#and no we still haven't addressed that huge fight

[laurelwen]

School Banner Analysis

It's time to talk about the school crest we see on the podium/lectern that Dr. Forbes stands at when addressing the assembled school on a few occasions. Though it is a small image with fairly low quality, the promo still from my post yesterday really highlights this crest and shows us some important details.

The Device

There are a few things to talk about here. Perhaps most obvious is the X shape behind the shield, called a saltire, giving us a strong echo of the crossed bones motif that the film focuses on. The saltire cross appears frequently in heraldry and is perhaps most famously seen on the Scottish flag, also called St. Andrew's Cross because the saint was reportedly martyred on a cross of that shape.

The shield (or escutcheon) contains a sable (black) charge of a double thistle and a laurel garland. Thistles are strongly associated with Scotland and they feature in the Royal Arms of Scotland and via The Order of the Thistle. They do also appear in plenty of other heraldic arms, and can represent pain and suffering or strength, bravery, and resilience. (Other examples of thistles in heraldry here.)

Laurel wreaths have represented victory and triumph since the days of ancient Greece, and that meaning is carried through into heraldry as well. The laurel wreaths, garlands, and crowns appear everywhere in Eurocentric cultures, so ubiquitous that you probably don't even register them when you see them. (Other examples of laurel in heraldry here.)

The most noteworthy part of the charge is the spear forming the central axis of the symbol. Like most weapons of the medieval era, spears feature commonly in heraldry, and when drawn especially long, it is blazoned (officially described) as a "pike". I don't need to point out the obvious importance of this symbol in the movie.

Occupying the same place as it does in the order sigil, it serves as the central pillar uniting two halves--two thistles, two branches of laurel--into a single whole.

The Motto

Beneath the device on the banner there is also a motto. The photo is small and zooming in results in terrible pixelation of some of the letters. "Mort" is very clear. The rest can be parsed together with trial and error, and I have arrived at the conclusion that this motto reads "Loyal a la mort." The translation is exactly what it sounds like: Loyal unto death. A Google search shows several extant uses of this motto, one for the Canadian navy and several associated with various families (example above is from the Garling family). I haven't gone further than that because the real world uses aren't important here.

The motto has clear relevance to the narrative, an encapsulation of two separate aspects of the plot. It reflects the Order's expectation that members will support each other and further their aims at all costs, above any other loyalties. It is also the perfect expression of Nigel's life and death, devoted to his beliefs and to Alex as his Jack, to the point of choosing death in order to achieve their unification.

The symbolism was all around Alex his entire life, staring him in the face every morning from his father's podium and even hiding in plain sight in the huge painting of the battle of Bannockburn on the back wall of the assembly hall. The choice remains with the viewer: whether you choose to believe that he remained incognizant of all this until Nigel opened his eyes, or if you think he only claimed ignorance to erase his part in the events of the film.

Miscellaneous Notes:

Although it was already present in the references to the exiled Templars fighting with the Scottish in the Battle of Bannockburn, and the fact that Dr. Forbes is himself Scottish--Nigel points out that both he and Alex are descended from those same Templars--the Scottish connection is only further underlined by the use of the thistle and the saltire cross.

As a side note, I found a school in Australia called Knox Grammar School which uses a device with both a thistle and a saltire cross. It's by no means the same device, but it makes me wonder if someone on the production crew attended that school and pulled from their own experiences to create the banner in the film, maybe as a little inside joke or shout out.

I will address the matter of the Colbie family tree in Nigel's book, and it's very simplified use of heraldic devices in another post. This one is quite long enough.

[Like Minds Masterpost - Main]

[gemsofthegalaxy]

One of the things I've seen said was it's ironic that Blitz now won't stop blowing up Stolas' phone when he couldn't be bothered to text him when he was in the hospital, or didn't care enough to

And maybe I'm being nit-picky with wording, but, I wouldn't say it was that Blitz didn't care enough to text or see Stolas. I think Blitz's affections are muddled and way, waaay more subtle than Stolas' big big emotions but I am feeling very vindicated as of the most recent episode because it's hugely concrete evidence, finally, that Blitz cares about Stolas

I know Blitz has brushed Stolas off a lot, seems annoyed by him, rolls his eyes at his affection and sexuality, but imo none of this means Blitz doesn't actually like Stolas. I've said this before (and also keep trying to make a longer post and failing) but if you look at how Blitz treats Moxxie, he is highly abrasive and a dickhead even to the people he clearly adores. In Truthseekers, he's upset at the idea he might have crossed a line by telling Moxxie he disliked one of his interests but at the same time he rags on Moxxie for his vanilla sex life with Millie and like 50 other things all the time. He is nearly obsessed with Moxxie, wants to be near him, cares for him, and is still a complete jerk to him a lot of the time. Because we see less of Stolas and Blitz and very different sides of the relationship, I know some people have read into it that Blitz genuinely is disinterested in Stolas but I really don't even think it's been the case.

Back to the point at hand, I wouldn't say that Blitz refusing to see Stolas while he was in hospital is due to lack of care. If anything, probably too much care. Blitz, understandbly, probably has a complicated relationship with hospitals after the fire accident. In The Full Moon he acknowledges in the opening song that something is up, he knows Stolas wants to talk and he also states outright he doesn't want to address the weirdness, he wants thing to stay the same, chill, transactional, no feelings involved. Now, if Apology Tour hadn't gone down how it did, I might believe that Blitz doesn't want feelings involved because he doesn't have feelings for Stolas in the first place (although, again, I maintain he's always cared about Stolas and we do get hints to this, they haven't been super blantant)

But oohhh man in Apology Tour, it's never been clearer, from the first moment of the episode, Blitz is fighting for Stolas in a way we certainly haven't seen before (in his abravise messed up way). He is visually and viserally upset at being confronted with the fact Stolas doesn't think he ever cared about him precisely because he does care about him. He's viciously jealous at another man "stealing" Stolas' attention because he ultimately feels like Stolas belongs with him, even if he's not ready to let that happen in a way that's good for either of them.

Therefore, in retrospect at the very least, I can't comprehend Blitz's lack of going to the hospital as a lack of care in and of itself. I think he just couldn't handle it, honestly, it would be too big, too real, too significant, too close to the truth of the matter to acknowledge not only to himself but to Stolas that he cares enough to visit him in the hospital. And he can't let Stolas knows he cares that much, because he won't be good enough for him. I mean, clearly, the conclusion is still the same that it comes across like he doesn't care enough, but it's more complicated than that, is what I'm trying to say

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

Any headcanons for Zao? Can be SFW/NSFW. I wouldn’t it really. Just need your opinion and thoughts what you would think of our dear chinese captain.

Would love to read them!! Thank you!!!!! ^3^

I have a small handful of Zao requests in the inbox. Suppose I need to look more into the cut content from Fallout 4; seems a shame that we missed out on an opportunity to learn more about him.

NSFW under the cut.

Captain Zao (Fallout 4) SFW/NSFW Headcanons

SFW

Absolutely falls into the class of ghouls who pretty much immediately quit sleeping completely when they realized they had no physiological need for it. Plenty of ghouls still sleep every night and feel significantly better with a good few hours under their belt, but there are an almost equal number of them who choose to forego sleep entirely, either because they believe it's a waste of time or because they don't want to dream. Zao is a solid amount of both, someone who chastises himself for relaxing too much while also desperately wanting to avoid the nightmares about huge groups of people being vaporized by nuclear bombs that plague him. Instead, he spends all night keeping watch over the port for signs of raiders, keeping tabs on his feral comrades to ensure they don't hurt anyone, and doing what little scavenging he feels he can.

Susceptible to low-level bribery when it comes to food. He always enjoyed a good meal, and he hasn't really had one for a few hundred years. He's intrigued if you offer him food that seems especially decent (you know, if he trusts you...otherwise, he's gonna assume you're trying to poison him or something by tempting him with what he wants). Misses actual Chinese cuisine, so if you can whip up anything that even sort of resembles it, he'll be more than a little smitten. One of the easier ways to this man's heart is through his stomach.

Very emotionally constipated, particularly when it comes to romance. Whether it be because he had a wife back home who he still thinks about, or simply because he really only has room in his heart for his goal of making it back, you'll have a rough time trying to get this man to show you any sort of affection, even if he secretly wants to. At its worst, this resistance is visible to you, him physically pulling himself away or stopping himself, and it's rather painful for you both. There's an incredibly small chance he might be willing to take you back to China with him when he goes, but he'd have to feel a "soulmates" level connection with you (and also be ready to be pretty selfish, as he's not even entirely sure he'll make it back/that there will be anything left worth going back to).

NSFW

As I've discussed before, this man fucking loves dry humping. Well, he loves it as much as he allows himself to love anything, especially anything involving sexual gratification. If you thought he was backed up emotionally, you haven't seen anything yet. Zao is the sort of person who will ignore his intimate needs until they demand to be addressed, and suddenly he's pinned you to the wall and shoved his tongue down your throat while he grinds his erection into your stomach when the two of you haven't even kissed before. Has difficulty reining himself in once he actually lets himself get intimate with someone, so he often ignores that side of himself as long as he can out of shame. A little "unintentional" rub against your ass never hurt anyone, though...right?

Mild voyeur. Like with many people that deny the sexual side of themselves, that denial has manifested itself into a deep curiosity about the sexual lives of others within him. Granted, he's still a very "prim and proper" type of man, and he'd never admit to anything of the sort because he knows how it's perceived by others, but it's a compulsion he has difficulty fighting. Gets a huge thrill from seeing people in intimate moments when he knows they can't see him. Sometimes people make camp along the water of the harbor and he watches while they change, bathe. Have sex. Feels rather gross about it, but can't ever seem to stop himself. If he gets the opportunity to spy on you, you'd best believe he'll take it.

If you can get the man comfortable enough with you that the two of you are actually having sex on a regular basis, you might be surprised at how voracious he can be. Part of it is the decades upon decades of withheld sexual energy, but another part of it is that he just really enjoys having a physical outlet for all of his pent-up stress and grief. Absolutely gets overwhelmed and cries during sex sometimes, but don't read into it. He doesn't let it stop him, and you shouldn't, either.

[theoldspark]

Not the anon who criticized Skybound on the confessions blog, but I saw your reply so I thought I'd send an ask. I'm a fan of Skybound but I can see a lot of valid criticisms wrt pacing (mostly action), a large cast with many characters that don't get enough page time (tho it isn't even That large yet so it's kinda more a TF problem in general imo...), subplots that take a long time to get addressed/resolved (tho I am reserving final judgement on this until #24 comes out which will be the end of DWJ's time as the writer of the series. I started reading Skybound around #14, imo as a binge read it's fine, but having to wait half a year or more for something to get resolved is killer. I never read traditional serialized American comics before the Energon Universe so I don't know if this is typical.) More specific criticisms would require spoilers.

I think whether you'd like it or not depends on personal taste, it isn't perfect but it's fun and the art is gorgeous. If nothing else is peak, the art absolutely is. The contrast between the super stylized and saturated G1 designs next to the super detailed humans and environments is crazy. The preview of the cover by DWJ for #20 (not out yet) is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Jorge Corona's penciling is also wonderful, the "skinned alive"/tortured Autobot in #8 is SO visceral and expressive. The issue that introduced Beachcomber was similarly breathtaking. The fight scenes are also incredibly dynamic (thanks to DWJ's background with wrestling). Reading it in hand is worth it for the spreads alone. Despite what I said about characters lacking pagetime, characterization is still strong - YMMV but it definitely has one of the best Optimus Prime's, and I'm a HUGE fan of their take on Elita. The humans are also done well! They actively add something to the story.

I guess the main thing is that when I try to think about what Skybound is doing NEW I kind of come up with a blank. Mostly small things so far. It hasn't lasted long enough to do anything crazy yet because it was committed to starting from ground zero. We only got Megatron in issue #18! And #19 was a flashback, so that's over a year and a half before Megatron became an active character. The war on Earth not immediately involving Megatron was very cool (especially if you like Starscream being petty and murderous) but the plot moves slowly. I've only read a bit of IDW so I unfortunately can't compare between the two of them. Idk how far IDW1 had gotten story-wise after the first 19~ issues they published. BUT...if you (general you) enjoy G1 (especially Sunbow G1 which is the "Bible" DWJ is using), there's really no reason why you wouldn't like Skybound? FWIW I only got into Transformers within the last year and watched all of G1 as an adult and loved it, so it's not a nostalgia thing for me, but it's def the closest retread of G1 done in years. Which I personally appreciate, since there's actually a lot of really interesting G1 stuff that never got touched again!.....but that's why I actually slightly prefer Void Rivals, which has the most "Season 3"/scifi stuff in it so far, including Hot Rod in the last few issues. (yay!) We're even getting Wreck-Gar this month.

Apologies for the super long ask! But I hope this was useful.

Thank you so much, anon! I appreciate you taking the time to answer something I commented elsewhere.

To be honest, whether it is said to be good or bad, I always prefer to judge for myself after I've consumed the actual source material and not just people's opinions that may very well be biased.

However, it did seem curious to me that many fans seemed to only have good things to say about Skybound, so I was intrigued by the anon ask that said the opposite.

Reading your ask, I'll say that Skybound sounds like something I would enjoy. Plus G1 (although I haven't watched it all) is one of my favorite Transformers series, so anything closely based on it gets kudos from me. But I do see where the other anon was coming from with the criticism. Slow-paced stories don't always work, especially when you only have 24 issues to tell it. And one thing I'm not sure I'll be a fan of that I've heard of is 'Optimus puts Earth before Cybertron' once again. I've never liked that trope, but to be fair it's not anything new for Optimus Prime's character.

Overall, for the things I know, it's a story worth giving it a chance. It may not be perfect, but hardly anything is in this fandom.

[zeravmeta]

It's kind of intersting where you are saying this is a wake up call to recgonizing fgo's subpar gameplay because on my side it's very much just "we don't like servant coins" for the most part. Heck the fact that nobody has gotten to point of realizing you can do all this with three stars which lasengle active making five stars worse is another werid development. I've only seen only a few comments talking about if you're f2p these things aren't really relevant. Not that I don't agree fgo biggest weakness is that once you get burn out on the gameplay outside of few boss battles you aren't getting any enthuism back imo. And currently the only thing lasenagle does it just repeatedly buffing units through different ways rather than introduce unique gameplay meachnics that go against the normal grind set like Eli quest and Grailfront(In my personal opinion I think the greatest issuse is the fact that doing these things would equlivant of having a consistent ongoing event that need to be updated and I think you need a whole team for that for speicifcally that.) But the fact people angry more express that they care enough about the gameplay to get angry about the lack of acess to it because of basically a pay wall or well I haven't seen many people connect the dots to the gameplay itself being at fault. Also i couldn't tell from reblog what did they backpeddle again? It seems like they were already planing to revise the servant coin distrabustion and the fact they are expressing they openly said going to give the coins back and with eases adds more to the idea than takes away imo.

I kind of wanna address these points a bit just to make a larger point abt why this anniversary and the servant coins thing rings hollow and sour for a bunch:

I wouldn't say 'wake up call' is the right words, but rather 'this was the straw that broke the camels back'. As broken as FGOs gameplay is, something i will begrudgingly credit it for is that all content IS clearable even by low rarity units. Even the hardest challenge quests from things like fest events or certain story fights can be cleared from a full 3* and lower + 5* friend support comp. So of course, then begs the question: If gameplay isn't the main reason to summon (unless you're a tierlist slave for efficient farm comps for Some Reason), why summon at all?

Well, for your faves, of course. FGO gives you a ton of resources and shiny buttons and knobs to make numbers on your blorbo higher, meaning that the whole point of these extra resources is just to sink into a favorite character and get to experience the story with this talking png on hand to be your friend/lover/hater/slash/etc.

Servant Coins were a broken whale mechanic on inception due to being strictly gacha dependent, not only in how you acquire servant coins but in how little return there is for getting said servants. Summoning for a 5* is already infamously terrible, but not only do you need them for grailing above Level 100, but also for append skills? Realistically, the only reason to go for these resource sinks *is* for faves, and in fairness some dedicated players/whales save a whole bunch of sq just for their one/two favorite guys (regardless of if they actually get them lol, you can save over 1K+ and still not even get a single rate up servant). It's very likely that some of these people Did save all their sq to then have all the necessary servant coins to ultimate max their favorite guy.

but to then ask even more from them, to sink even more into the most infamous gacha in all gachas just to maybe have a chance to marginally improve them? That was just a slap in the face. Mind you, a lot of people talk about how these latest appends are actually the most gameplay defining in how they can lower skill cool downs, which is def a huge buff compared to other appends/stat buffs and even skill buffs, but that type of discussion misses the point that this was one of the greediest changes ever done, especially for a game whose base gameplay hasn't really been improved, optimized, or significantly changed in any way.

You can tell even the devs knew that Servant coins were a broken greed mechanic from inception, since they had retroactive refunds for 4-5* servants (but not 3*s. grr) and from the outcry of this anni they walked back some of the changes and even gave out a second overall refund of servant coins, but ultimately this is another bandaid solution to the core issue: FGOs gameplay just isnt fun.

People put up with FGOs gameplay to get to read FGOs story, and we're just at the point where it's not getting to be worth it anymore. The visual novel masquerading as a gacha is being killed by its own status as a gacha.

The truly frustrating thing is that there *are* legitimate ways of playing FGO which CAN be fun, specifically challenge quests and Grail Fronts. Those are the two types of play that actually make FGO's gameplay work to an extent, and yet these types of changes are just never made in any permanent way. Past boss fights are locked forever, previously cleared challenge quests are lost forever, they just do not repeat these gameplay opportunities, and this goes hand in hand with another issue, one which I would say is the true root of all FGO's problems:

They fucking lock past story content

When me and other mutuals are heeing and haawing about having event reruns/a compendium, it's not just to talk about FGOs story being good, because it is! It's to make it so that newbies aren't fucking locked out of the MAIN GODDAMN REASON TO EVEN PLAY THIS GAME. IMPORTANT STORY CRITICAL EVENTS LIKE THE KNK COLLAB, GUDAGUDA EVENTS AND MORE ARE JUST LOST FOREVER TO YOUTUBE STORY COMPILATIONS BECAUSE THE BASE GAME DOES NOT HAVE ANY SORT OF COMPENDIUM FOR THESE PAST EVENTS.

Event Archives just WORK. You can look at so many modern gachas these days and see that they all have event compendiums for events they will not rerun, and the reason is simple: FGO popularized the idea of using a gacha to tell a story, so gachas put more stonks into their writing and dont limit that Very Critical Component Of Why People Would Play Their Game To Begin With.

But for some fucking reason, FGO just does not. Really think about this for a moment: People have put up with a near decade of terrible gameplay and corporate gacha greed just to read FGO's story. It's fucking good! But that's just not gonna be enough anymore when Type Moon is now using their fucking Das Rheingold of gacha money to make new/remake vns. For all that people talk about FGO story burnout, I flat out disagree: People do want more FGO story, Samurai Remnant is a huge fucking testament to that and a major component of why I want an FGO console release, to be FREE from its gacha ball and chain.

People just don't want to have to put up with a terrible gacha system anymore to experience that good story.

[billpottsismygf]

God, what an interesting finale. I've loved this show so much and I wasn't sure how on earth they were going to end it in a satisfying way, especially after a run of episodes that were maybe not the best, but I think they stuck the landing. I love the meta approach with Guillermo struggling to come to terms with the documentary ending and all the tributes to previous episodes. I also love that I was right about the documentary getting addressed somewhat. With all their previous documentaries that never aired and the "I hope not" about it being on television, I wonder if the documentary will ever even come out.

I haven't looked at anyone else's reactions yet, but I'm guessing there will be people angry that we didn't get canon Nandermo and I can also imagine that the hokey little hypnotism married bit will rub some people the wrong way. However, that all worked pretty well for me. Personally, I felt that the romantic tension of Nandermo fizzled out a couple of seasons ago and they would have had to dedicate a lot more time to building that back up this season for a kiss or anything to feel justified. My heart was absolutely beating a mile a minute during that goodbye scene, though. Still, I was ready to accept that pretty tragic ending of Guillermo walking out, never to return, since the notion of these two as star-crossed is achingly romantic in itself. The reveal that that was a fakeout was absolutely huge emotional whiplash, but it is probably a nicer ending for the two of them to continue being friends.

And they really will be friends. Although I adored Guillermo calling Nandor 'Master' again and his line that 'you'll always be Master to me', I think the point of the fakeout is that their relationship really has changed. Nandor is letting him share his coffin; they're sitting as equals and diving into an elaborate lair that Nandor built by himself, without expecting Guillermo to do all the work. At this point, while I still ship them romantically to some extent (and the show absolutely leaves you to imagine that that could develop at some point), I truly only care at this point that they care about each other and spend time together, and that's where we leave them. They're going to keep getting up to shenanigans as they fight crime or whatever, and they're going to do it together.

[getvalentined]

I need to talk about the ending of Rebirth, because I'm apparently the only person in the world who liked it.

Putting everything behind a cut, and I would request that anyone who reblog this with spoiler commentary do the same as a courtesy to people who haven't beaten the game yet. It's been just shy of a month since it dropped, so we're still well within the statute of limitations on spoilers. Be nice.

A lot of people are really, really upset about the ending. It's been really weird to have people who went on and on about how they'd be livid if Aerith survived now being furious that she didn't, but I guess it just proves that not only can you not please everyone, but some people are incapable of being pleased.

I've warned everyone I know that Rebirth is the middle part of a trilogy; it was going to end on a low note regardless. That's how trilogies work, the 'ending' of a trilogy's second part isn't an ending at all, it establishes the launching point for the conflict of the conclusion. As a result, second parts will generally strive to be satisfactory with the understanding that it will basically never be satisfying. I'm not going to go into that any more deeply because it's not the key takeaway here, but it's super important to keep that in mind when addressing the ending of any second part, not just Rebirth.

The fact of the matter is, Aerith was never going to survive. That was never on the table, because it was never anyone's decision but hers.

In the OG, Aerith allows herself to be killed so that she can petition Gaia for aid directly, so that she can commune with the planet in-person in order to make sure Holy is activated in time to save everyone. She chose that. She didn't want to die, but she did want to save everyone, and she understood that the only way to do that was by sacrificing herself. Changing that would have been a huge insult to her character, a complete teardown of everything she's been since we met her all the way back in 1997, and it was never going to happen.

In Rebirth, Aerith is capable of dragging Cloud's consciousness into a pocket dimension she's made out of the last days of a terminated timeline in order to both hide him from Sephiroth while he recovers, and to get a working copy of the White Materia that she can use to save the world in the timeline that Sephiroth has chosen to 'save.' She has her own army of Whispers that can and have changed things, that can and have saved people from incidents that should undeniably have killed them. Incidents that did kill them.

If Aerith had wanted to survive in Rebirth, she would have. Sephiroth couldn't have stopped her. We see that in the game, because she literally fights him at the end alongside Cloud, even though she's already dead. Cloud saved her, and then he didn't—and then he did, and then he didn't, he did, he didn't, back and forth and back and forth and we don't know who decided where it stopped.

Sephiroth wanted Aerith out of the way, certainly, but in the end he left of his own accord. He's also the one trying to change the timeline from what it was originally, he doesn't want things to go the way they did in the OG; it's entirely possible that it was Aerith herself who dragged the timeline sideways into the one where she died, because he's wrong and she knows that's the only way to stop him. (I don't necessarily think this is the case, but it's not even close to set in stone.)

I see a lot of people saying that it doesn't matter, nothing mattered, nothing anyone did made a difference because she's still dead. That the only difference that could ever have mattered enough to make it worth it would have been for her to survive—even though it was and has always been Aerith's decision whether or not that came to pass—and I literally can't disagree hard enough.

I think we—and by 'we' I mean the players as much as Cloud and the rest, this is important—changed things in the only way that they could have been changed without condemning the planet to Sephiroth's desperately lonely form of salvation.

When Aerith died in the OG, it happened so suddenly that there was nothing we could do. There was no closure, we never knew if she understood how loved she was, that we would have traded places with her if we could, that nobody wanted her to have to do this alone. We could never really know if she understood how sorry we were to have failed. We didn't get to say goodbye.

Over a quarter century later, we got that. After all this time, decades of knowing that there was nothing we could do to save her but wishing that we at least could have seen her off, Rebirth gave us exactly that.

Aerith wakes up. She's dead because she has to be, but she wakes up. She gets to see how much she's missed, she gets to say goodbye, and we get to say goodbye back. We finally have the chance to not have her taken from us, but to let her go, and to see that it's her decision to stop while everyone else keeps going. It always has been.

Aerith was never going to survive. That was never going to change, because it's not about her—it's about saving the world, and it's about you.

But things are still so different this time, because we finally got to say goodbye, and I can't think of difference we could actually make that could ever be worth any more than that.

[luuhy-blue]

I wrote a post about Davos and Aeron's Hogwarts houses, and I think I still have a few things to say about these two, so here's my daily dose of Davron obsession. First about Aeron.

Aeron is a Hufflepuff and I think he would be very happy and proud of that. I know people have an image that Hufflepuff is the worst of the houses but that's purely the fault of that crazy JK Rowling who didn't bother to develop the characters of each house better besides the protagonists. Hufflepuff is about effort, dedication and loyalty and I feel like those are some of the pillars that make up Aeron. Aeron is not someone who is super talented, he is not someone who stands out right away or who people put a lot of faith in. When he appears (during the three measly minutes of the episode, seriously I hate this damn show-), his friends even call him "the worst knight among us" and he just laughs with them. He knows how people see him, he is fully aware that he is not the best or strongest among his cousins ​​in Stone Hedge, but he seeks to improve upon each failure.

And that is what he does. He is someone who strives and dedicates himself to the maximum, he knows what he wants and will do whatever it takes to get it. He also values ​​courage, but I think that hard work and persistence are much stronger in him than the fearlessness and boldness of the Gryffindor.

He can also demand a lot from himself at times, especially when his insecurity gets the better of him. He wants to be good, he wants to be a good nephew, a good knight, someone who will honor his house. For a while, this came from a desire for glory and recognition (due to all the doubts people had about him) but, in the future, he realizes that he doesn't need that. His relatives love him for who he is and he trusts his ability and effort enough that he no longer needs to seek their approval. He fights for loyalty and for the love of his house.

Another point, and one that is explored a lot in fanfics (In fact, "Kiss a Man or Slit His Throat" addresses this very well and I LOVE IT) is Aeron's relationship with religion. We know that the Brackens follow the Faith of the Seven and I personally agree with many authors who show Aeron as someone devout and who deals with a lot of religious guilt. I feel like he's someone who's very attached to a sense of duty and right and wrong, which is something that's very present in Hufflepuffs as well (his element is earth, stable and firm in his judgments). I think he would agree with Alicent's phrase "Where's the duty? Where's the sacrifice?" because for him it's much more about what he should do or what's "right" and much less about what he wants. I think his relationship with Davos becomes so interesting because the two are very opposite in that regard.

I think I had more to say but that's enough for today. I was going to talk a little bit about Davos and his relationship with Gryffindor but this poster would be huge so I'll leave it for another time. These are some thoughts from the middle of the night because these two haven't left my head since they appeared in that episode, (someone needs to put Kieran and Ryan together more often, seriously, so much chemistry). Also, many of my headcanons came from @herofumi fanfics on AO3 so they are to blame for all of this (that's a lie, I'm just dying for the next update). Thanks for coming to my podcast.

[lucianalight]

Hi! I'm back :) after another long hiatus😅 I have missed all of you❤️

First of all a huge thank you to everyone who were worried and asked about my health and how I was doing. I wasn't doing well tbh. I'm one of those people who had the misfortune of never quite recovering from covid. I already had one chronic illness that was messing up my life and health. Having another on top of that takes a lot of physical, emotional and mental toll and limits my energy greatly. So I needed time to get used to my new reality and condition and learn to how manage it and live with it. It's still a work in progress and doctor appointments are seeming endless but at least some meds are helping. So there's that.

You probably already know the second reason why I wasn't doing well. I've seen terrible things…And you need time to process them. To grieve, to deal with trauma and survivor's guilt, and nurture your anger and keep fighting, keep resisting…

And well, internet connection still sucks so using social media is kind of an ordeal :D

There were a lot of times that I wanted to come back on tumblr but every time some issue would come up and take my motivation and energy. Then two weeks ago, after I couldn't crush the little ray of hope that maybe this time I'm going to see sth I like, I started watching season 2 of Loki. I watched it while promising myself that I'm not going to care anymore if it's bad, reminding myself that I might see sth as bad as season 1. Still I was surprised that I didn't hate it. On the contrary there were moments that were entertaining and even enjoyable. And those moments were more than the ones I dislike. It was better than season 1 and admittedly that's a low bar since I consider S1 one of the worst tv shows I've ever seen, but there were noticeable changes in pace and tone of the narrative and characterization in S2. Some issues in S1 was addressed. Loki was actually the main character of his series and got to do badass magic stuff :D The characters were flesh out and three dimensional and likable(I love OB so much :D). There was no romance. The ending was great.

There were of course things I didn't like. Removing Loki's backstory and his issues with his family from the story is one of them. How some of his moments in past was addressed. The episodes at times got boring or very predictable. There were times that Loki was ooc or comedic moments that weren't delivered well.

It wasn't perfect but at least acceptable. And probably the best Loki content we got since TDW. And I liked the ending a lot. I found myself keep going back to rewatch some scenes. I found myself analyzing the content happily. I had things to say. So here I am :D basically I'm 100% back to my Loki bs and I'm making it everyone's problem :P

Whether you loved the series or hated it, you're welcome on my blog and you're welcome to send me your opinions and engage with me in discussions and metas. I will tag posts accordingly in case you want to avoid certain content(tbh I still don't know what the new tags will be because I haven't written anything yet but I will make a post when I do).

There will be posts of some new fandoms so block their tags if you don't want to see those posts. The new fandoms are Sandman tv show(I haven't finished the comics so plz don't spoil them for me), Wednesday, My Hero Academia, Shadow and Bone, and The Bifrost Incident.

As I mentioned above I'm dealing with multiple chronic illnesses and have a limited energy each day. I will try to answer your messages, comments and asks as soon as I can but it might take a long time. Sry about that.

And finally a warm welcome to all the new followers and thanks to everyone who are still following me❤️

[frauleinandry]

guess who finished metaphor refantazio last night!! was the game perfect? no, i've definitely got my fair share of minor nitpicks. did it engross me more than any game has in years? yes!

very much a solid 8.5/10 experience, and worth playing for the art direction alone.

my full review is under the cut, and it is NOT spoiler-free, so don't click if you haven't finished the game!

gonna break this up into several segments, as it's Long!

story

the plot was a bit predictable at times, especially if you're familiar with other atlus games, but still enjoyable nonetheless! the sudden, if inevitable swerve from being a typical fantasy story into suddenly being a story about a medieval fantasy culture being magically forced into holding a democratic election was. extremely funny in all the best ways given how jarring it was in-universe.

i loved how atlus explored the unrest a huge, unexpected political system change like that would cause as opposed to making everyone just chill with it. the subtle criticism of modern democracy in general - specifically, the fact that in reality, elected leaders are almost always going to be people that are rich and powerful already because they're the ones that can market themselves the most - was also, uh, very poignant.

thematically, well, the game is very heavy-handed about its message. it wants to say something, and dear god it says it! at the same time, i enjoyed that, because, well, metaphor's message is really something that needs to be said. the world can be cruel, and there's no magical solution to all its problems waiting in place, but you can't give up hope. you have to keep on believing in a better future, while also doing what you can to ensure that happens, even if you can't do much. it's very much an anti-doomerism story at its heart, and in this day and age, that's extremely relevant.

at the same time, the story is definitely where most of my nitpicks are. specifically, the pacing of the altabury arc. it's is so, so rushed. there are back-to-back plot twists that each radically change the story, with levels of foreshadowing ranging some some to none, and absolutely no breathing space between them. louis is dead! oh wait, he wasn't the bad guy and forden was! oh wait, louis isn't dead after all and now forden is! rella is helping us! oh wait, she's evil and brainwashing people! except no, she's actually performing a thanatos gambit to help us!

like, good grief. there should have been at least a week between louis' death and his resurrection (and a LOT more foreshadowing about zorba's survival). the fact that you don't even fight forden also just sucks. space those events out, give us a small battle against forden before louis shanks him, and then have a mage academy dungeon (where you can possibly see the ruins of the real-life academia). there - that would have been much better.

i also thought while the worldbuilding in general was good, the sanctism religion was very weak, especially given the huge effect religious zealotry has on the plot. like, who is their god? what does he do? like, we get answers to the hatred towards elda and their pushing of igniters, but both of those things pre-reveal feel extremely disconnected from the idea of a faith.

characters

yeah i love these guys. the cast is fun, and i liked all of the followers/found them compelling, which is more than what i can say about persona social links at times. the OG team of will, strohl, gallica and hulkenburg is great, and i thought the vast majority of party members were also written really well.

basilio and eupha specifically feel like atlus saw all of the criticism about haru's introduction to persona 5, and addressed them when it came to the late-game party members. basilio is introduced in arc three and has a huge presence in arc four before he joins in altabury. eupha is introduced fairly late, however she's also integral to the story and feels like she's contributing.

in fact, the game was fairly good at balancing the party's screen time. strohl remains relevant due to being will's mouthpiece, hulkenburg isn't super important during brilehaven/eht ria, but returns to the spotlight once the game focuses on the prince, and junah's connections to rella and basilio keep her important.

... you might have noticed an absence from that list, namely, heismay. yeah - while atlus went out of their way to avoid a haru, they still added a yusuke to the plot. namely, an early-game character who has no personal connection to the lore or other major characters whatsoever. he's completely irrelevant post-martira, and his personal struggles lack cohesion with the story's overall plot. he could have been a follower and nothing would have changed.

i also think will is a really poor protagonist for this sort of game. while he's got a bit more character than most persona protags, he's still a borderline silent protagonist, and that doesn't work in a game where he's meant to be using his charisma and getting people onto his side via speeches. like, i just remember being astounded during the brilehaven arc once they present johanna as their bounty - will does nothing while strohl is the one to do all the talking, with occasional interjections from hulkenburg! if i was in the audience there, i'd want strohl as the king, not the dude who said like one line!

anyway, end rant, and back to the set of characters i haven't talked about yet, namely the antagonists. they're predominately good! forden and louis were both really fun takes on the SMT law/chaos alignments, especially louis. while forden could have done with more screentime, i have zero complaints about louis. he was sympathetic in a wretched way that excused none of his evil, and i liked that he genuinely believed he was doing what was right for the world, even though it clearly wasn't.

in terms of more borderline antagonists, i enjoyed fidelio and rella in particular a lot. rella was easily the character whose motives i had the most trouble placing, which made picking apart her actions extremely facinating, and fidelio's character growth was great. joanna (like the martira arc in general) was a bit weaker, and i thought the game cut her waaaaaay too much slack, but eh. it wasn't a big deal.

in the end, i think my favs were hulkenburg, rella, and strohl!

gameplay

first of all, the art direction is sublime. if it doesn't win that category at TGA, i'm gonna be disappointed. there was so much thought put into the game's construction in general, from the use of texture to enhance the storybook aesthetic to the use of esperanto in the visuals/music... like, there are so many references to culture and art history throughout the game, which make it that much richer.

the dungeon crawling is solid, even if it suffers a bit from the calendar system essentially forcing you to one-day the dungeons if you want to make the best use of your time. i'd say not quite as good as persona 5, but better than persona 3 reload. generally, i found the overworld combat a bit clunky - the lack of animation cancelling makes dodging feel laggy, which definitely annoyed me a handful of times. the squad battles are much better though, and really felt like fun puzzles to solve.

i generally enjoyed the archetype system, even if i found the class requirements a bit much at times. the customizability of the party members is refreshing compared to personas, and i like the fact that will isn't significantly more OP than everyone else to the point of making them redundant. what i enjoyed less though was the fact that you don't get a dedicated magic user until the final battle of arc three, essentially forcing will into becoming a mage... which bites you in the ass when his royal archetype turns out to be a mixed attacker which favours physical. oops.

like with persona games, i'm so/so on the calendar system. i like the resource management it introduces, but as mentioned above, i don't like how it forces you into charging through dungeons instead of exploring them at your own pace.

on the flip side, the follower system is far better than the social link one. having fewer ranks meant there weren't really any filler episodes, and the lack of hold-out visits was so refreshing. i also liked everyone's schedule not being constrained to days, but instead adjusting so you can't rank up someone back-to-back.

i think that's all i have to say, really! despite my criticisms, i really hope atlus takes certain things from this game into consideration for persona 6, and i think all the years they spent on this game paid off.

[29daffodils]

Bison being that young won't work because he is a hired assassin who is tired of the job so he should be a bit older for that role atleast 22. Kant being 29-30 is the only way too cause first looks only that age even the maximum he could play is 33 but since he's got a brother to look after he should be young too. If they had a big age gap they wouldn't have connected with the shared passion for freedom and love which is the reason they are falling in love. 24&29 was perfect. In the novel they are both the same age and i was relieved when I heard Kant is 29.

ask #20 : the bikant age gap

p.s. : this got long and since nani told me my posts are long, which they are, haha, i decided to put everything under a cut after writing it all out. cheers.

hellow, anon.

with all due respect, I'm suicidal and feeling like shit right now so I can't make sense of whether the tone in your ask is hostile and if i should be prepared to run/fight.

with that said, sometimes i think we should be able to kiss logic goodbye when consuming fiction. and that's really the perk of it being fiction. if you're so trapped in your head and consumed by logic, or it's lack thereof, i'd refer you something non-fiction. ultimately it all comes down to taste and if the 16-33 age gap doesn't float your boat, that's fine. it does for someone else.

let me now address some of the points you've raised, and how i think they can still fit in a romcom fictional novel about an assassin/tattooist falling in love :

1) bison being that young, won't work. he is tired of the job. he should be at least 22.

i think we have seen very little of what bison could be, both from the trailer and the first ep. can a 22-yo bison be a better assassin than a 16-yo bison? who knows, except nong bison. you don't get a lot of muscle when you are 16, so you can't kick down people while hanging from.... what.... a curtain rail? i admit that. you will physically not have that power. but we have already seen some of bison's MO : seducing creepy older men. and i think, if we are being realistic here, because clearly that is your aim, then a 16-yo bison is a perfect bait. so far we haven't seen him use a knife, but i assume he does later, from the fit pics we got. then he must have a gun, maybe not on him — not that easy to hide stuff when you're undressing, is it? but there's plenty of ways you can kill someone in a fictional world when you're a 16-yo bait.

except, that's why fadel is there. he plays a convincing older brother, he brings out the guns.

now, can a 16-yo be tired of a job? eh, i believe you can. a hired assassin? who is hiring them? their mother? makes me wonder about a lot of things and how long they've been doing this. i think, if you've been doing a job long enough - and it varies from person to person - you can still be wrung out at 16.

2) kant being 29-30 is the only way because first looks that age.

sure he does. but i think hair and make-up and his stellar acting can make sure that he can play a convincing 35-yo too.

3) but since he's got a brother, he should be young too.

anon, realistically i have seen people from our (millenials) generations having siblings who are 15 years younger. humans, you see, come in different shapes and sizes and with different.... feelings. sometimes you decide to fuck and give your 16-yo a sibling. 🤷🏽‍♀️

4) if they had a big age-gap, they wouldn't have connected because of the shared passion for freedom and love.

let me tell you something about ages, in real life, and human connections.

my bestie and i were 15 when she used to write poetry and found a friend in a divorced man aged-40-something. they talked about poems and life and shit. it was incredibly cringe to me at that time. i thought she was falling in love with him. fun fact is i used to snoop on her because i was afraid he was grooming her. never found anything and we had a huge fight about suspecting some dude because "i was jealous". over the years they lost touch because whatever platform they were both writing and chatting (good lord, via comments, must i say. their entire fucking conversation was through comments).

so, anon, i dunno what kinda people you've met, to think that people with big age gaps cannot have meaningful relationships with each other with the "shared passion for love and freedom", but i gave you an example. maybe you should think about that.

5) 24-29 is perfect. also the fact that you were relieved when they made kant 29.

do i agree with canon age-gap? hell yeah. i think 24-29 is a good one for the story jojo is trying to tell.

do i also think this could have been done with 19-29, also yes. but clearly jojo isn't looking to tell that story, yes? which is why we have fanfiction authors.

jojo's story about kant and bison does not involve the complicated dynamics of a large age-gap or finding a friend in a much older person or falling for someone who is probably your sibling's age. i think we have a lot of stories for that, and jojo's silly mafia romcom is definitely not it.

and also about you being relieved when they made kant 29.

anon. i think you need to take deep breaths and think on why you care so much about a non-existent character played by an excellent actor.

i also think, you should definitely reevaluate why you got that feeling. i will not put my words in your mouth, but there's this thing : love doesn't always involve a person immediately wanting to have sex with them. romantic attraction is real.

i think love comes in many forms. but lately what i've seen people in fandom do is reduce it down to a 1-dimensional feeling where you only have horny on your mind.

but even if you do have horny on your mind, and kantbison did jump into bed on day 1, what is the issue here, if kant had been older than 29? isn't bison 24? aren't they both adults? shouldn't we give our little cutie assassin boy more credit? that being an adult he knows what he is doing? bro has all sorts of bdsm tricks up his sleeve, i think we should trust this FICTIONAL CHARACTER enough to let him make his own decisions on whether he wants to fuck a 33-yo man.

and once again, please do not tell me you think you are uncomfortable because "older kant would be grooming a 24-yo bison" or something. i only have very few strands of hair on my head. please do not let me pull them out 🙏🏽🥹

and now, this is my take on this besides what we already went through in this ask.

as far as makeup and actors are concerned, i think we know that works. imo khaotung is a good actor with a baby-face. he once played a 16-yo when he was 22-23. i know he can do it now.

similarly, first is also a great actor and he gave us yok/akk/alan in quite literally the span of a year and little more. the fact that he bulked up for kant plays a huge role in him portraying the character so well, at least, aesthetically.

something to add about facial skin and aging is that it changes differently with people. i look the same as i did when i was 17-25-and now, 29. i still get mistaken for being a high schooler at best, when i don't have my makeup on, because i still do the 2016 make-up or something (i dunno, i've been told my style of make-up makes me look older, more mature, whatever). i don't think firstkhaotung look much different from when they were playing jimbae/joe in blacklist. it's all about the makeup and the acting, though yes, to some extent directors prefer not to cast someone too young/old for a role because, yes, extra cakey makeup does look kinda shitty. but there's an acceptable limit to actors portraying various characters and i think both firstkhaotung should get more opportunities to showcase their talent in this regard.

if you're concerned about firstkhaotung's ages being a roadblock to how they can act and what characters they are portraying, i think they have so far given us enough reasons to believe that they can do it. in my headcanon, bison is 16 and kant is 33 and that's my nong!bison/uncle!kant gap. and i love it. except, for your and the rest of the fandom's peace of mind, i wanted bison-19 and kant-27/29 because i think that fit well too, from the pilot trailer and fits and the official trailer. and i think even today, firstkhaotung could have very well portrayed it.

with all that said, your comment about first being that age and should be playing characters max-33 is... i dunno. sounds quite... insulting to me. to both the actor that he is, and to hair/make-up artists everywhere.

people can successfully portray characters of various ages. i think that is why they are called actors, you know?

and now, since this is super long. adieu.

if my blog isn't it for you, i suggest you block me so you don't see me under the thk tag. because while i am vehemently against spamming ship/fandom tags with ship/fandom hate, i am all in for spamming them with headcanons, theories, etc., no matter how uncomfortable or nasty they are to other people.

and most people just block you and move on so they don't have to see it.

you can open healthy discussions like this with me. i think it went much better for me than how i started off, but fair warning. I'm a fandom old at this point. it might not be your cup of tea, so best block me to prevent seeing uncle kant and nong bison agenda on TL.

thx.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

"If you’re going to provide a quote anon - it’s useful to provide a source" The source is her instagram reels this week. If you're genuinely interested in learning about her views rather than what she said aged 21, then it's useful to look at what she's currently sharing publicly on her own social media.

I still don't know where those quotes come from anon, because you still haven't provided a link. From the Manchester Evening News it sounded like they were comments, but I don't know which posts and scanning hasn't found them. I am genuinely interested. I would like a link. I cannot assess the statements unless I can find them.

The idea that somehow it doesn't count because she was 21 is bizarre to me. People younger than twenty one have exercised political agency that changed the world for the better. David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell A. Blair Jr. and Joseph McNeill were 17-19 - when their sit in at the Greensboro lunch counter James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were 21 and 20 when they died fighting white supremacy. Most of the women involved in the early years of the women's liberation movement were in their late teens and early twenties. A huge amount of the liberation and freedom that we have now was obtained by the political action of people in their late teens and early twenties.

On the other side there are teenagers defending genocide and committing genocide as I right this. They are absolutely responsible for their actions. In seven years time I won't care what age perpetrators of genocide were.

I do think people can change. And if there's any evidence at all that Zara has disavowed her previous views and taken steps to address the hateful things she said then I want to know about it. But hateful comments about beneficiaries and immigrants matter. And minimising what she said because of her age is belitting both to the people she harmed, and for the many, many 21 year olds who were taking political useful action for a better world in 2018.

[notsoencrypted]

I'm just... I'm really sad about everything with BioWare. I was one of the weirdos who really enjoyed Andromeda. It wasn't perfect. Liam had so much potential that wasn't explored (and oh did I love his VA). Yeah, the faces were goofy at launch, but it was fixed quickly and up until Veilguard, BioWare faces have always been goofy. So when the reaction to Andromeda was what it was, I was really nervous. With everything that's gone down since then, it's felt like the BioWare devs have been trying to fight off the inevitable.

I feel so much for the devs laid off. While I don't know them, so many of them have been a huge part of my life. DA:O got me through a tough part of my life, Inquisition released right before the one-year anniversary of my mom's death and helped me with that... Mass Effect was just fun, and I made some great memories with friends in early SWTOR times. And while Veilguard was OK for me, it was only OK. I don't blame the devs for what we got. I think they did really well with all the chaos of multiple changes in the project, a pandemic, etc etc. It is an absolutely beautiful game, and the cut scenes and animations are just absolutely fantastic. But it still felt like there was so much unused potential, and thus makes me sad that it will very likely be the end of Dragon Age. I really wish we could have gotten more time with the characters. I wish we could have seen more. I know there's fandom etc, but I'm also a weirdo who doesn't really enjoy fanfic. I've tried. I just can't. And that's OK. I am honestly jealous of folks who can get into it. But this means it's pretty much the end for me, and this game has always been a part of my adult life, though obviously in the background most of that time. But still there or with the potential to be there. And as for the next Mass Effect... I haven't been looking forward to it since we got the first teasers. I absolutely loved Mass Effect 3. I disliked the ending. The extended ending helped a bit, but it didn't address the issues with expectation vs execution for the ending. But I've always been OK with Shepard's story being done and with the Milky Way story's being done. I think this is part of why I enjoyed Andromeda more than other folks--I didn't want more Shepard, or more Milky Way. So considering a new Mass Effect that's supposed to take into account both Andromeda and the Milky Way? It just gives me "ick" feelings. How do you resolve the three colors choice for everyone? How do you make a story that can proceed from those three different choices (especially destroy vs the other two)? I don't understand how you can build a stable foundation for a story with what we were left with while also not invalidating choices that folks made in the past. And at this point? Again, I feel like the story in the Milky Way is done. We're in Andromeda now, and there's so much potential for stories there. Let's do that. But nope, the next game is going to try to deal with both. And I think that sets it up for failure. Which means this very likely will be the end of BioWare, and I'm afraid it'll go out on an unfulfilling note for me, which will make for extra suck. I hope I'm wrong, because while Mass Effect isn't my preferred IP of the BioWare IPs, if BioWare can survive after this next game, that will give me hope. But it feels like it's not going to happen.

[linkspooky]

Spoilers if you still haven't read the new jjk leaks so...

I really cant believe that your prediction of Gojo's battle ending up like Kaneki's beatdown has come full circle...my God even the one where he is lying dead chopped up with no arms and legs is exactly the same.

What are your thoughts on the conclusion of this battle or the whole progression of the story rn,because this really cemented Gege's bad writing at its finest for me.Such a lamest and most underwhelming death granted to one of the most well written character of the series with an offscreen death coupled with his whole afterlife dialogues dickriding Sukuna saying he wouldn't have stood a chance even without sukuna using 10s when the whole battle contradicts this,then Nanami telling Gojo that they always knew Gojo was a battle junkie and didn't care for others,committing a massive character assassination.Just why did Gege had to butcher his character this much?Im so livid right now with the way his death was executed and Gojo's character arc without achieving anything in his life and says he doesn't have any regrets and satisfied? I decided to drop the series because this all left a sour taste in my mouth and knows that there are more ridiculous asspulls to come in the future.But there are some theories going online saying Gojo will come back by rebirth or as a vengeful spirit by going North and correlating to the Lotus flowers in the panels.I still dont believe this will happen since Gege ruined the character for good,but I need to know your predictions on this one too to huff on my tiny amount of copium.

I CALLED IT! *EVERYONE BEGINS HIGH FIVING ME*

Besides the fact that I have proven without a doubt that I can see the future and therefore I can tell everyone with confidence Megumi will live until the end of the manga (this is a joke, or is it?), I have some more to say on the rest of your ask anon.

I'm not going to comment on whether or not I think this is good or bad writing. For me the question is not "is Gojo's death written well?" but rather "What does Gojo's death mean for the story?"

I'll address some parts of your ask and remember I'm not really agreeing or disagreeing with you, just trying to analyze why Gege made the story choices that he did.

with an offscreen death coupled with his whole afterlife dialogues dickriding Sukuna saying he wouldn't have stood a chance even without sukuna using 10s when the whole battle contradicts this

In this case I believe Gege offscreening the death is a pretty classic bait and switch. It happens exactly the same way that Kaneki's fight happens in chapter 143 of Tokyo Ghoul: Re, we as the audience see a build up to a big climactic fight between Kaneki and Juzou two of the most powerful characters in the manga only to literally skip the entire fight and show it's conclusion: Kaneki limbless on the ground.

It inspired a huge controversy back in the old days of the Tokyo Ghoul fandom too, imagine if instead of just skipping the final moment of the fight we skipped the ENTIRE fight between Gojo and Sukuna. Just Nah, I'll Win *Smash Cut to Gojo cut in half* The last chapter also ends with this, declaring Gojo's victory.

My friend Comun said basically after this Gojo was guaranteed to lose because in shonen manga the second a character is entertain that they'll win they have the rug pulled out from underneath them. It's the same reason that when you're making a plan to have a heist in a heist movie you whisper it at first instead of explaining the whole plan ahead of time. If you just explain the whole plan and everything goes according to plan you've spoiled your own story.

In other words the classic bait and switch the audience is led to believe one thing and then slapped in the face with something else. This is just my justification for why I think the ending to the fight is offscreened, the same way it is for Kaneki's fight with Juzou, it's almost parodying battle shonen. Jujutsu Kaisen is a story where characters fight, and Gojo and Sukuna is one of the most hyped up fights in the manga, but the fight is not the most important part the characters are. Fight mechanics are important to the story, but they don't trump everything else so less important to the question of how Gojo lost, or even seeing his loss onscreen is the question of why he lost.

In my opinion the reason Gojo lost is because he was fighting for the wrong reasons, he cared far more about winning a satisfying fight then he did saving Megumi the kid he was responsible for. Gojo is kind of like the audience, he cares more about the battle aspect of shonen manga then the characters, so the author denies both Gojo and the readers their climax.

This is what we call an Anti-Climax.

As a result, the subversion of the climax, the Anticlimax, is probably almost as old. The anticlimax is when you're set up for a climax, such as a spectacular, battle-to-end-all-battles between the hero and the villain. It's built up more and more until the suspense is extremely exciting, and the reader/viewer can't wait for it...then the hero kills the villain in one hit, or the villain spontaneously drops dead [...] Anticlimaxes can work well if it's clear that the subversion of audience expectations is the point, either for humorous purposes [...] or as a more serious commentary on the genre of the work.

It's alright if you're disappointed though because fights are one of the main draws of the series, I'm just explaining the trope that's at work here. As for Gojo saying he wouldn't have stood a chance against Sukuna if he was going all-out I'm not sure precisely that's what he said. He just says he's unsure he would have beaten him even without the ten-shadows, that it would have been close. It's also not completely out of left field that Gojo found Sukuna challenging.

We are told beforehand that Sukuna is holding back a move, because Gojo only has to defeat Sukuna, while Sukuna has to do a boss-rush marathon and beat Gojo and everyone who comes after him. We also receive this piece of foreshadowing, Sukuna saying "Very Good" after Mahoraga succesfully cleaves off Gojo's arm which was likely him learning the technique that he'd use to finish Gojo. He even called Mahoraga his shadow.

Someone else pointed out that Sukuna was also winning the domain battles pretty thoroughly before Sukuna started to use the TenShadows in the fight so I don't think Gojo's statement of how he could have won with his techniques was that out of left field.

If it were not for Sukuna's whim of wanting to use Mahoraga, he would have beaten Satoru and it is even implied that Sukuna allowed himself to be hit so that Mahoraga would adapt to Satoru's infinity. Even in their activation of domains Gojo had to destroy and regenerate his brain five times while Sukuna didn't have this problem, this is because Sukuna didn't lose his domain as many times as Satoru because we must not forget that Sukuna's domain doesn't need barrier like Gojo's so it was easier to destroy Satoru's domain than Sukuna's.

Yet another person also pointed out that Gojo acting completely on top of his game the whole fight and confident in his victory, and yet seemingly contradicting that at the end by saying he might have lost even if Sukuna didn't have the Ten SHadows makes sense if you consider the fact that Gojo was putting on a show for his students. He had to appear absolutely confident he was going to win in front of them to make them feel safe. Whereas, with Geto he's with a peer so he can be more honest about what he thought his chances were.

There's another shift after the opening stage of their fight in chapter 224. What always stuck out to me from that chapter was Gojo noticing that their fight was being broadcasted. After he spots Mei Mei's crows, Gojo never, not once, for the remainder of the fight expresses doubt in himself in any outward way. We see frustration, we see anger, we see surprise, but never doubt. Never worry. And what does he say as soon as he get's the upper hand in the fight?

As for the final part of your post:

Im so livid right now with the way his death was executed and Gojo's character arc without achieving anything in his life and says he doesn't have any regrets and satisfied?

I don't think Gojo said he was satisfied. In fact it's the opposite.

Gojo's unsatisfied because of two reasons, number one he wasn't able to push Sukuna into giving his all, and number two that Geto wasn't among the people who were saying goodbye to him before he went off to fight. I did an entire post, on why I don't think Gojo is satisfied with his death at all.

However, the TLDR: Version, Gojo could have chosen to fight for two things, number one to be the strongest and number two for the sake of his connections to other people. Gojo chooses the first and he fails at that. He's not only no longer the strongest but he couldn't give Sukuna the fight of his life. He's unsatisfied for that reason. He's also unsatisfied because he deliberately gave up all of his personal connections in life, and chose to only focus on being the strongest. Not only did he fail at being the strongest but he also lost Geto and practically everyone else. If he'd have chosen to fight for personal connections instead then maybe things would be different and Geto would still be alive, and he'd be more satisfied because he could have lived a life with genuine connections to other people, but that's not what he chose.

If anything I think it's there to connect him to TOji and the way they died. They both die offscreen and die standing on their feet. In Toji's final moments he thinks he only chose to fight for his personal pride but then Megumi flashes by his mind.

In Gojo's final moments he thinks about how much he regrets that he wasn't able to give Sukuna a true challenge, and then Geto flashes by his mind. He could have chosen to live for something other than pride, the same way Toji could have chosen to live as a father and that possibility flashes before their eyes before their deaths.

[themyscirah]

Jess? Or Hal? For the ask game (And if you've done both of them, just pick your favorite super)

I haven't done either yet! I'll do Hal in this post and maybe Jess in another after this

Tw for canonical past suicide for later in the post (skip the story idea section)

First impression:

My real first encounter with him was probably as a guest appearance within Green Lanterns, but the first book I read with him was GL/GA. I don't remember too much of what I thought of him there, it was probably more of a general "oh he seems cool I guess" kind of neutral/positive attitude. By the time I read a Hal comic I'd already met Simon, Jess, and Jo so he wasn't a contender for the spot of my favorite lantern. I never fully finished GL/GA though bc I had the book on loan

Impression now:

Mixed. There are some Hal moments I genuinely do love and like, but tbh he can get on my nerves very easily. Of the Earth lanterns he's either my least or next to least favorite (which doesn't mean I don't like him!) but he's also like the "main character" of GL so I get annoyed when I feel like other GLs are being ignored in favor of Hal.

Favorite moment:

With that said there are sooooooo many Hal moments I just love. He's very much a character made by specific moments for me (rather than a general appreciation of who he is overall). Some Swishy fave contenders include his "Avenge me" internal monologue when he fights Mongul in GL (1990) #46, and OFC the Emerald Twilight arc a few issues later. Also in the very first issue of that book, where he jumps off a cliff in front of some campers (waiting until the last moment before using his ring) was an important moment for me in reading Hal, because it was the first time I went "oh! This guy is crazy!"

Idea for a story:

An exploration of the fact that Hal literally killed himself on panel in GL (2011) #19. Because like what the hell, why did this happen and then NO ONE EVER TALKED ABOUT IT. (This is insane to me). I think I'd probably revisit it in a dream sequence, maaaybe doing a rewrite/reimagining of his Knight Terrors issue (which I have NOT read lol) to kind of address that and talk about his mental state and things that had an impact on that, stuff like his parents, the Guardians, PARALLAX. Basically it'd be Hal and the ghost of Tomar-Re just talking about how he is not okay. A pretty heavy response to a pretty heavy topic.

Unpopular opinion:

I'm going to be so real here like 95% of my Hal opinions are unpopular bc its just me talking about how I think he's overrated. Like we're bros ig but still. Overrated.

Like I LIKE him but I'm annoyed at him like 80% of the time bc DC is always putting out a mid story focusing on him while ignoring my faves WHO ARE SO COOL AND DESERVE STORIES 😤💔😭

I guess one beyond that is I'm not a fan of his friendship with Barry. Maybe this is just because I haven't read anything where they're like... interesting? But I just don't get the hype. ESPECIALLY compared to his relationship with Oliver which is absolutely insane in comparison. Like why are we talking abt Barry rn when OLLIE LITERALLY SHOT HAL AND HAL RESSURECTED OLLIE. like guys. Guys. Are you seeing this shit.

Favorite relationship:

Like ship wise? I'm not a huge Halcarol fan personally but I do think they're kind of the epitome of "you're perfect for each other. Never involve anyone else in what you have going on," kind of messy drama-filled relationship with a lot of history.

I also really like halollie and their relationship but not in like a "they should date" way or anything like that. Like they're bros to me who emotionally have a whole complicated little thing going on like idk

Within the lanterns I think the frenemy whatever thing Guy and Hal do is SO funny. I love especially the beginning of GL (1990) where Guy just in his free time shows up to ruin Hal's life while Hal is just so sick and done and mad about it. Peak comedy, Guy never change

Fave headcanon:

Do I have any headcanons about Hal? Not really. I try to think about him as little as possible (kidding). No um I'd say I don't really have any, and if I did they'd probably be really basic or smth like that he cries watching both Top Gun movies.

[aprillikesthings]

Man I got through that last one fast

s4 ep8 Boys' Night Out

(This one took way longer but also I stopped partway through bc Mal the cat had zoomies and I must appease him with the laser pointer)

ALSO this ended up with multiple Our Flag Means Death references, you're welcome

Glimmer etc. save a bunch of sea elf people from a little village as Hordak destroys it, roll intro

Apparently Double Trouble is refusing to tell them anything more

also they're still arguing about Glimmer going off on her own

also Mermista is taking a long bath and eating all the ice cream in Bright moon apparently

But yeah more arguing with Glimmer, and specifically getting mad at any hint of Adora telling her what to do

Which reminds me of a quote I copy/pasted into my fic notes (I do not remember where I got it I just know Nate said it)

"I think Adora has a huge character flaw where when she feels responsible for someone, she'll do anything to protect them to the point of fencing them in and accidentally taking away their agency. She thinks this is something that she's supposed to do, and I don't think she's fully addressed this part of herself. Catra and Glimmer think it comes from her ego, but she was raised to believe she was only worth anything to anyone if she was useful to them, so really she's just trying to prove herself to them. To prove that she's worth existing, even."

and like

ouch

but yeah it's hardcore on display here

Swift Wind invites himself along lol

lol

Hordak is a big dick, is gonna try to conquer more of Etheria himself so he looks all badass when Horde Prime shows up, orders Catra back to the Fright Zone

and she's stressed out and smooths out her hair D:

the bit of this character being asleep, getting elbowed awake, and iMMEDIATELY starting to play is so funny

why does Swift Wind know the words

new headcanon: Sea Hawk was a stripper at some point

*adds to "this wasn't meant to be a Sex Joke...probably"* collection

THE PHRASING DOESN'T HELP

Look I make so many jokes about cartoon bondage, and here Sea Hawk PAID SOMEONE TO TIE HIM UP AND PRETEND TO KIDNAP HIM I just

I can't even add to that lolol

something something insert "Our Flag Means Death"-based joke here

Swift Wind: I will contact Adora via MAGIC

back to Bright Moon

Adora: "what is going on with you? I know things are bad right now, but we can fix it!" Glimmer: "Why is that always your answer to everything!" Adora:

If you don't let me fix it I HAVE NO WORTH OR VALUE AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Glimmer: we haven't fucking fixed a god damn thing and shit is getting WORSE Adora: WELL YEAH BC YOU WON'T LET US HELP YOU,

Swift Wind: "She hung up on me!"

IS IT GONNA BE KARL

playing Sea Hawk was probably fun in general but he did in fact make seagull noises

omg it is Karl

okay so Admiral Scurvy is just like I WANT MONEY which brings me back to asking WHAT CURRENCY ARE THEY FUCKING USING

mopey kitty. do you need laser pointer zoomies, too

oh no she doesn't know Scorpia has left and is pouring out her heart not realizing nobody is listening

"Listen, I'll kill you if you tell anyone this, but...I thought winning would be different. Or at least more...I don't know, fun?"

poor bb

Back to the boys: the Horde paid their ransom 😬

oh god this is great

but also Glimmer and Adora are having a screaming match and Glimmer punches LOW, including the line "Maybe your best isn't good enough! If it was, my mother would still be here!"

I took a screenshot of Adora's face in response but I can't post it it's too sad

but anyway, bigger things to worry about

Mermista: "The boys are in trouble!!"

oh hey I remember that scene

Bow: Friendship takes work!!

that is a very good point

also let's face this episode exists in part just so we get to have an episode in which three male characters get rescued by three women :D

okay I like Mermista's song ngl

omg the double meaning of "fight with friends" catching up to them near the end of the song

and Catra goes looking for Scorpia and goes into her room and

omg this is so funny and cute

I forget where I read it (I've gone through so many interviews etc at this point omgggg) but iirc the note just says "sorry"

Back on the ship: Glimmer reaches out to try to talk to Adora--who smacks her hand away and stomps off

😬 oh boy

ADORA GOD DAMMIT

Mermista and Sea Hawk are still singing and having a good time, Bow stares off into the distance singing along, end of episode

...I took way more screenshots than I expected on this one lol