#also the baby versions of them make me wanna commit a hate crime

[jack-owo-valentine]

.

[lebrookestore]

Honestly there's a lot of conflicting information regarding the censorship, some people say only the ebook version is censored, but Korea does have strict laws when it comes to graphic s*xual content. So, hmmm. I completely understand people who cannot support the idols involved due to personal matters and the fact they even watched/read MIA is enough for them. The unfortunate part is, since it's widely popular and acclaimed a lot of people engaged with it, I can guarantee that many idols who are into animanga did it, so technically no one is safe. The smart thing to do is simply not mention it publicly.

Even saying "I don't recommend it" brings attention to it, and when you have a lot of young impressionable fans you have a certain responsibility. Tyong's situation is tough, because on one hand he has never spoken about it, most people overlooked the manga copy in his story, I definitely didn't notice it, because the fucking boots were the centerpiece of the photo. So it's not like he said "hey, look at this manga I bought, it's so good" that would make me go "are you fucking insane man?!"... but the copy is still there. Is it his? Probably. Does he own all volumes? Idk. It'd make sense if he at least read them. Anyways, censored or not it's still a very disturbing story, but it's important to remember the awful treatment of children technically isn't the main point, it's still there, some volumes or episodes are more focused on other things though. I still don't see the appeal, but I saw a few episodes... against my will. I know people who engaged with MIA in some shape or form and none of them condemn the terrible violence and s*xualization. So, acting like everyone is a p*dophile is a deranged take, it's not only a serious mental disorder, but a heavy allegation too.

All in all, am I disappointed? Yeah. Am I surprised people watched or read a popular piece of work? No. I'm only shocked it got so many volumes and translations as well as 2 season of anime considering the author is actually a p*do. But if you're not into little kids then you'll definitely not find the s*xual aspects enjoyable. I don't believe you're a horrible person for engaging with MIA, but it's definitely not something you should be proud of.

This controversy once again proved that not only kpoppies can't hold their idols accountable without baby-ing grown ass people, but that many of them have hidden agendas and hate b*ners for certain idols and don't care for the actual issue. Dismissing the feelings of concerned fans is very insensitive, but so is sending threats to to people...

Sorry for the rant, the past few days have been so exhausting and I'm so torn and fed up, but also cannot stop thinking about it. And people's extreme stances and confusing information don't help, lol. I don't wanna be a defender, because MIA shouldn't be a thing, there's time and place to show sensitive subjects, but this story isn't it, but I can't bring myself to act like the idols in question (or any person who watched/read it) are total scums who deserve to d**, because they didn't commit a crime and didn't harm anyone directly (apart from hurting and letting down some fans).

i would like to say that you've worded this entire thing very well anon, i think you've covered all the bases and summarised how i feel about the situation as well. it is a very popular manga and chances are several more people have already consumed it. and exactly, the main point of the manga is to be a horror/gore manga, and an important thing to remember is that there is a difference between consuming media with something and condoning it.

it's been completely confirmed that everything was censored and all the scenes containing anything abusive or anything related to the allegations are not included at all! even so, i'm definitely appalled that something like this exists, but then again, several deranged things exist out here on the internet so. sending threats to people however, is absolutely insane to me.

and its completely alright, don't sweat it!! i definitely understand it weighing down on your mind because it certainly was the same for me until it was all cleared up.

[starry-clown]

(One last thing to say. Hate comments are welcome if it’ll make you guys feel better)

I was just a thing to them to fond over if I behaved like the little UwU baby boy they wanted. They turned on me so fast as soon as my mental illness began acting up.

When someone is in a relationship with you and they tell you they’re depressed and in a dark place and suddenly try to push you away by saying they wanna give you space. You don’t fucking yell at them for it, you don’t go making that person feel even more like shit when they’re already hurting. How awful can you be for not considering your partners feelings? Even when you go and say communication is sooo important in the relationship.

I am so glad I sabotaged the relationship when I got depressed, because it showed me exactly the kind of people they are. Self absorbed two-faced assholes with a god complex. I regret begging for them to not leave me because I messed up one time, but honestly I deep down I knew they were angry when I was showing signs of depression. How fucking ungrateful they were to me, How could they tell me they love me and wanna marry me and live a life together when they haven’t met me in person and only knew me for a few months. And they say I’m the one who’s possessive? They’re married for fucks sake, how possessive can you get? I always thought of marriage as creepy, because it means you’re tied to one person and only that person only, Unless you’re non-monogamous. I thought my first polyamorous relationship was going to be the best experience… which it was up until I acted in a way they didn’t expect. Just don’t have any expectations for anyone you love, don’t make up a version of the one you love inside your head cuz you’ll just be disappointed. And that’s what happened, and how my first polyamorous relationship ended.

One thing I learned from this was to leave right away once a red flag shows… when I learned they both were in a psych ward from committing crimes. I tried not to be judgmental and I looked past that because I loved them. But as the cliche saying goes, love makes you crazy. I wore rose colored glasses the whole time, felt the honey glows of a new love and it was so nice while it lasted. Anyway… good luck to anyone who is in the same situation as I was. Know that you’re not alone and that it’s okay to feel emotions, DONT let anyone make you feel like you’re wrong for feeling negative things. If your partner really loves you, they won’t abandon you even when you’re at your lowest.

(I’m making this post public) I know they’re probably stalking me now because I blocked them on everything, but if you��re reading this (you both know who you are) know that I don’t hate you, and I won’t ever hate you but I won’t let you guys get away with emotionally hurting me anymore. So go ahead, make multiple accounts to yell at me, post screen shots of our texts, send your friends after me, tell everyone how wrong you think I was if it’ll make you feel better. I wish you a good life, but also you both deserve to feel the emotional hurt you caused me too and I’m not stopping anyone who wants to protect me from you guys.

[mars-ipan]

school me in a l l o f t h e m I dare you

homie that would be. far too many. so i’ll give you the two i currently really wanna talk about, starting with the one i’d get less hate over probably

Narumitsu/Wrightworth- Ace Attorney series

i mean. this one. this one’s easy as hell. let’s start from the beginning. pheonix wright, 3rd grader, is accused of stealing the lunch money of miles edgeworth, aspiring lawyer and fellow 3rd grader. the class is awful to pheonix, saying that he stole the money without proving it in a mock trial. it gets to the point where even the teacher is telling him to apologize. this poor child is sobbing, trying to explain that he didn’t do it. suddenly, an objection. surprise bitches it’s the victim, miles edgeworth. “blah blah you can’t say he did it without any proof blah blah he shouldn’t have to apologize”. the class apologizes and pheonix is acquitted. this marks the start of their friendship. not too long after (a couple of years, at most?) miles’ dad and role model is murdered in a horrible incident (this is responsible for edgeworth’s fear of earthquakes which sucks since he lives in japanifornia). miles is now under the care of manfred von karma, abusive german asshole prosecutor who can die in a hole. this is where miles stops talking to pheonix (moving away to germany can do that) and decides to be a prosecutor with his newfound hatred of crime. skip to college. pheonix is in a horrible abusive relationship, the poor baby barely avoided death and was immediately accused of murder. guess who’s prosecuting this trial? miles mcfrickin edgeworth. and pheonix thinks “hold on. i know him!!! oh my god what happened????” after he is, once again, acquitted, pheonix makes the stupidest desicion in his life: to become a defense attorney. he stops going to art school and starts going to law school, just so he can meet this dude again and ask him what the hell happened to him. because if the stubborn asshole wouldn’t respond to his letters, he’d have to meet him in court eventually anyways. so pheonix becomes a lawyer. he’s... surprisingly good at it. then a case with edgeworth. and he wins!! super well!!! once again!! edgeworth is likely just “oh my god what the fuck???” idk tho since we play as pheonix, dumbass extroardinaire. anyways, in either this case or a later one (i do not remember) edgeworth comes up to pheonix after losing and essentially tells him “you’re making me feel things and i don’t like feeling things so get out of my court” (i mean literally. “saddled with unnecessary feelings, like unease and uncertainty” like bITCH??? YOU LOVE HIM D U H). and then edgeworth is accused of murder. pheonix immediately is at the detention center going “bitch let me defend you or so help me god.” miles, ever the confusing fuck, is just “no. not happening, absolutely not.” (there’s also a line where edgeworth goes “i... didn’t want you to see me like this” and in the remastered version pheonix deadass thinks “trust me, i didn’t want to see you like this, either” like b IT CH.) anyways a quick earthquake happens and once everyone’s settled, pheonix realizes he can’t see miles through the glass anymore. he stands up to look through the room and bam there’s edgeworth, on the floor trembling. this poor man. anyways pheonix is just “well i’m gonna defend u even if u don’t want me to so i’m gonna start investigating” and he does that and talks to edgeworth’s lovely detective pal, gumshoe, who explains edgeworth’s fear of earthquakes and also that after he lost his first trial against pheonix edgeworth was literally just saying “wright, wright, wright” and pacing u h m?? anyways eventually pheonix finds out that the case is related to the dl-6 incident, which is the one where edgeworth’s father dies. he goes back to the detention center and edgeworth’s all “well that’s what i didn’t want you to find out but now you know so sure defend me what the hell but you’re gonna lose” bc guess who’s prosecuting??? v o n k ar m a. anyways pheonix wins the trial, gets von karma convicted for murdering edgeworth’s father also bc dl6 was never actually solved and it’s funky fresh. edgeworth is all “i don’t know what to say,,,,” so maya, pheonix’s lovely assistant in the original trilogy, is all “try t h a n k yo u”

other moments where they are Not Heterosexual include:

all of oldbag. edgey i am so fucking sorry you had to deal with her ass. i mean yeah everyone would have that reaction but edgeworth IS a snacc, he likely goes through this all the time. no girlfriend though. rampant homosexual

i mean seriously who wears a cravat all the time other than a gay and/or a vampire

“they’re rivals!” “maybe for now we are..”

“that man” “that defense attorney” “him”- miles edgeworth, all the time

5 red knights surrounding 1 blue pawn on edgeworth’s custom chessboard

there was a jewelry line made for the game. pheonix and edgeworth both have rings. they are the only ones with rings.

and that’s only the original trilogy babey!!! there’s plenty more in the future games but i unfortunately don’t know anything past apollo justice so ah well

2. Mavin/Team Nice Dynamite- Achievement Hunter

okay first of all this is a real people fandom so i’m gonna start with a disclaimer. A. i ship them casually, B. they (and their partners) are perfectly okay with it and joke about it all the time, C. they are in a committed bromance and i will not pester them in any way. thank you. this will also be in list form as there is less of a narritive to follow :>

okay so. these fucking nerds. met on valentine’s day. they tweet @ each other on valentine’s day saying shit like “happy anniversary” i can not make this up.

they refer to each other as “boi” and “my boi” all the time. michael’s twitter bio deadass says “[wife] is my girl, gavin is my boi”

just. just watch play pals

they got married in minecraft once. it was domestic and cute afterwards.

angry boy (michael) is simultaneously Soft with and Angrier with stupid brit (gavin)

“i will,,,, have sex with you,,, consensually.” -michael jones, drunk off his ass

*gavin appears on tv in a bar* “everyone look!! it’s my boy!!! that’s my boy!!!” *applause from the entire bar*-michael jones, once again drunk off his ass

almost the entire office lowkey ships it

michael gets jealous. all the time. he has mentioned a time when gavin referred to his other best friend as “his boi” and while recalling the anecdote, michael basically said “and i was like *growl*” like. damn ok

matching necklaces

michael is the best at translating gav’s britishisms and gavinisms

“my wife is dead,,,, my husband is dead”- michael jones, in a hardcore minecraft server where he is the sole survivor

they casually lay all over each other and invade each others’ personal space all the time

they joke about gavin being the bottom in literally every fic with them. gav’s only complaints with the fic are that he’s the bottom.

i think the reason they don’t have gavin do an episode of red dragon inn is because michael would be far too powerful. maybe one day tho. hopefully

michael’s own wife is just out here all “hell yeah dude fuckin go with it” (we love lindsay jones in this household)

“just kiss and get it over with”

“micool,,”- gavin free, Squeaky Brit

“sucked michael’s dick last night: gavin free”- credit on the podcast

the “are you wearing my jacket” “yeah, i guess i am” “stop! ,,,take my clothes off,,” line comes from them

just. look in the tag for mavin. you’ll see what i’m talking about.

their dynamic is very similar to @an-ok-dude and i’s actually. except. ours is less angry and squeaky. kinda

alright kids that’s it for now. this post is getting long and being on mobile means i can’t put it under a read more so i’m gonna stop here :>

bls tho check these tags there’s so much good content

[buzzdixonwriter]

You Don’t Say

For me, one of the unforeseen benefits of Facebook and other social media is that it gives me a chance to do rough drafts of ideas, assembling my thoughts and getting feedback before committing to more permanent form.

And sometimes, like asteroids colliding in space, two separate ideas / posts slam into one another and either create something new and unexpected, or else shatter themselves and reveal interesting aspects of their nature heretofore hidden from view.

That happened recently with a pair of Facebook posts I made on Dennis Prager and Harlan Ellison.

Let’s get the turd out of our mouth first.

. . .

Dennis Prager is a purveyor of herpetology lubricants admired by many on the right-leaning-nazi side of the spectrum, primarily because he keeps his mouth closed when chewing.  Half of what he says is repackaged self-evident truths of the “Don’t eat the yellow snow” variety, a quarter is opinions that if not startling original are at least not genuinely harmful, and the remain quarter is egregious bullshit for which he deserves a public pants down spanking.

Hmm, what?  Oh, yes; purely metaphorically, of course.

I long since wrote off Prager as a. utterer of inanities, but recently his turdmongering was forced on my attention by someone who posted a link to Prager’s argument that the “left” (i.e., basically anybody who thinks Auschwitz was a Bad Idea) is inflicting harm on both the American body politic and the universe at large by denying people like Prager the right to drop the N-bomb whenever they feel like it.

As some of you no doubt already knew, Prager is a member of what polite bigots used to refer to as “those of the Hebrew persuasion”.

That a person from an ethnicity that historically suffered hatred so vicious and specifically targeted that a special word had to be created for it (“anti-Semitism” because the original word -- “Jew-hatred” -- was too damned ugly even for bigots to use) now has his knickers in a twist because he’s “not allowed” to use the only other word of equal or greater impact -- also coined specifically by oppressors for expressing unrestrained hate and contempt against those oppressed -- is so rich in irony that all I can do is swipe a phrase from Jim Wright over at Stonekettle Station and say Dennis Prager has “all the self-awareness of a dog licking its own asshole in the middle of the street”.

First off, he’s lying: Neither the “left” nor American law prevents him from dropping the N-bomb whenever he feels like it and I invite him to go down to the intersection of Normandie and Florence in South Central and drop it at the top of his lungs for as long as he is able and please make sure to take plenty of video recorders along because I really wanna see what happens next.

Second, why the fuck would you want to say that? Seriously, other than in an evidentiary context (a cop giving testimony in court, a journalist reporting what some bigoted politician says, etc.), who today gains anything from repeating the word other than inflicting unjustified distress on people who have done nothing to deserve it?

(This is the point where a bunch of alt-right trolls are gonna jump up and say “but whatabout all the times when black people say it?” and to those trolls I’m gonna say STFU & STFD; if you can’t grasp the difference in context then you’re too damned stupid to be allowed out in public except at the end of a leash and with a ball gag in your mouth.)

It’s a word specifically created and designed to be used to brutally oppress people who did nothing to deserve that brutal oppression.  Why would anybody outside that group use it except to participate in that brutal oppression?

. . .

Least there sit any in the cheap seats who presume the above rant was targeted at Dennis Prager simply because he was Jewish, guess again, ya yutzes.

Few writers enjoyed as brilliant and as incendiary a career as Harlan Ellison, and I count myself privileged to have been one of his friends.

Ellison, as many of you know, also was Jewish, a damned tough little bastard, singled out for hatred and abuse as the only Jewish child in his backwater Ohio school, growing up with nerves & balls of chromium, a bona fide Army Ranger, and a writer so honest and fearless that when he wrote about juvenile delinquency in the 1950s he did so by infiltrating and joining a street gang to get first hand experience and insight on the kids who ran in that crowd (and as icing on the cake, James Caan played him in the TV version!).

Top that, Dennis.

Harlan’s electric eclectic career features many highpoints, but the one I want to focus on is his brief 4-year run as TV critic for the legendary Los Angeles Free Press (a.k.a. The Freep) from 1968 to 1972.  

What’s interesting is that Harlan did this while at the same time at the height of his demand as a TV writer.

You got any idea how hard it is to make a living while you’re gnawing on the hand that feeds you?

Harlan may have been crazy, but damn it, he was honest.

Back to the issue at hand.

Recently I’ve been re-reading his TV criticism columns, collected in two volumes, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat.

The depressing thing is that all the evil we see today was in place back in those days, and the same smug pious frauds and their dimbulb marks kept congratulating themselves how wonderful they were as things continued to spiral out of control.

Oh, we've had good moments when we made changes that improved the lot of people who'd previously been marginalized, but the core cancer is still there. Harlan was no cock-eyed sentimentalist -- he was often filled with anger and could vent it spectacularly at deserving targets -- but he did have hope that somehow we could keep nudging the ball further towards the goal lines.

The columns make fascinating reading; they are nowhere near as dated as one might suspect. Sometimes they offer diamond-like brilliant dissections of a particular instant in the cultural gestalt, other times they examine the unseen (well, to most audiences, that is) tides of Hollywood that shape our media, sometimes he turns his attention to bear on seemingly insignificant and forgotten local programming only to show with McLuhan-esque clarity how that tiny piece of seemingly insignificant fluff is symptomatic of a much wider, much vaster, and far more serious problem.

One entry caught my eye in particular, the March 7, 1969 column on a failed ABC pilot called Those Were The Days.

Harlan sat in the studio audience watching the taping of that pilot, and his column praised the courage and insight of producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin, the brilliant performances of Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, and the raw honesty of the pilot’s sharp comedy and writing.

Those of you not in the cheap seats have already realized this was the second failed pilot for what would eventually become All In The Family over at CBS (there was an even earlier original pilot called Justice For All back when Archie and Edith’s last name was Justice, not Bunker.)

I remember the hoopla when All In The Family finally aired in January of 1971 as a mid-season replacement.

You might count Archie Bunker as the white Dolemite insofar as the comedy sprang from the shock of all the crude and vulgar things he said.

Lear and Yorkin were mocking that mindset, belittling bigotry, exposing the Babbittry of millions of “good” Americans who lacked either the self-awareness or the courage to take a long introspective look at themselves and realize how badly they were failing as citizens of this country.

Audiences weren’t supposed to like Archie Bunker.

And that’s where Lear and Yorkin made their fatal mistake.

No, audiences didn’t like Archie.

They loved him.

. . .

Asteroids collide, and sometimes they form new planets, and sometimes they shatter and expose what lies beneath.

Prager’s modern day Babbittry crashed into Harlan’s half-century old anti-Babbittry, and from the explosion a stark truth revealed itself.

It’s almost impossible to make an outlaw a villain in popular media.

No matter how many banks they rob, stages they hold up, sheriffs they shoot, the mere fact that somebody wrote a song / dime novel / movie about ‘em makes them into heroes.

Demi-gods.

People to be admired.

Emulated.

Professional wrestling knows this.

You can never be so big a heel that you won’t have a legion of followers.

And you can turn a heel into a baby face in the blink of an eye and none of the fans will remember the despicable acts the wrassler did just last week.

You put an Archie Bunker on TV, you do not get millions of people to recognize themselves in his hateful / hurtful behavior and change their ways.

Oh, hell no; you get millions of people to applaud him for saying and doing what they say and do in private.

And now that it’s all big and bold and brassy on TV, why it becomes even easier to say it in the privacy of your own home, then over the fence with the neighbors, then in the bar down the street, then on the street itself, and then against people who have done you no harm, who have committed no sin other than the heinous crime of not being exactly like you.

I remember watching and liking All In The Family when it first came on because I, like millions of other Americans, got the joke:  Archie was no hero.

But it wasn’t long before the voices cheering Archie began to drown out the voices laughing at him.

Lear and Yorkin tried undoing their damage with Maude and The Jeffersons and Good Times and other spinoff shows, but the bigot was out of the bottle.

Archie Bunker, even though written in a way to ridicule his use of bigotry and stereotypes, became a champion and defender of those who clung to said bigotry and stereotypes.

So tell me again why you want to drop that N-bomb, Dennis.

Explain to me -- even while you talk out of both sides of your mouth and claim even if everybody can use they word maybe they shouldn’t use the word -- how that does anything to help anybody…

…other than bigots and hate mongers.

Your argument is as circular as the thumb and forefinger gesture white supremacists use to signal one another, a gesture deliberately chosen because it lets them transgress openly by lying about the truth meaning of their gesture.

And Harlan, you were right about Those Were The Days as it began evolving into All In The Family.  Absolutely brilliant -- but absolutely deadly.

Not airing All In The Family wouldn’t have eliminated racial / ethnic / sexual prejudice in the United States…

…but it would have denied those ideas a voice.

The narcissist always proclaims, “I don’t care what they say about me so long as they spell my name right.”

Well, that’s what we got with Archie Bunker.

None of the bigots cared if we made fun of their ideas…

…just so long as they got their ideas out there.

Because ideas are made legitimate by their presence.

Now clearly, this is a bade that cuts both ways.

Ideas once unthinkable -- liberty and justice for all in the form of racial and gender equality, f’r instance -- need to be championed in public.

But we need to shout down and stamp out the bad ideas.

The United States took their foot off the neck of the defeated white racists after the end of the Civil War, and as a result jim crow came roaring back, and things did not change for millions of Americans for another entire century.

We allowed bigots and hate mongers and slavers to be whitewashed and glorified and forgiven for their crimes against humanity…

…and in the process we allowed them to continue victimizing African-Americans more and more.

Every song about the Ol’ South, every novel glorifying plantation life, every movie showing happy field hands, every statue commemorating murderous traitors as men of honor and principle, every single iteration of that idea made millions of people’s suffering not just possible but inevitable.

. . .

Now this is the point where the alt-right trolls are gonna jump up and ask “did you ever drop the N-word?”

Not in casual conversation, no.

I was born and raised in the South (Appalachia, mostly); my father’s side of the family were almost all Southerners.

Almost all.

My paternal grandmother was born and raised in New Jersey and met my grandfather when both served in the U.S. Army medical corps in WWI.  When my grandfather died in his 40s, my grandmother originally moved back to New Jersey, but her three children (dad and two aunts) felt heartbroken at having to leave their Southern cousins and friends behind so even though she carried no particular love for the South, my grandmother moved her family back and stayed there for the most of her life (she and one of my aunts moved out to California to be near us, but that’s another story for another post).

One thing my grandmother absolutely refused to tolerate was use of the N-bomb anywhere near her, especially under her roof or in the homes of her children.

This included both the -er and -ra variants, because Southern racists who didn’t want to appear as uncultured and as boorish and as bigoted as their backwoods cousins preferred the second pronunciation because they could claim they were actually speaking respectfully about “colored people”.

So I grew up in the rare white Southern home where the N-bomb merely wasn’t used, it was actually denounced as wrong.

Now, don’t go thinking my grandmother was some great paragon of virtue; she wasn’t (she was hell on wheels, in fact, but that’s another story for another post).

But she did recognize there was something wrong with the use of the N-bomb, and whether she demanded her children never use it in any form to keep them from appearing to be boorish, bigoted louts, or whether she just thought it was simple good manners of the golden rule variety not to use it, I dunno.

But I do know we never used it, and when my parents heard our neighbors or schoolmates use it, we were reminded in no uncertain terms that we were never to use it.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t used it.

A couple of decades ago I wrote a screenplay based on the life of Robert Smalls, in particular his incredible escape from Civil War Charleston by hijacking a Confederate gunboat and sailing it right past Ft. Sumter to join the Union fleet, bringing his wife and several other escaping African-Americans with him.

As a skilled harbor pilot, Smalls enjoyed certain privileges other enslaved African-Americans didn’t.

For example, he was allowed to go about the streets of Charleston unescorted…

…provided he wore a big diamond shaped brass tag around his neck.

Like a dog.

The tag indicated to slave catcher patrols that he was one of the “good” ones, that he could be trusted because he was helping his masters in their struggle against the Union by guiding blockade runners into the safety of Charleston harbor.

But knowing Southerners the way I do, and knowing the kind of low class good ol’ boy types they recruited for such jobs, I couldn’t imagine the slave catcher patrols being particularly courteous to him, even when they knew they had to let him pass because clearly he had the protection of some high positioned muckamuck.  

And I could easily imagine them flinging the N-bomb at him with great glee, taunting him, daring him to act “uppity” so they could beat the crap out of him and teach him some manners and remind him of his place.

So I used the word in their dialog in my script.

Would I use that word today?

Probably not.

It’s not that crucial to the story, and if the viewer doesn’t grasp the concept that these are bigoted bully scum from their actions and attitude, then I’ve failed my job as a writer.

Have I ever quoted people who dropped the N-bomb?

Yeah, I have, in the past.

I’ve quoted Richard Pryor and Blazing Saddles and Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

I would excuse it then as the aforementioned evidentiary context but ya know what?  I don’t quote those lines anymore.

I still think Pryor is hilarious and will recommend his routines to anyone I think might be interested, but he as a member of the African-American community at large (because like any other ethnic group, African-Americans have numerous sub-cultures and sub-communities among them), he could say things in a way neither I nor any other white person could say them.

(And, yeah, there’s a big debate going on to this very day among African-Americans about the appropriateness of that word and you know what?  Whatever decision African-Americans reach for themselves is their business and should not involve any input whatsoever from we white folk; we not only can’t use the word, we can’t even comment on how they choose to use it.  Period.  Full stop.)

Blazing Saddles when it came out used the N-bomb to be deliberately transgressive, to make a sympathetic point re how unfairly African-Americans were treated.

All well and good.

But nine years earlier there had been a movie called A Patch Of Blue and while it wasn’t a raucous comedy like Blazing Saddles it tried making a point about race relations in America and it was a really. Really good movie and it made some important points but today is virtually unwatchable not because of any flaws in it but because the times have changed.

Ditto Blazing Saddles.

We don’t need to approach the problem that way any more.

Quentin Tarantino?  I really like what he does as a director and a screenwriter but his use of the N-bomb to show us how transgressive his characters are is really shallow.  I have a strong feeling his movies are going to be considered embarrassingly passé’ in a generation or two, much the same way as benign-yet-stereotypical characters in 1940s movies render many of them passé’ today.  

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction lose nothing by changing the N-word to something else.  

Maybe an argument could be made for its use in Django Unchained or The Hateful 8 but even there I think substituting another word wouldn’t significantly change the tenor or tone of either movie.

So I stop quoting those lines from Tarantino’s films, at least not fully.

I can admire his skill / talent / craft without signing off on his problematic elements.

Let me offer an analogy: If a creator can get the same dramatic effect by pretending to shoot somebody but not actually blasting them with a gun, then they can get the same dramatic effect by using something evocative of the N-bomb without actually dropping it.

(By the way, for those who may be curious, my mother was from Naples and a bona fide card carrying member of Mussolini’s Fascist Youth Brigade, but that’s another story for another post.)

. . .

We are plunging into a new cultural conflict -- and while I think there will be violence, I don’t see it being violence on the scale or level of political organization as the Civil War -- and we can only win by refusing to let the bigots and the hate mongers spew their bullshit in the marketplace of ideas.

There is no compromise with an oppressor.

Stand up to it every time you encounter it.

Make it unthinkable, never acceptable. 

  © Buzz Dixon

[masterserris]

FUNERAL FOR A MAGICIAN FINAL PART: Be Human

Mysterio is back in action! Renewed, what will he do next?!

“I analyze and I verify and I quantify enough One hundred percentile No errors, no miss I synchronize and I specialize and I classify so much Don't worry 'bout dreaming Because I don't sleep

I wish I could at least 30 percent Maybe 50 for pleasure Then skip all the rest

If I only was more human I would count every single second the rest of my life If I just could be more human I'd have so many little babies and maybe a wife

I'd roll around the mud And have lots of fun Then when I was done Build bubble bath towers and swim in the tub

Sand castles on the beach

Frolic in the sea Get a broken knee Be scared of the dark and I'd sing out of key

Cuss when I lost a fight Kiss and reunite Scratch a spider bite Be happy with wrinkles I got when I smiled

Pet kittens til they purred Maybe keep a bird Always keep my word I'd cry at sad movies I'd laugh til it hurt

I'd buy a big bike And ride by the lake And I'd have lots of friends And I'd stay out too late

If I could just be more human I would see every little thing with a gleam in my eye If only I was more human I'd embrace every single feeling that came in my life

Would I care and be forgiving? Would I be sentimental and would I feel loneliness? Would I doubt and have misgivings? Would I cause someone sorrow, too? Would I know what to do? Will I cry when it's all over?

When I die, will I see heaven?”

(This was the only full version I could find RIP)

Characters: Neo Mysterio (Quentin Beck), Doc Ock (Otto Octavius), Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Alexandria Beck (Alex), Sandman (Flint Marko), Chameleon

Warnings: Explicit gore and death, violence, mentions of past abuse, mental illness, physical illness, swearing

^These warnings are here for the story as a whole. If you get invested by reading a less graphic chapter, then be prepared for the warnings above in other parts!!

(swearing in this chapter + moderate/mild gore and violence)

Parker was taking photos of the event for the Daily Bugle, but as everyone was leaving, he had caught the four Sinister Six members out of the corner of his eye. He was not about to let them escape. 

Luckily, since all the celebrities were heading out, he had a perfectly good excuse to leave himself and change into his spider suit. He quickly tailed them from a distance as they headed to their hidden limo. He shot a spider tracer at the vehicle as they were entering, but this did not go unnoticed.

Just as Quentin was about to get in, he saw the tracer on the back hood and immediately shot his eyes up enough to glimpse Spider-Man. He jumped back and his Neo suit materialized over his dress suit. Chameleon and Otto sped off into the night after Mysterio peeled the tracer off the car. Flint and Beck were ready for a fight.

Flint: “Ay, Spider-Man! Why can’t ya just leave us alone! We wuzn’t doin’ nuthin’!”

Neo Mysterio: “Right, leave it to you, Spider-Man, to ruin our little night on the town. I’m honestly not surprised since you always have a habit of making my life worse than it already is.”

Spider-Man: “Really, bowl-face? I just wanted to tail you guys and find out what you were up to. You’re the ones wanting a fight! And besides, I really find that hard to believe. You’re the Sinister Six. It’s kinda your brand to make bad things happen. And no one made you become a super villain in the first place. You all chose to be one.”

Flint: “It ain’t that easy, Spider-Man. Life has a nice way a’ pushin’ guys like us around to do things we don’t really wanna do.”

Spider-Man: “So don’t do it, then! You think your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man doesn’t also have spider-problems? We all do! Our choices are what make us heroes or villains. You were literally given a second chance, Beck! That’s more than most people! Are you really gonna throw that away by sticking with these guys?”

Flint turned to Mysterio, worried for his friend.

Neo Mysterio: “Spider-Man, every time you’ve interfered in my life, things have gotten worse. I was just some nobody committing petty crime to try and pay off my debts and make a new life. But you caught and beat me. Put me in jail, only to be busted out by my new friends. They’ve treated me far better than most people ever have. Every time you try and stop us, more people get hurt. I died because you just HAD to defeat me.”

Spider-Man: “I- no... that’s... But even still! Think of all the people we saved! From Ultron! From Terrax! Those worlds would still be under treat!”

Neo Mysterio: “Maybe! You don’t KNOW that! I can NEVER trust you hero types! So many of you flip-flop between hero and villain or just fight amongst yourselves all the time! At least I know where I stand with villains.”

Spider-Man: “Beck! Please! You’re making a mistake! Marko! I know you’ve struggled with being a villain in the past! Both of you can walk away from this, here and now! Do the right thing you know to be true!”

Flint: “Sorry, Spidey. I got people countin’ on me to see this through ‘til the end. I ain’t no quitter.”

Peter desperately turns back to Mysterio.

Spider-Man: “Quentin! Think of your sister! Would she want you to do this? Throwing away your life again after everything that’s happened?”

Mysterio was deathly silent for a moment, before snapping.

Neo Mysterio: “Don’t you DARE. Don’t you dare for one SECOND try and use my sister to try and manipulate me into doing what you want me to. You have no idea what we’ve gone through. You don’t know a THING about me, Spider-Man. Just. Stay away!”

And with that Mysterio slammed a smoke grenade on the pavement. Before Parker could leap after them, they had vanished completely. Peter was no closer to finding out their plans nor where their new base was. All he knew is that he drove Beck further away. He screwed up.

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

After meeting back up at the Sinister Six base, they all except for Quentin had departed to their quarters. It was certainly an interesting night. Beck had thanked them once again for trying to cheer him up. With a sigh he reached into the communal fridge for something to drink.

???:” Fancy meeting you here.”

Beck whirled around in shock only to see Flint leaning against the table, looking smug.

Quentin: “Hoooooly fucking shit man, you scared the hell out of me. Don’t do that again,” he said with a smile.

Flint: “Hah, it’s hard ta get the jump on ya, so I’ll take what I can get haha. Anyways, I just wanted ta see how you’re doin’ after.. ya know.. the Spider ruinin’ our picnic and all.”

Quentin: “God, he pisses me off so bad... I’m not even completely sure why, either. Yeah, it’s annoying when he gets in the way, but I think... I think it’s that damn big mouth of his that gets me.”

Flint: “I know whatcha mean. D’ya know he once called me Flinto? Fuckin’ FLINTO. What the hell is that supposed ta mean? I wasn’t even offended. Just... confused...”

Quentin: “Well, I mean, I don’t LIKE being called ‘bowl-head’ very much, but I think it more has to do with his bullshit view on life. Like, I can respect it enough, but he seems to think it’s just SO easy to stay out of trouble. But the thing is, trouble grabs you, it sinks you in and you just can’t get out. Then everything is ruined and you’ll never be free again. So what if I came back to life? I still gotta finish this. No matter what. Maybe after that, we can all... rest, but I kinda doubt the world will let us. We’ll always be bad in their eyes. People just... don’t seem to get that anyone could be in our position... If things had just gone a little differently. It’s his... smug.. stupid naive ideals that just rub me wrong, I guess.”

Flint: “Well, jeez, I guess so... Look, I wuz just hopin’ you had a good time, is all. Soon, hopefully we can put all a’ this junk behind us, okay?”

Quentin: “Yeah.. tonight was good. No matter what. Thanks for.. sticking by me, Flint. It means a lot. Maybe... Maybe when everything is done, you can visit my sister’s place and your daughter can see my niece?”

Flint: “Yeah. I’d like that. Sounds like a plan, buddy.”

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

It was less than a week later that Peter was alerted by the police scanner. Numerous reports were flooding in of a certain fishbowl-man causing terror downtown. With a heavy hearted sigh, Peter leaped into action.

He was hoping, more than anything, that Beck could do away with this life of crime. He was a good person, deep down in there, or so Parker believed. Why was he so hellbent on helping the Sinister Six? So much so that he would risk it all again?

Peter swung building to building, closing in on the commotion. It was not hard to spot. Mysterio had conjured up a whole horde of demons and monsters to scare people away. His fear gas was driving people wild, having them panic and sprint blocks and blocks away. To his credit, Beck knew how to get people out of the way when he needed them to.

Parker was ready, this time. He had a gas mask on and had calibrated his lenses to better see through the hologram projections. Not perfect, but it would do.

Spider-Man: “Hey! Hey Mr. Fun House! Why aren’t you at the carnival where you belong? Can’t you see these people HATE your show?”

Neo Mysterio: “Always with the JOKES! Well, laugh THIS off!”

Mysterio shot at Peter with his hand lasers, hoping to knock the hero away. He could not afford this interruption right now. Spider-Man took the hit, but dodged the second barrage. It stung, but he could shake it off.

Spider-Man: “Hey! Fine! You want serious? Let’s get serious!”

Parker swung in and slugged Mysterio right across the helmet, sending them both clattering to the ground with a grunt of pain. They both quickly got to their feet and prepared to fight.

Spider-Man: “Stop this, Beck! Final chance! Stand down and tell me why you’re robbing Alchemax! What does Octavius want so bad?!”

Neo Mysterio: “I have nothing to say to you! I don’t owe you anything! Least of all my breath and time! Just leave me alone and everything will stop!”

Spider-Man: “Sorry, can’t let that happen, Mysty!”

Peter shot a web right past Mysterio, hitting a car. Yanking forward he launched himself at Mysterio, aiming to smash that bowl of his. The only thing was that Beck dodged at the last second, making Spider-Man land onto the car with an agile flip. When Peter turned around Quentin was already sprinting at him, ready to throw a haymaker punch.

Peter dodge to the left with a somersault, making Beck slam his right arm into steel. His carbonadium fist was imbedded within the vehicle, making him an easy target for Peter to kick.

Quentin blocked Peter’s foot with with his free arm. Parker was shocked at Mysterio’s raw strength. He suspected that he was in fact fighting a robot instead of the real deal. Why would Mysterio simply be in public? Wouldn’t he hide himself while his robots took the attention away from him?

Coming to this conclusion, Peter was done pulling his punches. When Mysterio freed himself from the side of the car, Peter slammed a lamppost against Beck’s head, thoroughly shattering his dome. People still nearby gasped as Quentin went clattering to the ground. Any human would surely have been killed by such a devastating blow.

With a groan, Beck got to his feet, his head bleeding from the shards of glass cutting him open.

Peter’s heart dropped at his mistake. How could he have screwed up so bad? He surely has a concussion, or worse, a hemorrhage in his brain from such a nasty impact. He could keel over dead at any minute. God, all that blood was pouring out of him, wasn’t it? Just like. Just like... 

Spider-Man: “Oh god, Quentin, you’re bleeding! Stop moving, we need to get you to a hospital!”

Neo Mysterio: “What I NEED is you to stop looking down on me, Spider-Man...”

Wiping the blood from his brow, Beck rushed at Spider-Man, not letting up. Parker did his best to fight back, but Quentin was inhumanly strong. Never had Peter known that he was holding back so much. The prototype super soldier serum was certainly no joke and Beck just had so much rage.

Spider-Man: “ENOUGH!!”

Parker threw a punch with all his might at Beck, a last desperate attempt to stop this fight, but Mysterio simply caught his fist. Caught a punch from Spider-Man, the guy who could lift a tank and who fought the Incredible Hulk. Peter was shocked.

Neo Mysterio: “I’ll be your punching bag no longer, Spider-Man! Today, YOU LOSE!!”

Quentin pulled his fist back and slammed Parker across the jaw, sending him face-first into the pavement. With a “shink!”, Beck unsheathed the blade on his wrist and held it an inch from Peter’s neck.

Neo Mysterio: “huff... huff... I win... Today, I win...”

As suddenly as Mysterio, attacked, he pulled away, sheathing his blade once more. Peter was rather confused. Most super villains aren’t in the business of sparing their foes.

Neo Mysterio: “I’m letting you go... I don’t wanna kill anyone... not you... you don’t deserve that... you’re just fighting me to protect others... I get it... but... If we ever battle again... and I beat you... I’ll let you go... Only if you promise to let me go and not follow me once I’m done... If you win? Well... then you capture me, it’s that simple.... but if I win? Then you just leave with your skin still attached.... deal?”

Peter was reeling. Still seeing stars from the blow that he was dealt. He was in no position to refuse. Mysterio was sparing him. He would just have to beat him next time. He didn’t like giving up. He never gave up. Peter was not going to give up now or ever. He would keep fighting. Today just wasn’t his day.

Spider-Man: “D-deal....”

Neo simply stared at him with cold eyes before vanishing in a puff of green smoke. The robot doubles that Peter was worried about were already done robbing the place 5 minutes ago, anyways. Quentin himself was the distraction this time. And now he was once more a wanted man. The cycle repeats once more.

Peter shakily got to his feet, helped a few citizens recover from the gas and commotion, then swung away. He had a lot to think about, and a lot of healing to do.

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

Beck went back to the base, prize in hand. His face was properly stitched up by Otto, along with a new serum that faded scars over time. He was exhausted in all ways imaginable, but he still had energy to do one last thing.

He compressed his armor into an under suit once more after fixing his helmet and teleported to a rooftop a few miles away, wearing a simple green sweater and soft dark jeans. He sat on the very edge of the roof, observing the sunset from his precarious vantage point. A matcha latte in one hand and his cellphone in another.

He called his sister.

                                     End of Funeral for a Magician

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

Thank you all so much for reading! It means a ton! I shall make a master post with links to all the chapters, along with a link to the playlist that accompanies this story!

As a bonus, there shall be some art to go with it from a special someone who I commissioned for this!

Have a wonderful week everyone, and thanks for sticking with me through this emotional roller coaster!!

-MS

[tumblunni]

I hate that oddly specific feeling of like you wanna complain about a transphobic bad thing but then it's like hard to do it without sounding like you're defending a genuinely reprehensible character?

It's just that..like...

Excellus is a BAD PERSON

But the game does not want you to hate them because they're a BAD PERSON

It wants you to hate them because they're a trans woman/gay man/non-binary person/ambigiuos melting pot of every single queer stereotype simultaneously somehow

The game is constantly fuckin going on and onnnnn about how repulsive and ugly and Not Gender Correct this person is, and somehow this is a more important factor in wanting to stab them than the fact they killed a main character's brother

Also the whole fact that they have such a horrid personality with NO humanity or even a MOTIVE for what they're doing = kinda also part of the trans stereotype. This character only exists to be a lazy shorthand for "instantly hateable", you're meant to just accept all this bullshit simply because they're "hideous and wrong"

Also seriously I can't believe the dub made it EVEN WORSE! Cos Excellus (Excelli in Japanese) originally just speaks with a feminine speech pattern and adds lil hearts and ~ symbols in their speech boxes and stuff to indicate "hey I am a stereotype of someone DMAB who is somewhere on the queer spectrum and this is supposed to be bad". Similar to the (ugh) creepy incest gay brothers in that one sidequest. But in the dub they kinda added a goddamn flourish of this character talking like a friggin sex criminal! And even MORE mentions of "hey he is totally a man and can never be anything but a man, let's all talk way too much about how repugnant it is to be non gender conforming". While also friggin attempting to canonize that this character actually IS a cis straight man and (some fucking how) only acts trans because he's a eunuch????? Getting genital surgery changes your fuckin personality now????? Also seriously why did you have to have an invasive conversation about a dead person's testicles and why was it played as somehow a funny joke.

None of that was in Japanese but honestly with the rest of Japanese Excellus's general portrayal it seems INCREDIBLY likely that she was intended to be a trans woman. I kinda laughed at how the Tokyo Mirage Sessions version of Excellus straight up has giant plastic robot boobies yet the dub is still like We Will Just Say Man And Deny All Trans, While Also Simultaneously Saying Trans Is Bad, Somehow.

So yeah all of that just makes me hate Aversa even more for saying that shit, cos if that line actually existed in the Japanese version the context would seem more like.. well, trans woman who had the closest medieval equivelant of transition surgery and is being mocked for it. At least the knowledge that the Single Worst Moment Of The Whole Thing wasn't canon to the original makes me hate her a little less. Though I still hate her because she acts EXACTLY AS FLIRTY AS EXCELLUS and commits EVEN MORE CRIMES, yet she doesnt get nearly as much hate and even gets a redemption just because she acts like a sex criminal while being cis and conventionally attractive...

Auuugh I don't wanna hate the redeemed lady and be sympathetic to the asshole! But just the context of the game's writing and attitudes surrounding them really taints the characters...

Also I'm sad that there was brief hope that Loki in Heroes might actually be a respectful portrayal of a trans or genderfluid character, but nah it's just one of those boring overly-cisnormative-ideas-of-gender type "genderflip" things for mythological characters. Which is depressing cos mythological Loki literally ACTUALLY WAS a genderfluid pansexual shapeshifter who could be both god and goddess. Something that's so often censored in modern adaptations, and god it's so weird to have that happen again even though this adaptation is literally using the female Loki?? Just wiping off the whole "and also this character can be a man too" aspect... Nah just incredibly lazy fanservice cis woman time, I guess...

I mean cmon man, Fates made tiny tiny baby steps towards more LGBT representation, can we please step it up a little... Awakening already started with being behind the times, and all they changed was literally adding ONE gay character per game so you had to buy a certain version to date a gay man or lesbian woman...and it STILL contained homophobia at the same time... God just fuckin...TRY A LITTLE, PLEASE...

So uhh yeah that's what all the new news about the Three Houses game made me remember, and I'm trying to not get my hopes up. If it does have a big change to more inclusive writing then I'd be pleasantly surprised! But honestly I'm not gonna buy it unless I'm 100% sure I'm not gonna trip and fall into an eternal quicksand of self hate again

Tfw I literally look like Excellus in real life... (minus the comically overdetailed caricature face, of course...well, at least I hope so...)

Also can I just give another shout-out to Tabitha from Pokémon ORAS, a game I played in the same year that rekindled my faith in people like me being actually non hideous and genuinely liked by the fanbase. Srsly him and Excellus are just the same character drawn in bigoted and non bigoted art styles, I swear!

All of that heck happened back when I was first coming to terms with my gender identity so I'm glad that bloody fire emblem didn't kick me down back into the closet

[joyofcrime-elinorhigh]

Teen Titans Go To The Movies REVIEW:

 Ahem

 "I DON'T KNOW WHO CREATED...TEEN TITANS GO!....BUT I'D TRIED TO FIGURE OUT HOW WE GET THEM TO HAVE TEEN TITANS _GO. TO. THE. POLLS." _  *Beat*

 "I'm with her!"

**  **Hello everybody, my name is JoyofCrimeArt, and it's time to finally put this to rest. I've already gave my very...very...very extensive thoughts on Teen Titans Go! in my last two reviews.

 Oh my gosh, why didn't I call those reviews "Teen Titans Go! is Garbage and Here's Why?!" It was probably long enough and would of gotten way more views!

 But back on topic. To summarize my thoughts though I think Teen Titans Go!, while I do think that there are some good elements and even good episodes of the series, I didn't end up finding it to be a very good series on the whole. However, it is a series that I do enjoy watching in a weird, ironic kinda way. It's a very love hate relationship. It's a bad show, but I will be sad when it ends, cause it has impacted my life that much. So when word of a movie came to be, it immediately grabbed my interest as well as my curiosity. What could a show like Teen Titans Go! possibly do with a movie? Teen Titans Go's! whole "thing" is that it DOESN'T do big superhero stories. Wouldn't making a film kinda go against what the whole show was about? And the show typically had trouble stretching there plots out for eleven minutes, let alone ninety. But as more trailers came out, I started seeing a lot of people genuinely getting excited for the film. Even I had to admit I was kinda getting a little bit hyped by the trailers. And when the film finally did get released it actually succeeded in getting over a ninety percent on rotten tomatoes! Yes, you heard right, CRITICS WERE LIKING TEEN TITANS GO! Could this movie actually be....good? Or would it end up being as obnoxious as the series that it was based on? Well, it's time to find out. Consider this your  **SPOILER WARNING, **as we dive right to Teen Titans Go To The Movies.

 I both love and hate that title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9WhJyyTtqo

 The film begins with a giant balloon monster attack Jump City. And right off the back, I wanna praise the animation of this film. I admit, compared to other tv to film adaptations, it's nothing that _fantastic. However, there is a definite improvement from the series. The backgrounds are very fleshed out and detailed, chock full of little references and Easter eggs here and there. And the animation on the actions scenes (Yes, this film has those) is actually really good and surprisingly fluid. I admit though, this may just be slight bias because I'd pretty much praise any form of theatrical 2D animation now of days because COME ON, HOLLYWOOD! WHY WON'T YOU MAKE MORE 2D FILMS ALREADY!!!

_  We get a scene that manages to, in a very quick and effective manor, establish the films tone as well as show off all five of our main characters and establish there powers. Really impressive stuff. Is what I would say, If it didn't also includes an overly long fart joke, and a rap. Wow, six minutes. Is that a record for "kids film?" Guinness..can we verify?

 When the Titans, in typical Titans fashion, fail to stop the villain. This results in the Justice League to show up and stop the villain for them. And NICHOLAS CAGE plays Superman! YES! Okay movie, you get points for that. I'm fair here. That's also another thing this movie has over the series. Not all the side characters are played by Scott Menville or Tara Strong! They have like, MORE than five voice actors to pull from. Amazing, I know. The Justice League chastise the Titans for there general incompetents at everything, and bring up the fact that if they were real heroes they would have there on movie by now.

 As I mentioned in my previous reviews, Teen Titans Go! is at it's best when it's meta. And with so many superhero movies now of days, the Teen Titans Go! movie not only acknowledging this trend, and incorporating it in it's plot feels like a natural progression from the type of plots featured in the show. So I think this was a good direction for the film to take. There are a ton of jokes bashing not just DC films, but Marvel and Fox movies as well. And these jokes tend to be the highlights. When I first saw the trailer I was worried that these jokes would quickly get old, seeing how many of them are in the trailer. But in the film proper, they mix it up and spread them out enough to keep them enjoyable. So kudos on that.

 The Justice League fly off to go to the world premiere of Batman's newest film and the Titans decide to sneak into the red carpet premiere themselves. As they show up the films director, Jade Wilson (played by Kristen Bell), get's up on stage and starts revealing the slate for the next several DC movies. And just like in real life, there all Batman spin-off properties! Robin sits there in anticipation, hoping that a movie will be announced. But we get this, instead.

See, the thing about this that is funny is that THERE ACTUALLY DOING THIS. I doubt the people making this movie knew that at the time. But neither the less, it's happening, and I have proof.

 After a few more trailers Robin ends up jumping on stage thinking that his movie is going to be next only to discover that there is no plans for a Robin movie. All the other heroes laugh him off stage until all the Titans run out of the theater. The other Titans try to consul Robin, but Robin is adamant that if he doesn't get his own superhero movie he'll never be seen as a real hero. Raven suggest that if he wants a movie, first he'll need an arch nemesis. And just as she says that a crime occurs and the Titans go to investigate.

 The crime is being committed by none other than Slade, now voiced by Will Arrnet instead of Ron Perlman. And he is there to steal some kind of "mind gem." I like Slade in this movie. Sure, he's absolutely NOTHING like Slade from the original series, but that's okay cause he is his own unique take that fits the tone that the movie is going for. Also Will Arrnet is great casting for a more comedic take on Slade. I mean the creators of the original Teen Titans show said in interviews that they wrote Slade to be an evil Batman. So who'd be better to voice him than Lego Batman himself. My only gripe, and it is a minor one, is that while the film makes a big deal about Slade being a "serious villain" that only a "serious superhero" would have as an arch enemy. But he's only _slightly _less silly than the Titans. And while this isn't that big of a deal since Slade is funny here, it does seem to kinda go against the narrative that Slade is suppose to representing.

 Also, when Slade and the Titans meet, and neither seem to know who each other are, with the Titans believing that he is Deadpool. Even though in the series the Titans have acknowledged Slade in the series before, and even battled him before. (off screen, but still.) How does this all fit-

 Slade easily defeats the Titans, and mocks them for there incompetence. The Titans go back to there tower where Robin begins to feel sorry for himself, believing that he will never be a real hero. What? _Character conflict?! _The next morning the Titans get Robin and bring him to a "world premiere" of a Robin movie they made for him, complete with a cardboard limo and everything. _What? Something touching...no, that's not right. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE REAL TITANS!?

_  I do wanna touch on this. In this movie the Titans act very out of character from how they do in the show. But that is actually a good thing, cause the Titans in the series...are awful. In my previous Teen Titans Go! review I talk about how the original series Titans felt like a family, while it felt like the Go! versions just hated each other. But in this movie all the characters are way more likable. (Mostly, we'll get to that later.) And there feels like a real sense of connection between the characters. Sure there still goofy, and they make fun of each other, but they really do feel like a family. And this goes a LONG way with making me feel invested and actually rooting for our heroes to succeed in there goals.

 Robin watches the film, but turns it off when the movie makes fun of his "baby hands" (A running "joke" from the series.) The other Titans try to get him to finish the film but he's uninterested. _Man, I'm sure that won't be brought up again. In the films climax when the characters are at their lowest point! _Robin is hard set on believing that he'll never be seen seriously as a hero, but the other Titans encourage him to buck up and head down to Warner Bros. and DEMAND that they make a movie about him. And they do so in song.

 This seems like a good of a time as any to bring up that this movie is a musical. Possibly the first superhero musical? The song themselves, while nothing THAT amazing, are a step up from most of the songs in the series. i.e) They actually seem like they were written. (And that's not me being hyperbolic. A lot of the songs in Teen Titans Go! are made up on the spot! Look it up!) But what I really appreciate is how for several of the songs there is an art style shift, and that's really neat to see. Especially with a theatrical budget.

 The Titans go down to Warner Bros and go up to Jade Wilson and demand for a film. But she turns them down, saying that she would only make a movie about them if they were the last heroes on Earth. And that's exactly what the Titans decide to do! They decide to use time travel to go back in time and undo all the other superheroes origin stories so they'll be the only superheros.

 Yeah, this is the direction we're going. It's Spongebob: Sponge Out of Water all over again.

 And they can't use there time machine from the series cause it's "broken." So Raven just magic ups some time tricycles. WHATS THE POINT OF THE TIME MACHINE EVEN BEING BROKEN THEN IF RAVEN CAN GET MAKE NEW ONES NO PROBLEM? They could of made some joke where they like, steal Booster Gold's time machine at least. You just wanted a dumb "Back to the Future" reference didn't you? DIDN'T YOU! And while playing "Take on Me" makes me forgive you A LITTLE BIT, this whole situation is still stupid.

 In fact this whole "bit" is still stupid. And I say "bit" cause this whole time traveling section contributes nothing to the plot, and is only like, ten minutes long. The Titans go back in time to undo all the superhero's origins. (And end up murdering Aquaman as a child.) They come back to the present to see that villains have taken over the world. And then they go back and undo everything they already undid. (Including blowing up Krypton and frickin shoving Bruce Wayne's parents into Crime Alley as young Bruce watches!)

_That's his adoptive grandma he's watching get shot down... _  And I know you can say "Oh, it's comedy" or whatever, but this movie was actually doing a good job making me like the Titans. And maybe it's just because I've always had issues with the "main characters nonchalantly murder people" trope. But considering that this whole time travel thing literally adds nothing outside of stretching the film up _just _enough to reach ninety minuets, I can say it does nothing but hurt the film.

 Also, Baby Superman gyrate his infant crotch while pointing at it, in this film aimed at children.

 As someone who's defended the Powerpuff Girl reboot's twerking scene numerous time I suppose it be hypocritical to complain. So instead, I'm just going to list movies that have a lower rotten tomato score than Teen Titans Go to the Movies. For...unrelated reasons. Ahem

 _Lilo and Stitch. The Kung-Fu Panda Trilogy. Princess and the Frog. Tangled. Frozen. Coraline. The Lego Batman Movie.... _

 Anyway after all that, the Titans go off to try to stop Slade from committing another robbery. And this time the Titans are sure they'll beat him. We get an actually good fight scene and some Raven-Beast Boy ship tease that comes out of nowhere and contributes nothing. I know it's a thing from the show, but nothing in this movie setting it up. And it doesn't lead to anything. The Titans are able to get the "Mind Gem" that Slade stole earlier away from him and they put it in the Titans tower vault, but Slade still escapes.

 But the next day, the Titans are suddenly seen as real heroes for stopping Slade's plan. They head back to the film set and are greeted with a much warmer welcome. Jade decides that she does want to make a Teen Titans movie after all, and Robin is ecstatic. However, the other Titans don't take the gig as seriously and all go goof off, getting Robin into hot water with Jade.

 It all comes to a head when the other Titans see the Justice League building some kind of doomsday device, and assume that Jade is up to no good. Which is dumb because they have no reason to assume that it isn't just a prop for the film. But whatever. However, Jade reveals that this doomsday device is actually just a machine to launch there new streaming service. The device would broadcast DC films across all screens all over the word, with the Teen Titans movie being the first film they would release for the service.

 You're telling me that Jades launching a DC superhero based streaming service, and the only thing it will have at launch is Teen Titans? Pfft! _That's totally ridiculous, and completely unrealistic..._DC Universe didn't have Titans at launch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJF7k5cFQEQ

 Jade gets angry and decides to fire the Titans. But says that she would be willing to make a solo Robin movie, since he didn't do anything wrong. Robin chooses to go with Jade and leave his friends behind. I admit, this is where the movie does start to become a bit predictable. You've seen this story arc before, the friends vs fame thing, and it goes exactly where you think it's gonna go. But I do like how there isn't a huge fight like you'd see in other movies. Both sides are upset that it's come to this, but clearly don't wanna hurt the other. Again, outside the earlier genocide of an entire planet, the Titans are pretty likable in this film.

 Robin and Jade begin working on the film, and it ends up being everything Robin wanted. But he's still beginning to feel some regret. However, Jade convinces him to buckle through it and film the last scene. A reenactment of Robin putting Slade's mind gem in the Titans vault. But right as he's about to enter the code a stage light knocks him out. He awakens and decides to finish the scene anyway. Jade telling him to make the scene look authentic. And again, it's pretty obvious where this is going.

 Robin puts in the code and the safe opens. Jade took Robin to the real tower while he was knocked out and reveals herself to be Slade in a Lupin III style latex mask! Okay, maybe that last part wasn't too predictable. But even ignoring the name JADE WILSON, It was telegraphed pretty obviously that Jade was evil since the scene where she made Robin chose fame over his friends.

 But hey, it's still a better twist villain than Frozen.

 Slade steals the mind gem and plans on using it in tandem with Robins film and the streaming service to mind control the entire planet to do his bidding. He handcuffs Robin to the tower walls and activates a series of bombs, leaves him to die. But Robin escapes thanks to his baby hands. A twist that is just as unexpected as it is stupid. The tower is destroyed but Robin survives, and realizes the error of his ways. He calls the other Titans and all is forgiven because they are a team.

 The Titans now head to the film studio to stops Slade's plan, but they are unable to stop him before he uses Robin's movie to mind control the entire Justice League. Robin goes after Slade while the rest of the Titans have to face down the Justice League. There's a short action scene that could of been longer in my personal opinion. Then Raven just uses her OP magic powers to trap the entire Justice League in a portal.

 **NOW YOUR THINKING WITH PORTALS! **That's..that's the meme, right? I-I haven't ever played_ Portal._

 Robin confronts Slade, but Slade surrounds Robin with monitors all playing his movie. Robin becomes tempted to view his movie and gets mind controlled. In a nice (though juries still out of if it was intentional) callback to the original series, Slade commands Robin to attack his friends and he complies. But wait, remember that obvious Chekhov's gun from earlier in the film? It's time to pull the trigger! The Titans play the movie they made for Robin, but this time they get to the end where they all talk about how much Robin means to them as a leader. The power of friendship frees Robin from Slade's mind control.

 But Slade has a mech now! This was not set up at all, but who cares at this point. _Mechs are cool damn it! _Slade once again mocks the Titans, asking how a team as goofy as them could possibly stop him now. But Robin and the rest of the team realize that they don't need to be "legitimized" or seen as "real heroes." They just need to stop the bad guy in there own way. We get a reprise of the rap song from the beginning as the Titans defeat Slade in their own silly way. They destroy the mind control device and the Justice League go back to normal. The movie ends with the Titans realizing that they truly are heroes and...wait a minute...something is off here. It's 2018...and this movie doesn't end with a dance party! Teen Titans Go!, the show that is known for random dance sequences, is actually one of the few modern films not to end with a dance party ending?! What the hell?

 But we do get our post credits scene!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F06HJTyB17c

 Is this it? Is this the preview for Teen Titans Season 6?!

 Not quite! Rather it's just setting up an upcoming "Teen Titans Go! vs Teen Titans" crossover, that's rumored to be heading direct to DVD with a new crew working behind it. You what that means right? It isn't over. My job isn't done yet. There's still more to talk about! THE RIDE NEVER ENDS, BABY! I'M GONNA KEEP TALKING ABOUT TEEN TITANS GO! UNTIL THE DAY I DIE! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwDIZT3XbjQ

 While Teen Titans Go To The Movies didn't do that great at the box office, the film had a low enough budget to end up making a pretty substantial profit. Which is more than most DCEU films can say. I doubt we'll see the Titans on the big screen anytime soon, but it wasn't a bomb critically or financial. But what is my final verdict here?

 The film in a lot of ways solves a lot of problems I had with the series. For one, the Titans are all a lot more likable, which goes a long way in helping me get invested. And while the show seems to conflate "conflict" with "serious" this film manages to have a plot and story while still keeping it's comedic tone the entire way through. More technical issues the show had like animation and reusing voice actors are near non-existent here. And the film manages to do what I think episodes like "The Return of Slade" tried and failed to do. It celebrates it's own silliness and imperfections, but does it in a way that isn't just "attacking the haters." Like I said, Teen Titans Go! is best when it's meta.    But the film has it's problems too. The plot points at times can be kinda predictable. There are a lot of scenes that really don't add anything to the story beyond stalling for time. And there are a lot of points where the humor falls back into the same loud, juvenile, mean spirited jokes that the series is known for. Also, while Robin is my favorite of the Titans, I would of liked the other characters to have a larger role. For a film that's whole climax is hinged on the idea of a Robin solo film being a bad idea, but that's what the film can kinda feel like at time.

 Overall, the film is about what I thought it would be. It's okay. It's up there with the best of the episodes of the show, but not really going that far beyond it. (In fact, I'd say their are a few episodes from the main series that are better than this film.) It's good, but I wouldn't call it 91% on rotten tomatoes good. If you like Teen Titans Go! you'll like this movie if you're willing to put up with a little more drama. If you hate Teen Titans Go! you'll like the movie if you are able to just turn your brain off and put up with some more childish jokes here and there. And if you can't do either of those things...watch Lego Batman. It's better than this film anyway, regardless of what rotten tomato says, and has a similar vibe about it.

 And with that, I can finally put Teen Titans Go! to rest**. For now! **What did you think of the movie? Was it "You're new favorite film?" or was it just as bad as the many people said it would be? I'd love to hear your thought in the comments down bellow. Fav, follow, or comment if you liked my review or have a suggestion on what I should talk about next. And tune in next week as deviantcember continues! Have a great day.

(I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.) 

  https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Teen-Titans-Go-To-The-Movies-REVIEW-774742614 DA Link

[21tailsofwoe]

“In Another Life” | NaruSaku

In which Sakura’s character becomes self aware.

Pairing: Naruto Uzumaki x Sakura Haruno

A/N: I am extremely new to fanfiction (fanfiction based on existing works, that is) so I don’t really know what I’m doing here and I don’t know the fanfic terminologies so I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a bit angst-y, I guess?

Excuse the typos. I rarely proof read.

Also, if you ship ss or nh along with ns, don’t read this k thx

Words: 2,490

H E R

As kids, when he used to hint at his crush for me, I would shrug it off. Maybe because I found him unbearable, and frankly, really annoying. Maybe because I was just a naïve, young girl, engrossed in her own fantasies and dreams, unaware of how much this world had in store for me.

Gradually, I learned that there was more to him than just silly pranks and loud words; there was a lot more to him. His dream seemed so stupid and unrealistic at first. Surely, a loud-mouthed kid like him, how could he ever achieve such an impossible feat? But slowly, he started to prove me wrong. His otherwise annoying behaviour grew on me. I saw that there was more to his pointless declarations. He wanted to be recognised and respected. He wanted to show everyone that he was not the troublesome kid they made him out to be. He wanted to be treated like somebody.

He was so stubborn, but his stubbornness brought about change, change that I witnessed with my own eyes which would bring about hope wherever he went. It made me believe in improvement. I was so unsure of myself, of what I wanted to be. He made me believe in myself. I couldn't help but believe in him too.

However, I liked this other boy, the boy with a dreadful past and hatred in his heart. The boy who happened to be in our team. At first it was a young girl's silly crush on the dreamy, ‘mysterious’ boy, but then I started to see that this boy had so much more hidden deep within him, something that scared me. I wanted to reach out, to help him. My so called 'love' had been selfish at one point, I admit. But when he left me, when he left his home, I could only cry and beg him to stay, but to no avail.

And then he came along. "The promise of a lifetime," he called it. He said he would bring our friend back, no matter what it took. And I couldn't help but cry and beg again, so that he could bring our friend back. Perhaps still love me back then, or somewhere that crush still existed within him. Whatever it was, he suppressed it, never forcing it onto me.

Sadly, he couldn't keep that promise. In fact, it nearly got him killed. And at that moment, I realised that I could've lost him too, that my inability to do anything useful could've ruined everything.

And so I made a promise too; I promised that I would grow stronger so that he doesn't have to hurt himself anymore. Not alone, at least. We would save our friend together.

We then went our separate ways, because we knew we had to grow stronger. There was a daunting challenge ahead of us and we had to prepare ourselves. He went for his training with his master, while I sought out my own.

During that period, amidst my harsh training, perhaps I had created this image of the boy I loved. How was he? Where was he? Was he safe? If not, would I be able to save him? These thoughts pulled me deeper into the an aberrant kind of love, for the false image of the boy who I hadn't seen in years.

Was that really love?

When the blond haired knucklehead came back from his training, I could see how much he had grown. He may have been the same knucklehead I knew, but in some ways, I could see that something had changed within him.  

He may have grown stronger, but so had I. I didn’t want to feel left behind anymore. When he saw my strength, my growth, I couldn't help but be amused at his awe. It was a surreal feeling, that feeling of acknowledgement. I knew I had trained hard. I knew I had become stronger than before. Even my master could tell how much I had grown. So why did his acknowledgement feel so . . . satisfying? Why was it his words that made me feel better?

Was that not love?

One day, I learned the truth; his truth. I learned of the monster that he carried within him. I learned of the threats it posed, I learned of why the elders hated him so much, and I understood how miserable his childhood had been for a crime he didn't even commit. A sense of protectiveness grew in me, the desire to help him and his dream.  

Couldn’t I have started loving him then?

And what about the time I finally met the boy I had loved since I was a young girl again? The boy had turned into something so sinister, so dark. He wasn't the boy we knew. He was someone who was way beyond reach, someone who could even kill me without batting an eye, not caring for his own teammates. How could I still have loved this new version of this person? Why did I keep holding on to my belief?

I wanted to love the boy who stood by me. The one who trusted in me no matter what, the one who admired me for who I was, the one who saved me countless number of times, the one who inspired me to grow and become a better person. The boy who cared deeply for me, and I for him. The boy who, in fact, had fallen in love with me.

So why couldn't I love him? What was holding me back? Was it that false image of love I had previously created for the person who had stopped caring for me? Or was this simply the desire to save my old teammate which was in the disguise of 'love'?

Meanwhile, we grew – my friend and I. We fought alongside, we learned so much, and understood even more. Even when he seemed to lose everything, he got back up. Even in during the war, he kept growing – as a person as well as a fighter.  

I was even faced with the threat of losing him, my true friend. I could've lost him forever, and it could all have ended right then and there. His dream would've been lost to the emptiness of death. My desperation was at its peak. My selfishness played its part, for the thought of losing him scared me deeply.

Was that desperation not love?

And I still continued to 'love' the monster that tried to kill me, that no longer felt the need of my presence. The monster that continued to demean me, put me down. I must have realised that the boy I once knew and loved was long gone, so was the false image that I had created.

So why couldn't I get over this so-called love? Was my desire to save him that strong?

It took time, but things may have started to get better. The monster we wanted to save from the darkness seemed to have slowly come into light. And right when we thought we finally got to him, he slipped away from our grasp almost immediately.

And yet again, I couldn't do anything but cry and beg him to stay.  

Could that be called love in any shape or form?

It wasn't my love that saved this person, it was his persistence, his struggle to help his friend, his never-ending dedication towards his friend, his resolve to bring him back from the terrible path this friend had chosen. It wasn't me. I couldn't help him keep his promise.

I couldn't even keep mine.  

All that mattered in the end was that they both were safe, and the monster was cured of his hatred. We got our teammate back, our happiness. "The promise of a lifetime" was kept, and the man I loved since I was a little girl was brought back to me, the man who apparently had learned to love me too. The ‘love’ I had spend years giving to him, was finally returned.

I should be happy, right?

So why am I not content? Why does it feel like something is missing? Why does it feel like someone is missing?  

In other words: why couldn't I move on?

And here I stand, married to the man I loved all my life. My daughter holds onto me with her tiny hands, while my husband is out there, protecting the village. The husband I haven't seen since the birth of my child -- our child. Our daughter is the proof of our love now. She's holding our family together while he is out there. Our feelings are connected through this very child, or so it seems.

As I look at the family before me, celebrating the birth of their second child, a beautiful baby girl with her father's beautiful blue eyes, I can't help but feel a slight ache in my chest. The baby sleeps solemnly in her mother's arms, while her elder brother who is just a few months older than my daughter, peers over at his new-born sister from over his father's shoulder.

The father -- the hero of the village, the hero who saved the world -- has grown into a fine young man right before my eyes. He finally has a family, aside from our team. A family linked by blood and not just love, something he had been craving for since he was a kid. I should be happy for him.

So why do I feel so incomplete?

He's married to the woman he loves and has two beautiful children now. He is happy. So am I. I have a family of my own too.

"Wanna hold her?" He asks me, breaking me out of my thoughts. When I just give a dazed expression in response, he points to the new born baby held in the arms of his wife, who is on the hospital bed in a state of exhausted bliss.

"No, that's okay," I say. "I am not that good with babies." An extremely ridiculous lie.

He laughs. "You're a doctor! And a mother. How can you not be good with babies?"

Something about his laugh warms my heart. I push the feeling away and shake my head. "No, I think she should be with you for now."

"Come on, just for a little while." He cracks a grin, shaking a finger at me. "I know you want to."

I stiffen and unknowingly tighten my hold on my daughter. "I have to go," I suddenly blurt out.

His face falls. "What?"

"You just got here," his wife protests.

I realise how strange I must've sounded. "It's just that my shift starts early today," I lie. Why am I lying? "I completely forgot about it, and now I'm late."

"Oh," he says as he stands up, disappointment clearly hinted in his voice. "Okay. Want me to come with you?"

Yes. "No, please. You have to stay here," I say, waving him off. "You two, congratulations!" I smile at them, trying to make it seem as genuine as possible even with the ache in my heart growing.

"Thank you!" His wife smiles in return.

"Thank you," he says in a low voice, but there is no hint of the happiness he previously displayed. His eyes reflect his worry. Damn it, he has always been able to see through me. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Of course, you dummy!" I laugh. "I'll be back tomorrow. You better treat me big."

He doesn't reply.

Not wanting to prolong this, I look down at my daughter. "Come on, let's go." She nods.

As soon as I step out of the room and close the door behind me, my tears finally force their way out. I try to blink them away, but to no avail. I pick my daughter up in my arms and rush down the hallway. She repeatedly asks me what is wrong, but I just sob in response because I know the answer to her question.

The truth is: somewhere deep within, I love him. I have for a while now. In fact, I've loved him for a long time. I have wanted to be with him, all this time. I want to be with him, even now. I should've been the one with him, in that room, holding our child.

So why am I out here? What went wrong? Why have we turned out like this? Why aren't we together like we were meant to be?

Why can't I love him?

H I M

He stares at the door for some time, not saying anything and remaining still. It was as though something had stirred deep within him, something he couldn't understand. Her sudden change in behaviour worried him. Something clearly bothered her and he couldn't really tell.

Or could he?

"What's wrong?" His wife asks. "Something the matter?"

"No, it's nothing," he blurts out. He turns around and smiles, only to have her furrow her brows in worry.

"Then why are you crying?" she asks.

He stills. "Wh-what. . ." He runs his palm down his left cheek and feels a tear streaming down. That's strange, he thinks. Why am I crying?

At that moment, the pain in his chest starts to grow, as an unnamed emotion engulfs him, something he can't understand. The tears don't stop as he faces away from his wife. "I must be really happy. . ." He mumbles.

But he knows that it's not true. On the contrary, it's sadness that has brought him to tears. And he doesn't know why.

He turns to face the door, and slowly paces towards it. "I'll be back," he assures as he pushes on the door handle.

His wife nods, still concerned. "Okay. Take your time."

He closes the door behind him and stares down the hallway, the way his friend went. The aberrant tears continue to force their way out. A familiar feeling reaches out to him, a feeling he had suppressed for so long. . .      

"Perhaps in another life. . .Sakura-chan,” he quietly says to himself.