Robins and songs (by Taylor Swift so there’s a theme and the list has a finite end) that I desperately need an edit of them with.

Stephanie brown- the man (literally can’t hear the song without thinking of her), mad woman (I can see this with interspersed scenes of her father, fighting villains specifically black mask, and Bruce)

Jason Todd- my tears ricochet (absolutely devastating w/ under the red hood, specifically comic version iykyk the difference between that and the movie), haunted (I need this with Bruce and dick and Tim’s reaction to his death), bigger than the whole sky (similar to haunted but more resigned? And still more about characters responding to his death but still His Death), who’s afraid of little old me (red hood transitional period. You see the vision? I know you do.) look what you made me do (obviously. I keep imagining him listening to this song while being the red hood and it’s great), the Great War (just. The imagery. There’s so much potential here. “maybe it’s the past that’s talking, screaming from the crypt, telling me to punish you for things you never did” with a cut to Batman and Joker would go so hard)

Dick Grayson (there’s really no order to this list is there? Lol anyway.)- never grow up (focused on his relationships with his siblings and then after the bridge with the “wish I’d never grown up” with flashbacks to him as Robin oh my god I’d cry), 22 (idk it feels very early Nightwing to me. I need a happy one for him bc he deserves it. Just an edit of him winning and being iconic), New Romantics (in that same vein, with the titans because it’d be fun), the story of us and I forgot that you existed (him and B fighting because I feel people ignore that they do fight quite often and IFTYE especially feels the right amount of petty and sincere for him, you know?), last but not least (can you tell I love him) Style (this and any love interest he repeatedly dates, I was thinking specifically Barbara but I could also see kory, I just think this song is fun for any relationship that gets rebooted in multiple formats)

Tim Drake- enchanted (as itty bitty Tim Drake or Robin, meeting them at galas and Knowing or just working with the bats in the beginning when he was star struck), mirrorball (“I can change everything about me to fit in” …yeah. This is more a fanon interpretation but I read a really interesting fic where Jason comes back and meets Tim and all he can see is his and dick’s Robin mannerisms in him, and can’t find anything that’s just Tim’s until he’s too tired to pretend anymore and it’s stuck with me) you’re losing me (this would be a sad one of people generally looking over or hating him, specifically Bruce calling him Jason, finding out dick made Damian Robin, Damian and Jason verbally attacking him, the events that led to Red Robin) Tis the damn season (for when Red Robin arc is over and he’s still angry but doesn’t know what else to do)

Damian Wayne: a place in this world (it’s not his aesthetic, but the themes of the song are very raised-in-the-league-trying-to-be-a-functioning-family-member), the best day (with him and Dick generally him getting to be a kid, I’m not crying you are), mean (I think the “swords and weapons that you use against me”would be funny with him drawing assorted weapons on people), Innocent (“your string of lights is still bright to me oh, who you are is not where you’ve been” oh my god. I just feel like he needs someone to mean this about him) exile (Talia leaving him, even if she meant to do it for his own good, having to recon with not being in the league anymore), this is me trying (I don’t have words for this one, it’s a vibe)

Bonus:

Anti-hero: you can give all of them different verses that fit best, but I think they’d all sing the song and feel like it was them and I’d love to see an edit of them to it.

Epiphany: Alfred. You don’t even have to listen to it, just look at the lyrics and you’ll Get It.

robin: this I see for both Jason and Dick, so probably split between them.

Mastermind: first off, shameless TimSteph shipper, not even necessarily romantically, it’s just that they’re soulmates and I don’t care what canon says; I know that because they told me personally. Anyway the song is from both of their perspectives. They both think they’re the mastermind

State of Grace: also TimSteph. Fight me.

[butterflywithsass]

Watched Dead Boy Detectives last night and I’m obsessed. If you like the queerness of good omens, but with more gore, and in the same universe as the Sandman (death and despair both show up) if you like dark academia gay boys, if you like ghosts, or paranormal stuff, or demons, if you like cats — lemme tell you this show is for you.

So, like, there’s these two ghost boys who are best friends but also gay for each other but also a secret third thing and their names are Edwin and Charles.

Edwin Payne was a demonic sacrifice in 1916 and as spend literal decades in hell but escaped. He’s a repressed Victorian gay who has zero charisma but every single man he meets becomes obsessed with him and wants to sleep with him except the boy he actually likes which is his best friend Charles. His entire character arc is about gay panic and getting over his internalized homophobia — he wears bow ties!!!! He doesn’t know what a hand job is. He’s literally the perfect tumblr blorbo. His superpower is getting tortured. He’s so sassy! His sexual awakening comes at the hands of a cat king and his first kiss is with a crow.

Charles died in like the 90s or something I’m not sure. He’s so optimistic and sunshine but also so full of rage. He’s the most supportive guy 100/10 would trust him with anything. He doesn’t like to talk about his issues. When confronted with the inexorable monsters of hell he solved the problem with a Molotov cocktail. I love him and his single earring he’s a golden retriever who would rather stay on earth with best friend than move on to a peaceful afterlife. His jawline is impeccable he can’t not press a big red button when he sees it.

Crystal Palace I wasn’t sold on because I thought she’d get between my boys but she actually so cool and I developed a bit of a crush let’s be honest I have a thing for curly haired witchy girls, she’s a physic with amnesia and a demon stalker ex boyfriend people stare at her when she hangs out with the boys cause it looks like she’s talking to herself. Everyone she knows thinks she’s insane. She’s a reformed mean girl.

Niko Sisaki I was a little iffy about because it felt like they were gonna go with the bimbo anime Asian girl but turns out she just had a parasite that made pink hearts float around her. She’s so weird she tries to help Edwin with his gay problem by introducing him to explicit gay fan fiction, she tries to get her landlord to date, she likes cool rocks. She has two tiny people trapped in a jar in her room. Her friendship with Edwin is everything. She’s ghosting her mom.

Jenny. I love her so much, she feels so safe which is weird because she chops meat and all her clothes are covered in blood. Everything about just screams big sister and her character arc is learning to embrace that. She goes on one date and almost gets murdered.

Monty. He’s literally a crow turned into a boy. He’s down bad for Edwin. He’s a secret honeypot agent for an evil witch. He has the most adorable smile, the whole time I was expecting him to be an agent of Morpheus. He’s obsessed with astrology.

The Night nurse originally annoyed me a bit (in a good way) I just wanted to get rid of her. When Charles punted her into a giant sea monster I clapped. Then it just got weird and I love it.

The cat king. He’s such a creep, but honestly, I love that for him. He has some of the best lines and he just exudes cat. He’s a classic fairy tale trickster, he a nuisance for the whole season, he’s central to the plot, he’s constantly hitting on Edwin.

Esther. She’s a archetypal evil witch. She gives off mystic trash vibes. She’s obsessed with beauty and revenge. She’s shamelessly horrible. She feeds kids to her giant snake. She literally can’t die.

All in all, I think I’m gonna have brain rot over this for the next year, go and watch it.

[askhezureviews]

Think you’ll ever do a review of Arcane? If you have seen the whole series, what are your basic thoughts on it?

OH HELL YEAH IM WRITING A REVIEW FOR IT AS WE SPEAK

Uhhhhh,,, oh man I'm gonna ramble SOOOoo much about this show it's my most favorite show of all time.

Season 1 is super solid, LOVE the character arcs and build up, they are INCREDIBLE. The animation is solid, the storyline set up is full of hype, the butterfly effect is very prominent in the story telling and I love me a good action packed story heavy series surrounding politics. Boy howdy does this show give us depthy characters, I'm LOVIN it! Season 2 arc 1 is also pretty solid.

Arc 2, ep 4,5,6 however.... they have some interesting ideas but are otherwise a complete and total mess. Our entire cast straight up disappears from the plot, rushed to all hell (we needed a season 3 SOOooo badly) Every single member of our main cast has contradicted themselves, often within the same episode. The narrator is unreliable.

The final arc of season 2 picked things back up, and while its not perfect by any means, it was breathtakingly unexpected. I enjoyed so much of it. I feel like our characters had good wrap ups, I just hate how we got here. One could argue the show also ship pandered the ending quite a bit and I'm not gonna disagree, I hate to say that was ironically the best part for me.

I was actually mentally, physically, and emotionally unwell for an ENTIRE week after the finale. I stayed up all night watching it. I've never seen a show pull something so insane in my life. I was astounded. I don't think anyone could have predicted how things would have ended up. If Arcane had a season 3 to actually sit down and give more time to explore the ideas they shoved into season 2, I feel like people would be less divided on it. Despite my disappointment for season 2, I still think this show is very good and would recommend it to everyone, even my own mom, ahahaha. ~ Spoilers below for an overall issue I have with Arcane, for both seasons. A really annoying pet peeve of mine

The writers have a problem with plot devices. There has been one per season and they're not good. Sky Young and Isha. They're used to rush a character to the next step in their arc. My personal belief is that these two are wasteful. They only exist for a member of our main cast. They are not their own characters or have any legit relevance to the overall story.

Sky Young is there as a symbol of Viktor's 'humanity' even when the methods of her death or how she's used in the story don't make any sense down the line. She's just an 'obsessed' one-sided love interest that forces Viktor into giving up on the Hexcore- to give up on Piltover and Jayce. Only for him to drop/kill her a SECOND time in season 2 regardless of his initial guilt and distress over "losing" her.

Isha is used to force Jinx to live up to a symbol of rebellion against Piltover, as well as be Jinx's "redemption arc" (she didn't NEED one??? wtf) morality pet, as well as force Jinx into a situation where she'd consider unaliving herself so Ekko can come in and save her.

I am so annoyed with how these characters were handled. Sky should have been more than a lab assistant crushing on Viktor, and Isha should have been more than Jinx's redemption arc morality pet. It's shocking we have such flat plot devices in a show with such insanely depthy characters- especially the other women! I'll talk more about them in my video, but any time I see them on screen, I just want to skip over them.

[leolithe]

Something I find really interesting about the Lotus' dialogue after the Lotus Eaters is her use of the word 'witch'.

"I was the Daughter. I became the Mother. In time, I shall be the Witch, blind once again, empty of all but wisdom." -Lotus

'Witch' has very specific connotations. Close enough to another similar word that I can't help but feel like it has to be a deliberate reference to the Triple Goddess ─ Maiden, Mother, Crone. These are figures from neopaganism that symbolizes the stages of a woman's life. Eleanor (proto-Nyx) even outright calls her the triple-faced goddess. While it definitely could just refer to Lotus, Margulis and Natah, what if we have yet to see her final form?

She was first Natah, the daughter of Hunhow. Then she assimilated Margulis' form and became the Lotus, mother to the Tenno. And now, she is to be the witch. Even urging us not to mourn should she turn into something we don't recognize. I'm very excited to see what exactly that will look like for her and how her role could potentially change. The quest made a point that the Operator will be staying behind while Drifter is the one chosen for the quest to 1999. Maybe instead of the mother-child dynamic that we've had for a decade, we'll get to see what kind of relationship she might have with the Drifter (<-copium)

I'm not much of a Greek Myth Lorehead but I've read up a bit on The Triple Goddess Hecate (who I've been told that, in Hades 2, was voiced by Amelia Tyler... who is now also voicing our dear Eleanor Nightingale. Worth mentioning cuz u just know rebb was kicking her feet and giggling at being able to pull that together). Hecate's status as a gatekeeper type figure, as i understand it, is very interesting when u apply it to the Lotus...

I'm just thinking about how meta the whole "Lotus' ascent to godhood" plot thread is. It's like a direct parallel to her voice actress' "intern to creative director" journey LMAO. It's a bloody golden opportunity and i hope they're cashing all in on Goddess!Lotus and everything it'll entail...

Not to mention lorewise and what it means for the Lotus' own arc!! To be someone constantly being pulled around by others to fulfil their own purposes, having her own wants neglected, shamed, belittled... To becoming a Witch/Crone/Gatekeeper a la Hecate -- now the one potentially capable of denying or approving others' needs and goals...? Ugh, that's so fucking JUICY. What a bloody incredible character.

Lotus mentions becoming "empty of all but wisdom", and I've seen someone theorize that she'll become even more emotionless and distant as a shield against Wally because it thrives on emotions. This theory scares me because it could very well happen... Not like Space Mom already has a history of being distant and reluctant to tell us how she's feeling... *Sniffles*...

There's also the theories about assigning Natah/Lotus/Margulis as the Maiden/Mother/Crone...

The most surface level reading would be Margulis = Maiden, Lotus = Mother, Natah = Crone, but imo when people make this read they're kinda hinging on their appearances lol. Pretty Margulis, "Ugly" Natah... Maybe even just "Good mom who can do no wrong" and "evil Sentient who led part of an assault on the Origin System".

I would like to think that it isn't that shallow, buuuut their personalities do fit the bill when u bring the "phases of a woman's life" theme to it.

Margulis' naivete, or the shattering of it, as the Maiden:

"No, Ballas, no more destruction. Maybe they're meant to save us."

"You lied to me, Ballas. You're no different than the rest of them."

Natah's headstrong wisdom, or her desire for it, as the Crone:

"I am the witness, the victim, the judge. My family has returned. Your trial, soon to begin."

"The times ahead will need decisiveness. Power."

And Natah does die in TNW. Her death is a very big part of the quest lol. The "End of life" theming of the Crone fits her very well... And the very first "gatekeeper/crone judges and makes the decision for you" thing she did was killing ballas. So i get it!

Inversely... You could also assign Natah as the Maiden and Margulis as the Mother because of the simple "Natah was the Daughter, now I am the Mother" quote. After all, Lotus before TNW was living very much under Margulis' shadow, assimilating into her like you mentioned. This read leaves Lotus to be the Crone; the empty, wise Witch we have yet to see.

The more i write this the more I wanna say: Damn. These 3 were always meant to converge into each other. Their stories are all sides of each others' respective coins and it almost feels arbitrary to chuck them into strict roles, even if symbolic.

I definitely think we're gonna see her "Triple Goddess Final Form" in the future. It's too good a story beat. Too sexy. DE HAS to do it. I have my platinum ready. Give me all the skins.

As for the DrifterLotus copium....... Hehehe. I don't think DE will ever do anything romantic/sexual with them. i think they're just gonna cap their relationship off at "they care immensely for each other" because they might be concerned about the questionable pseudo incest implications looming over anything to do with Lotus and the Tenno.

Like don't get me wrong; Drifter is their own person and Lotus of all people would be comfortable with the concept of "people having identical faces won't make them the same person". I just feel like DE might not be willing to play with them in that way. For perfectly understandable reasons... The Player Tenno are very much "colouring book" characters for the OC lovers so it seems smart to keep them relatively open-ended.

But. Don't worry. Check my AO3 at the end of the week. I hope you'll find something that brings u even a little bit of cheer ;3

[linkspooky]

Hi! Thanks for your tremendous work, it's always a pleasure to read your blog! I just wanted to ask your opinion on Hidden Inventory / Premature Death Arc. I know this one is important to make parallels on different characters' stories, but I for me this arc is a surprise. I mean why would Gege suddenly make us involve in the future? 🥲 I just don't understand how he could come to telling us the stories from the past. Do you find it fitting?

Jujutsu Kaisen is a story primarily about cycles: the previous generation giving way to the newer one, spring turning into summer. In particular it's about the passing of the torches between generations. The elders in Jujutsu Society resist what is natural, they are such hardline traditionalists they often sacrifice the young because they refused to give way and let the new generation replace them.

Gojo Satoru's ideals which are in opposition to the elders state that not only should children be allowed to live out their youths, they should surpass their elders. Gojo is staunchly opposed to say, the elitist Zen'in who believe themselves the strongest, or even Sukuna the greater sorcerer of all time, in the fact he wants the kids he's raising to grow stronger than him.

On the flip side, Jujutsu Kaisen is also about negative cycles, like the curses which can never truly die so are exorcised only to be reformed. It's also about the cycle of abuse, such as Toji being abused by the Zen'in, only to abandon his own son in turn. The flashback arc is necessary, because the problems the current generation are facing started with the previous one. These problems persist because the cycle is unbroken.

Tengen in their explanation states that the distortion that caused Kenjaku's plans to succeed in the modern day happened eleven years ago, and he lists two reasons why, first Zen'in Toji who was not affected by cursed energy, and second Geto who could control curses.

Toji is hailed as the destroyer of destinies because he's free form cursed energy, but as for a more meta-textual reason why Toji gets as much focus in story as he does, is because much like Maki he's a product of the worst abuses of sorcerer society.

There's a reason for this line here when Toji appears before the collected members of the Zen'in Clan, Naobito the head, Maki the Toji of her generation, and Megumi who was almost sold to them and is Toji's son who he abandoned therefore another link in the chain of abuse.

All of these characters are effected by the cycle of abuse in the Zen'in Clan, yes, even Naobito and later on Naoya who appear to be at the top. It's that whole "Toxic Masculinity harms men" thing too. Naobito was not born a drunken, abusive jerk and he was likely not a good father in any capacity considering the way Naoya acts.

They're all trapped in the cycle known as the Zen'in Clan, and they all stare on in envy to the one they think is free, Toji, who escaped and became the sorcerer killer. Toji who, the whole clan was secretly fearful of because they believed he had the capability of killing them / also according to Naoya's take looked down on him because he was an otherworldly strength they did not recognize and tried to suppress him to make themselves feel superior.

Either way, Toji is someone who they have put down their entire life because he wasn't born to meet their standards, because he's something new and different from tradition and the big three houses are the worst traditionalists of Jujustu Society. The Toji they all fear however, is a monster created by the Zen'in Clan themselves. Despite being abused by toxic masculinity, Toji is also toxic masculinity incarnate. He drinks, gambles all of his money away, he's an absentee father, and his greatest onscreen time is shooting a girl who's about Mai's age in cold blood. If Mai was the ultimate victim of the Zen'in Clan's toxic masculinity, then Riko is also the ultimate victim of Toji's masuclinity which didn't just target sorcerers but reached out and targeted innocent girls (Riko) and children (Megumi).

The explanation of who Toji was in the past, how he both killed Riko and drove the wedge between Geto and Gojo's friendship creating the first dsiruption in the cycle is important because in the modern day the Zen'in Clan has not broken the cycle. The abuse of the Zen'in Clan is so bad, that one generation later they've already manufactured another Toji.

While Maki's rise to power is glorified a little bit too much, in story the fact that the cycle has repeated itself is not a good thing. Maki's lost her chance of happiness and reconciliation with Mai, she's won against the Zen'in but it's a pyrrhic victory, she's now strong at the cost of everything else. As I said before Mai is also a clear parallel to Riko, someone who just wanted to live a normal life cut down in the prime of her youth by a member of the Zen'in, who's death then sparks another person to spiral.

They're just girls who longed for an ordinary life and be together with their loved ones, and Maki and Geto are both haunted by the fact that they were unable to save them in the aftermath. Geto's actions are spurred by the way the world carelessly killed Riko, and Maki gives up on reforming the Zen'in Clan and chooses destruction after they swallow up Mai.

The flashback chapters do more than just give parallels between say Gojo and Geto's friendship and the current friendship between Megumi and Yuji, or even give us Gojo's backstory and insight to his character they also go to great lengths to show us how much things have not changed in the modern day Jujutsu World.

While the distortion that drove Toji to do what he did began in the Zen'in Clan, Geto is basically driven by the faults of Jujutsu Society as a whole. The death of Riko is his eye opening moment where he learns the truth of their society, the young are sacrificed for the old. It's not just the fact Riko died, but afterwards he witnessed crows of people appluading for it, and Toji acting like that death was nothing. There's also the fact her death / sacrifice was ordered by Jujutsu Society in the first place, but Geto thought he could overcome that cycle with strength alone until he couldn't. Geto's monologue that leads to his slow breakdown even refers to being a sorcerer as "an endless cycle."

The three years of Geto and Gojo's youth is referred to their spring, whereas Premature Death takes place in summer. Not coincidentally, in story Summer is referred to as the worst possible season for curses because curses accumulate during that time.

Jujusu Kaisen is about cycles, and the inability to escape them. Geto and Gojo's springtime of youth turns to summer, Geto begins to have doubts because of his inability to protect Riko, and his witnessing of sorcerers dying around him.

It's not just Geto's superiority complex, or his increasing antipathy for the weak normal people who demand sorcerers exorcise curses for them because they can't defend themselves. Geto also bears witness to the continued death of children around him. It's not just a hazard of the job, sorcerer society continually sacrifices young people to uphold the strict traditions of the elders.

Geto is moved by the mistreatment of the young in a way Gojo is, Riko's death is what opens his eyes, a few days Geto goes to the village he witnesses the brutal death of Haibara and Nanami's own feelings of helplessnes to stop it, and then his breaking point is when he sees two twin girls who are sorcerers ganged up on and imprisoned by an entire town, the same way that the indifferent crowds cheered for Riko's death and the same way sorcerer society considered Riko an expendable sacrifice to maintain Tengen.

Sorcerer Society's callous indifference to both the deaths of their sorcerers, but especially the young is what drives Geto to his breaking point. This is also the source of Gojo's ideals, because he realizes something went wrong with Geto and he doesn't want that mistake to repeat.

“For people like us, we naturally know how to get rid of the poisons within their heart. But for youths who hold onto a lot of sentimental feelings, it’s another matter altogether. Their heart might collapse just from getting struck by poison once.” “Isn’t it an adult’s duties to rid poison from a child’s heart? As a teacher, you should know this better than me, right?” [Light novel 1: Ressurection Puppet]

In Gojo's case he is actively trying at least, to raise kids in a way that they won't break like Geto did. It's the loss of Geto which inspires his current ideals. However, to dwell on this briefly Gojo is also still a very flawed mentor because he's a product of the system who raised him.

Kenjaku comes back in the form of Geto's body to defeat Gojo. Then Sukuna ends up taking Megumi's body away from him. There's a pattern here, two people who Gojo has a strong connection too have their bodies taken away from him. In Megumi's case this is where Gojo has failed to break the cycle because of his stated intetions, because Gojo didn't adopt Megumi to help him after his father died, Gojo swooped in to take Megumi because he was a potential weapon he could use against the elders.

The flashback arc ends with Gojo making his slightly predatory deal with Megumi, by threatening his sister's happiness unless he complies and lets Gojo train him instead of the Zen'in. Megumi is shown to be a child that's continually having trouble growing up throughout the story, because of his broken home situation.

The ending of Hidden Inventory could have been Gojo learning his lesson and breaking the cycle in regards to Megumi, but he deliberately did not, and so once again the problems the main characters are facing now is created by the failures of the past.

Gojo Mr. "I can totally beat up on Megumi, it's fine."

In this case though, Hidden Inventory is also about how the problems of the past are plagueing Megumi's life, because the primary villain of it is his father, and the ending of the whole arc is us seeing his first encounter with Gojo. Megumi is in this case the latest youth swallowed up by the old, because Sukuna is quite literally a member of the previous generation physically stealing his body away from him to prolong his life long after he died.

Tsumiki's death is also a repeat of the death of Mai Zen'in, and Riko Amanai. It's once again the death of an innocent being swallowed up by the toxic masculinity of Jujutsu Society, all while the person who wanted to protect them is completely helpless to stop it. Gojo also took responsibility for Megumi, and Tsumiki both and later on couldn't live up tot hat responsibility, Tsumiki is dead and Megumi is possessed.

The Hidden Inventory flashback arc is there to establish what is basically the beginning of the cycle in the story, so we can see later on how this cycle is repeating itself again and again without being broken even this late (200 chapters) into the story. With the eventual hope that if the adults like Gojo can't fully break the cycle, then the kids he raised will be able to do so in his place.

[demigod-shenanigans]

"I can go into why i dislike ToA (especially Tyrant's Tomb is. a book that exists) but box of pandora. Once open good luck shutting me up" (source: your tags)

Now that you said that, i'm geniunely curious. Open the box. I dare you

This should be obvious but @ the people who really enjoyed ToA, this post is not for you. I’m not sure I’ll even tag it because this is mostly me venting into the void because two people asked and not me wanting to ruin other people’s fun. These are just my personal opinions.

I also apologize if I get any details wrong, I did recheck a lot of the things mentioned but it’s been a minute since I read ToA and might not remember everything 100% correctly. Also, obvious spoiler warning.

*claps hands together* Okay, you asked for this but heads up, it’s going to be long. Maybe grab a snack and a glass of water beforehand.

My beef with ToA can be summarized into a few key points that I’ll elaborate on below but basically:

-It tries to wrap up character arcs for some of the seven (and Reyna) but does this through the eyes of someone with zero context and also treats these characters arcs as unimportant footnotes in the larger story

-Jason’s death and everything surrounding it was handled extremely poorly.

-I cannot remember any demigods staying mad at Apollo. Redemption arcs should not mean everyone has to forgive this character for all the shit they’ve done in the past.

-The death toll. This is not helped by the fact that a lot of the deaths feel like they exist solely for the purpose of making Apollo learn death sucks over and over again (Jason is the worst example of this, but there are others)

More grievances I have but don’t have enough to say about to justify a longer explanation:

-There are a whole bunch of new minor characters on top of the old ones already struggling for screen time. I don’t remember much about any of them, which is a shame because the idea behind some of them is really compelling.

-The story is centered around the Triumvirate as antagonists, with Python as a final boss, but book four just dumps an additional antagonist on you out of nowhere? Why?

-Reyna rejecting Apollo is nice and all but I still had to put up with him crushing on her and was very uncomfortable the whole time.

-Chiron sends a bunch of new demigods into what’s potentially a death battle and tells them it’s a fun field trip (what the fuck)

-This is a personal grievance more than anything but it took me ages (book five) until I really got attached to Meg. I feel like that could have been fixed if she at least got a few POV chapters.

-Dishonorable mention to the punch line joke. Two whole camps of people lining up to hit the canonically abused kid that saved them is not funny.

Details under the cut (Pandora’s box, I did warn you)

Character arcs:

The books really do try to tell meaningful stories for people whose arcs weren’t finished in Heroes of Olympus. With some of them, you can even tell the ideas behind wrapping up those arcs were solid. But the books also tells those stories through the eyes of a character who doesn’t know these people’s pasts and quite frankly doesn’t care a lot of the time. People will voice/do something that is huge for their character and instead of going into that it’s followed up with some random Apollo anecdote that’s only tangentially related at best.

Taking Leo as an example: Apollo has no idea why Leo settling down and finding a home somewhere after everything he’s been through is meaningful. That’s a story that could have been the focus of an entire book of its own, but instead it’s just a side plot to a completely different story. And that story really should have been told through Leo’s eyes, or at least through the eyes of someone like Jason or Piper who realize why this is huge for him.

Apollo also does not care why Leo and Calypso are fighting, so it’s not something that’s properly explored. Leo’s fights with Calypso are mainly mentioned/witnessed. You get some guesses as to how they started but they never mention the exact reasons. They both say they care about each other, but only to Apollo, when the other person isn’t present. When they sort things out it happens largely off-screen. I was also not a fan of the way many of their issues ended up being pinned on Leo being sexist when it was actually way more than that.

ToA does this a lot. It gives arcs to characters who honestly deserved to be explored more, but those arcs are barely footnotes in a larger story where these characters just cameo for a hundred or so pages.

The cameo stuff works okay for Percy and Solangelo because the books are very aware they’re cameos and they get to have fun but this is not their story. But the characters the series tries to give proper plots to are all over the place.

It’s said that Jason and Thalia are really close but they never interact in the books. Jason had a bit of a chance at a normal life finally but that’s barely gone into. (More on Jason later because my god did how the books handled him piss me off massively)

Piper’s struggles with her queerness get the random Apollo anecdote treatment. There’s some stuff about her reconnecting with her dad and her heritage but that’s not explored a ton either.

Frank’s firewood burns up and he’s fine, which is just sort of hand-waved and doesn’t feel meaningful, especially because I think the fireproof pouch was already a fine solution? Congrats on being free of this, now you can get stabbed to death like all the other characters, I guess.

Reyna gets a sort of arc but it feels really weird because it happens almost entirely off-screen. She spends a large fraction of the book chiding Lavinia for leaving her post, then gets her leg broken, is off-screen for a while and then just DIPS with the Hunters after her home suffered huge casualties.

I also think her joining the Hunters is a super lame way to resolve her arc in general (she just lays down one responsibility to sign up for the next, and a character not wanting romance/not wanting romance right now should be allowed to exist without having to join the eternal maiden’s club, but that problem isn’t isolated to Reyna and could honestly be a whole post of its own)

This also comes down to the fact that I’m here mainly for the demigods. I care about these kids having good arcs and good lives. I care significantly less about Apollo having to learn really obvious shit like “murdering my pregnant girlfriend was perhaps a little messed up”

Jason’s death and everything surrounding it

Killing off a major character (especially one whose arc isn’t finished) can be a plot twist that works at times. But it has to be handled well. Doing it to a character that’s suffered horrifically and is starting to heal is also a hugely shitty move, but I understand you want meaningful deaths for the plot sometimes.

But you cannot do it the way Rick did it with Jason’s death. If he was going to kill off one of the seven, he should have done it in Heroes of Olympus, with that character narrating and their friends getting to deal with the aftermath and grieve.

Instead, Jason dies in a book that he appears in for like. A hundred pages iirc? Two-hundred at most? You get Apollo narration on it, and sure, he’s big sad about it, but he also knew this guy for two days.

Piper gets a few pages to deal with his death, then disappears from the book and comes back for a heroic rescue later. Leo gets like two pages to deal with the fact that his best friend is dead. They then proceed to fuck off to Oklahoma instead of going to the funeral. For what reason? No idea. The book doesn’t bother to explain it.

Jason gets a Camp Jupiter funeral, with none of his Camp Half-Blood friends present, because fuck the fact that him belonging to both camps was a huge part of his arc, right?

Piper and Leo know Jason is dead but they cannot be there because they’d already used up their time as ToA side characters, I guess. Percy and Annabeth can’t come, they don’t find out due to demigod communication issues until the end of the series. Thalia also doesn’t get to go to her brother’s funeral. She doesn’t find out until the funeral is already over. We don’t even really get to see her grieving, her finding out Jason died happens off-screen too.

Because this is the Apollo show, Apollo is the guy who leads the funeral procession instead of, like, Reyna, who knew Jason for years.

Also, for some reason, the person avenging Jason is Frank? Absolutely no offense to Frank, he’s a great guy and I’m sure he cared about Jason, but that choice still feels deeply comedic considering I can remember exactly one meaningful interaction him and Jason had in HoO (Jason giving Frank praetor position at the end of HoH) and not a single conversation they had beyond that. If Rick had to write Leo and Piper out of the plot, why not at least have Reyna avenge him?

Jason dies specifically because Apollo broke a stupid oath he made on the River Styx. We’re told that people around him will keep dying because of this. He dies as a chess piece in a stupid game between gods, for the sake of Apollo’s character development. He dies so he can be brought up every hundred pages for Apollo to waffle about how sad his death was but how he’d also definitely not want to be brought back (I get it, we cannot revive people constantly, but having Apollo make this point when, again, he knew the guy for two days, is still really stupid. Nico also gets to make the same point at the end just in case the reader didn’t understand before that we’re not bringing Jason back)

Apollo is forgiven by everyone

Related to the above point. Like I said, we’re outright told that Jason dying is a direct consequence of Apollo’s oath. Apollo also knew taking them along on the mission would get Jason or Piper killed and he did it anyway.

Piper gets to be mad at him very briefly, but when he tries to apologize at the end of the book, she interrupts him and tells him “it’s fine” (her voice is described as “no anger, just natural heat”)

Thalia doesn’t get to be mad at him at all. Her baby brother died and she just pats Apollo on the back and tells him “it’s fine, Jason made his own choices. That’s what heroes do.” And then it’s made about how Artemis lost Apollo when he got transformed into a human instead of. Like. The fact that Thalia just lost her baby brother for the second time in her life.

IT’S FINE?? THAT’S ALL ANYONE HAS TO SAY ABOUT THIS??

Hell, Apollo even has a sort of dream hallucination of Jason’s ghost so that ghost can forgive him too.

Was that really necessary? Why do people think that a character learning to be better means absolutely everyone has to forgive them? Wouldn’t it have been a better sticking point for a god to learn people are allowed to stay mad at you?

The death toll

A lot of people die in these books. People dying in pjo books has always been a thing, but it’s never felt this pointless or this much like it was solely happening for a single person’s character development.

Jason is the most pointed example of this, but there are more. Starting with the fact that two of Apollo’s kids almost get torched in front of his face in the first book (Austin and Kayla) and somehow that is not a sticking point. I don’t think it’s ever brought up again afterwards.

Other characters that die so Apollo can learn death sucks:

-Several Dryads die saving the grove of Dodonna

-Heloise the Griffin

-One random unnamed demigod in Dark Prophecy (mentioning them because that’s where it occurs to Apollo demigod deaths also suck)

-Money Maker (Dryad)

-Crest

-Harpocrates and the Sybil of Cumae

The death toll in Tyrant’s Tomb is completely ridiculous. Like, “feels worse than Last Olympian despite not even being the final battle”-ridiculous. And unlike how Percy at least gets to use that tragic battle to change things in a fundamental way, the Camp Jupiter demigods don’t win anything significant. Their home is only almost completely destroyed. Some of them aren’t dead. That’s it.

If you remember the name of any side character Camp Jupiter demigod from HoO, there’s a very high chance they die in this book.

We don’t get exact numbers for how many people die. The book actually explicitly refuses to give numbers, stating “We didn’t count the dead. They weren’t numbers. They were people we had know, friends we had fought with.” (Which gets even more ironic due to the fact that, again, we barely have any named CJ demigods to begin with)

The closest thing we get to numbers are that 25 demigod members of the legion died in the battle before the book started, and towards the end there are fourteen total demigods still standing of the first to third cohort combined. Even if half the missing demigods are “just” so severely wounded that they can’t fight anymore, that’s still 60 dead kids! The pre-book battle was mentioned to have been hardest on the civilians. We don’t know how many of them died, and losses among the fourth and fifth cohort are also unknown, but that is a ridiculous amount of losses. Why are there so many dead kids in this book and why are we all just supposed to be okay with this?

Jupiter explicitly forbids the other gods to intervene. The only one who does is Diana, after an offering, and she takes her sweet time to get there. That camp is named after the guy! That’s people’s kids down there! I know the gods not helping their kids isn’t exactly new, but this is on a whole other level.

There are funerals but those are largely skipped over, and Frank announces that they’ll resolve this by asking Lupa to bring in more demigods so they’ll come back stronger, which. Baffling statement. Let’s just fix the dead people by replacing them.

TL;DR: Good on Apollo for learning to be better, but I really didn’t like how it was done. There were a handful of things I liked in almost all the books, not including Tyrant’s Tomb which wins the award for rrverse book I most wanted to chuck out of a window. Some of the ideas were good. I think the first and last book are mostly solid (largely due to the fact that those don’t try to shove in entire side character arcs). But the things I did enjoy just get very heavily outweighed by everything that annoyed and upset me.

I really wish ToA had been mostly new characters with maybe some minor cameos, and other people’s arcs had been saved for different books. I also think splitting the perspective between Apollo, Meg and maybe the HoO character who was trying to have an arc in that specific book would have helped.