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theopolis · 3 years ago

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Extremely long, extremely salty Kindred criticism post

Yk the thing about the Kindred storyline is that it failed at being everything it was trying to be.

It wanted to be like DeMatteis' Goblin Junior arc while simultaneously inverting every concept from that arc. Harry is a gentle soul going down a dark path and hurting not only others but himself in the process? No, he's the comically evil mastermind who would throw his friends - Gwen and MJ, who even by his own standards have done him no wrong - under the bus to get revenge! Norman is the looming influence that follows Harry and motivates him to bend himself into who his father wanted him to be? No, he's the repentant, permanently dewey eyed reformed Norman who we're supposed to feel bad for when he gets dismissed and punched around by evil Harry/his demonic clone vessels/whatever the fuck. Peter is the best friend who, despite of course feeling angry and betrayed, believes in Harry's softness and their love and wants the best for him? No, he's immediately and with zero explanation ready to believe Harry is a literal demon all of a sudden and, I quote, "through with helping him". And I don't even think this (later clumsily backpedaled on) change of mind in Peter isn't justified in-universe - Kindred did uh, dig up the skeletons of Peter's loved ones and put party city wigs on them and also smash him with a big rock a couple of times, so there's that. But that's exactly the problem - Spencer set the stage for a story that doesn't actually involve Peter, or Harry, or Norman. He created mostly completely different dynamics between mostly completely different characters, and decided to project that on the the three of them. While also periodically inserting hamfisted callbacks to the DeMatteis stories, as if he didn't just take a giant dump on everything they established.

And here's the thing, even if I did enjoy the idea of Harry forgiving Norman, or the idea of Harry returning to villainy, or the idea of Norman becoming a character we're supposed to root for - which I cannot stress enough how much I don't - the execution of all these ideas was perhaps the worst it could have possibly been. Rushed, convoluted, and hollow.

Norman's sudden goodness is the result of a supernatural, vague process that apparently "freed him of his sin", whatever that means. Like, how do you quantify sin? How can you take it out of a person when it's their moral ideology and conscious choices that make them sinful/bad/evil? What happened to Norman simply reads like brainwashing to me. He is aware he's done something really bad, but he hasn't actually learned anything, and that impression is only backed by the way he talks about his past actions. It's always "oh it's my fault you're like this Harry" and "oh I can never make it up to you" etc etc but does he ever actually recognize his mistakes for what they were? Recognize where the errors of his past convictions lie? Of course not, because Spencer has zero reading comprehension and therefore no clue about the intricacies of Norman's character, his abuse of Harry, or what motivated it, or what he demanded of his son. It's funny how these four panels from a recent What If issue managed to paint a more compelling, if brief, picture of Norman as an apologetic father than Spencer has in a year worth of comics:

Harry's sudden villainy and the way it evolved throughout this story is just a train wreck. He has not had a substantial role in the comics for a long time now, but suddenly he's back AND he's evil! Who cares about complexity? Who cares about how Harry's feeling? Why he's doing what he does other than some extremely vague idea of revenge on apparently both Peter and Norman? Even though he was neck deep in denial about Norman being a horrible father and person at the time he supposedly launched the whole (checks notes) "create clones from Norman's and Gwen's DNA to stick it to his old man AND Peter in the future" plan, which he concocted because he somehow (????) knew his father wasn't gonna stay dead, which begs the question why he was so torn up about it in the first place, and- Look I could sit here all day trying to decipher the whole Gabriel and Sarah Stacy twist. It's impressive what an inconsistent, incomprehensible mess it is considering it was only introduced two issues ago. ASM 74 sort of hinted that Harry was being piloted by Mephisto when he created the clones so they could later become his hellish lackeys? I uhm, think? It's impossible to tell because no part of that retcon makes any sense to begin with. It doesn’t want to make sense because it was written - most likely on a whim - with the sole intent to garner good will for undoing Sins Past. Harry, for this entire arc, was not a character but merely a tool to bait us with an OMD reversal and ultimately do a Sins Past one. And of course, there's the fact that post OMD Harry - one of the only good things to come out of OMD in the first place - was just a clone all along, putting into question how valid all the amazing and inspiring development he went through since his revival was. Thanks a lot.

Lastly, I don't think I have to say how insulting it is to not just use Harry's character as a cheap plot device, but eventually force him to sacrifice his life for the very man who ruined it in every way. The man who abused him since birth, betrayed him on every level, attacked and murdered so many people Harry loves, including almost getting Harry's son killed. Why? Because he’s had a suspicious sudden onset of goodness that Harry has no context for? Norman and clone!Harry have not even interacted for this entire arc, but the sole act of Norman offering himself up to the rabid Kindred twins makes Harry instantly forgive everything he’s ever done. There was no build up to this whatsoever. It’s bad writing. And I don't think the abuse apologism implications of all this are intentional, I think Spencer just thought up the groundbreakingly subversive concept of "what if Norman good and Harry bad" and ran with that. But those implications are there nonetheless, because Harry and Norman's relationship has pretty much always been about abuse, about being mistreated by your parents, about not feeling good enough for them and eventually realizing that you were wronged and you don't owe them anything.

Spencer had Harry, a man who fought for years to rise to his best, most authentic self and fully turn his back on Norman and his legacy, die to save the father who never valued him for that self. And to add insult to injury, paralleled that with Harry dying after saving his best friend who loved him unconditionally. The latter mentioned death being a direct consequence of the actions Harry took to fit the expectations said abusive father had drilled into his head. I feel like that ending explains everything about this plotline.

#Harry Osborn #theopolispost #I'm tired #long post

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panharmonium · 4 years ago

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@dreamersscape please forgive me for tagging you in a post to respond to your comments; tumblr’s reply feature is hard to have an extended/coherent conversation on, and I’m so excited to talk to a kindred Naruto spirit that I knew I was gonna write too much for it all to fit in that space XD

re: hinata - Oh my gosh, YES, my sister and I were so frustrated by how they just completely never addressed that moment again. I wasn't surprised, because it's been clear from the beginning that this show doesn't really care much about women, so the female characters' storylines getting dropped or never explored in the first place is pretty much what I've always expected, but it's still infuriating.

Honestly, the only good thing about this show's general disinterest in women is that it means that I don't place any blame on in-story Naruto for never addressing what Hinata did for him, because I know the fact that we don't see him dealing with her confession isn't actually intended to communicate anything about his reaction/non-reaction/level of investment; it's literally just a function of the fact that the writer doesn't care about her story. It's the same way I feel about how we see so much less one-on-one time between Kakashi and Sakura - her lack of screentime with him isn't something about which a person can credibly argue "Oh, this means Kakashi doesn't care about her enough and he's a bad teacher etc etc," because the imbalance isn’t a deliberate writing decision we're supposed to analyze for characterization. It's a reflection of the fact that the entire show is super sexist. XD

re: danzo: It’s one thing to have your villain believe himself to the hero of his own story, and like, another to have Danzo basically tout having darkness in your heart being a great thing and encouraging it’s presence/cultivating it - lmao YES! And honestly, this is why I actually find Danzo LESS infuriating than the Third Hokage. Like, Danzo is Super Evil and every time he exploits another child I want to watch him die all over again, but at least he like....owns his horribleness? Whereas Hiruzen is the biggest hypocrite on the planet - when I rewatched the Shonen Jump stuff a while back (my sister and I took a little break prior to Season 11 and rewatched some old stuff), I couldn't stand listening to Hiruzen go on and on about how the entire Leaf Village is his family and it's his role to protect all of them etc etc, because like - he literally covered up the genocide of Sasuke's entire family and let the perpetrator remain in power (and that was before I even knew about all these other crimes he allowed to go unpunished!!!) Danzo may be the Worst, but at least he's not pretending to be anything other than what he is. Hiruzen is still acting like he's everybody's sweet old grandpa, and that makes me even more angry than Danzo's straight-up horribleness. (And I do agree with you, they definitely lean harder into the "Lord Third is amazing" stuff pre-Shippuden, I just still feel confused about what the show is ultimately trying to say about him because we haven't gotten an explicit enough condemnation of his choices yet, and I feel like it's way overdue XD )

re: minato - Hard agree that Minato is an enigma. I don't feel like I fully understand him either - and not in a bad way, just in the sense that he's hard to read. The toughest thing for me to parse was always how distant he seemed with his students, which was surprising to me at first, because he'd been built up as sort of this "ideal shinobi" figure for such a long time, but to me, an ideal shinobi teacher looks more like...well, Kakashi, to be honest. And it took a while for me to reconcile with the fact that Minato and Kakashi really do just relate to their students very differently. I think Minato has always been a soldier, and I think he sees children as soldiers, too - not in an evil way at all, just in the sense that this is how the shinobi world works, and how it has always worked. It's not a "wrong" way to perceive shinobi kids, in the context of the story's universe. And so when things happen to those kids, he absolutely cares, but it's also sort of just a grim fact of life for him. It's like when Kushina tells him she doesn't want to make Naruto a jinchuriki, and she asks 'why do we have to do that to him, why does he have to suffer that way for the sake of the balance of power between nations,' and Minato's response is “Because our family is Shinobi.” That was a really telling moment for me in terms of how he sees the world. It's not something I'm interested in condemning him for, like you said; I don't think the story is ever asking us to do that, it’s just a philosophy that's very different from how Kakashi sees things and what he thinks children's experiences should be like.

I guess what I ultimately think (from the material we’ve seen so far, at least) is that Minato seems to perceive the loss of his students as something that Kakashi is struggling with, not something he himself is agonizing over. It’s a very sad thing that happened, of course, but it’s just part of the way their world works/a function of the times they live in. It's not something Minato is tormenting himself about. Whereas I think that if Kakashi ever lost a kid, it would have killed him. And I don't think this fact is in any way supposed to paint Minato as a bad person. He's not! All it means is that there is a generational difference between the world Kakashi and Co. are trying to create and the world Minato always knew, and people like Minato are doing the best they can with the framework they have.

I do like the guy a lot - and I wonder what he might have been like if he had lived to see a permanent peace established.

re: little Yamato - oh boy, those episodes nearly ended me. I am already very, very, VERY weak for Kakashi and Yamato’s friendship, and seeing Kakashi rescue Yamato from that horrible place (literally and metaphorically) was too much for me to handle. Kakashi’s silhouette replacing Danzo in Yamato’s memories of being rescued from Orochimaru’s lab - that slew me. And the way Danzo tells Yamato “you have no past, no future, no name” juxtaposed with Kakashi introducing Yamato as Tenzo because he remembers from three years ago how Yamato once rebelled at being called Kinoe and yelled “MY NAME IS TENZO” - Kakashi just using that chosen name without hesitation, without question, without needing to be told...it all ties back into the recent thematic throughline the show is working with about Identity - the importance of the Tailed Beasts having names, Kabuto’s desperate and misguided search for “who and what he is,” Itachi reclaiming his true self by undoing the reanimation justu and declaring “I am Itachi Uchiha of the Leaf Village,” Obito claiming that his real name doesn’t matter anymore, that he’s Nobody...it’s fantastic how they’re pulling all this together.

re: Kakashi and little Naruto - oh man, the feelings. I agree with you that Kakashi was in no place to be dealing with this, but certainly under different circumstances I think he would have loved to be a part of baby Naruto’s life. I actually think the reasoning behind “let’s put Kakashi in a situation where he’s in close contact with someone bringing new life into the world” is sound - I think that would be a really good thing for him! Just not in the sense of “you’re Kushina’s personal bodyguard, so if anything happens to her and the baby you can blame yourself for it.” XD Like...Minato could have invited Kakashi in for dinner sometimes, instead of having him constantly stand guard under their window??? If it had been more “we care about you and we want you to be a part of our family”....ugh, that would have been amazing. Kakashi is already SO good with Naruto (who is NOT by any means an easy kid to manage) - he just has such good instincts about how to talk to that kid and teach him in ways that work WITH Naruto’s particular brand of high motivation/low frustration tolerance, ping-pong emotional extremes, explosive energy levels, zero impulse control, and an inability to process more than one thing at a time. Handling Naruto effectively would be a challenging project for any teacher, never mind taking care of Naruto and two other kids, but Kakashi is a natural at it. It would have been awesome to see what Kakashi was like with Naruto when they were even younger...though the Feels might knocked me out.

[also, you mentioned Naruto and Obito - I cannot even tell you the Extremest Agonies I was in when the big reveal happened and I had to hear Naruto blankly go “who is he” - utterly clueless, without the faintest idea that he’s looking at the person who shaped his entire moral philosophy. The amount of things that these kids don’t know...that fact that Naruto has been quoting this very person all his life and making all his major life decisions based on the lesson Kakashi relayed to them on Day One - Obito’s words - oh boy oh boy I was not capable of handling that even the littlest bit.]

#*high fives your brain right back*#feel free to gush about this show anytime - i am right there with ya! :D #replies #naruto #pan watches naruto

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inmyarmswrappedin · 4 years ago

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The good:

Skam España set up Amira’s crush on Dani (and Dani’s crush on Amira) in s2 and, regardless of how it ends, they are following through with that storyline, instead of dropping it like a hot potato.

The bad:

Okay, so first off I have to say I’ve never vibed with Lucas Nabor (Dani)’s acting. And by never I truly do mean never, as in the first day of Cris’ season, I found the way Lucas N played Dani in the confrontation with Cris after they get home extremely cringy. This was way before I could’ve ever dreamed that Skam España would whitewash Yousef’s character and turn him into a white character.

So, for me, it’s not just an issue of whitewashing (which is already bad enough on a show with no meaningful male characters of color), but eskam pairing one of my favorite Skams character ever with the character I like the least for acting reasons.

But I figured eskam wouldn’t really have the audacity to whitewash a love interest and not give us a Yousef of color in another form. Just like the way we got that 5-second glimpse of Lucas Rubio hooking up with a boy named Iván in the s2 finale, so people could see the male Isak had also found an Even, or the way we got a full season of Miquel being the abusive boyfriend that Spanish viewers saw William as, but for Noorhelm fans, Alejandro still got to be Nora’s endgame.

And so, when Sofian in the trailer was blatantly posited as a love interest, juxtaposed with shots of Dani with the same expression and filmed from the same angle, I thought, “Okay, so Amira will have an additional love interest who is actually Moroccan, and he’ll probably be around much less (like Iván in s2 and Alejandro in s3), but he’ll be the endgame.”

Like... Never in my wildest nightmares would I have thought that Skam España would take... idefk... Lito from Skam and turn him into a full fledged character who’d play the fuck out of Amira and attempt to talk her into bearding.

When Kasim was introduced and people immediately noticed the look between Lucas and Kasim, I thought, “no fucking way Skam España would pull an Elite.” WHEN, when has Skam España looked towards Elite for inspiration before? Not even just to “fix” Elite storylines and turn them into good storylines. Elite and Skam España have never existed in the same sphere or tried to do the same things or impacted each other.

When the spoilers came out, I thought back to the time in s3 when the same hackers said that Alejandro would hit Miquel with a bottle. At the time, I heard of the Alejandro spoilers and wondered to myself, “is this something Skam España would ever do?” And I thought nah, no way, Skam España has never been concerned with toxic masculinity or romanticized it. And I was right!

So I did the same thing with these spoilers, and I was SO SURE that I had understood the show, that I had understood what Skam España had been trying to do all these three seasons, that Skam España was so disinterested in men as a whole that they’d never try something so complex with either Dani (a conversion storyline) or Kasim (a closeted storyline). Both of those storylines are storylines Skam España gives to GIRLS. Because men in eskam have always been more about what they symbolize for the girls, than their own entities. And I liked that! So, on that level I feel betrayed, because Skam España had been telling it was one thing for three seasons, until in s4 they decided Amira didn’t deserve the same treatment as all the other mains, where she doesn’t get to be by far the most complex character in her own season. (I’m not saying Amira isn’t complex - she is. She is the most complex Sana and the most nuanced.)

There are a couple things that gave me a bad vibe about this season from the start: one was the fact that Kasim wasn’t introduced in episode 1. Skam España always introduces the characters that are significant for the main in episode 1, so for Kasim to not show up in episode 1, that was a sign. The other one was that Skam España gave the bonus clips to Alejandro. This is a show that refused to give Lucas bonus clips in s2, because his experience as a gay boy just wasn’t relevant to Cris. Not in the same Viri’s experience was relevant to Nora. And suddenly, Alejandro (and not Nora) gets the bonus clips in a season about Amira? Like, it was just fucking weird. It is weird as shit that a show that has always gleefully centered the female experience to the detriment of the male experience, would decide in their Muslim woc season, that it was time for the whitest, straightest, cisgenderedest, richest character on the show to be the first one to get some focus.

Because Sana seasons across the board have underperformed compared to the seasons that came before them (because of racism and islamophobia in Europe), I thought that maybe Movistar had decided to lean on the romance a bit more heavily this season, in order to make it seem more appealing. Kinda makes sense, no? We’re tired of seeing straight white girl seasons, so making Nora’s season lean a bit more on the educational side of Skam isn’t a risk. People will still tune in. But a Sana season is a bit of a harder sell, so we have to sweeten the deal with romcom tropes and all the other couples in the show making out and about to have sex, to make up for Amira not getting those scenes. I thought I could live with that.

But like, there’s adding some background fanservice from established couples and then there’s this monstrosity that leans into EVERY islamophobic Muslim trope ever (because it’s super commercial and high stakes drama and excitingggggg). Like, in Western media, Muslim men are either oppressors (abusive, strict husbands who beat their wives and are terrorists or thugs or thieves) or oppressed (closeted gay boys who resort to extreme means, such as bearding or dealing drugs, in order to stay under the radar). They never get to be the leading love interest. I have never seen a Muslim man of color on Spanish TV be the male love interest, and especially not the love interest to a Muslim woman. And Skam España will be no different.

I also hope people understand the way it undermines literally every other thing they’re trying to do with the show. Amira already explained at length both her own stance towards gay people and Islam’s stance towards gay people, in s2 and her bonus video with Lucas. if you want to be a Muslim in good standing, you can be gay as long as you don’t act on it. But you can also be a Muslim who eats pork, or a Muslim who doesn’t fast in Ramadan, or a Muslim who doesn’t pray five times a day, because ultimately it’s about every individual’s relationship with Allah. To go back on this for a homophobic Muslims storyline undoes everything they did in s2.

It also undermines Dounia as a character. Here’s a practicing Muslim who longs for a safe space, who doesn’t want to answer questions from non Muslims, who thinks it’s better not to even open the door to a relationship with a white non Muslim, and who’s really confident in all those decisions. And if you think the show isn’t setting her up to be confronted with the fact her brother doesn’t feel safe among Muslims, who prefers questions from non Muslims over telling the truth to Muslims, who has happily opened the door to a relationship with a white non Muslim, who thinks that Dounia is a homophobe in short, and that she will be made to reexamine all her beliefs because of her brother... I just don’t know what to say to you tbh.

And also, this clip made it seem like Amira’s Muslim world wouldn’t accept her crush on Dani, undoing everything the show has done until now. Dounia didn’t disapprove when Amira told her she had a crush on a white non Muslim. She understood and shared her experience. Amira’s mother knew about her crush on Dani and never tried to stop it, nor did she discourage it when Amira told her about it. Why is Skam España suddenly acting like Amira can’t tell anyone about her budding relationship with Dani, when every anon on tumblr dot com will tell you that relationships between Muslim women and Christian men happen all the time?

And finally, it just makes me reexamine previous Skam España seasons and wonder... Did they make Amira only start wearing hijab in the first day of s1 because they knew a character like Sana wouldn’t contemplate a relationship with a white character who makes islamophobic jokes, drinks and makes out with the Sana’s friends in front of her after specifically inviting her to a party? Did they make Amira the show’s Isak’s best friend just so they could whitewash Yousef? Was the whole purpose and trajectory of Amira on the show, everything they did with her, a justification for whitewashing one of the few positive men of color on Western TV? For refusing to show a Muslim girl in a happy relationship with a Muslim boy? To only portray and devote time to Muslim poc/white atheists relationships? (Amira’s parents not withstanding.) As if the most positive outcome for a Muslim person living in Europe is to marry a white atheist. That is what Skam España did to Sana’s season, to Sana, to the balloon squad.

#skam españa #anti damira #anti dani soto #if you are a damira or dani stan and click on this post #then you have been warned #if you come on anon to attack me for this post #do not expect me to be polite

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spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 3 years ago

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Possibly a big ask to get just out of the blue but: what are your Supernatural season opinions? Which one is your favorite? Least favorite? Did you watch long enough to have showrunner opinions? If yes, which showrunner is your favorite and which is your least favorite? If no, which season that you haven't seen most tempts you to get back in the Supernatural trenches? Answer exactly as many of these questions as you want to. Carry on.

You know, I am not sure how long this Ask has been sitting here, because my Tumblr notifications are borked -- I hope not long? If long, I apologize, I wasn't ignoring it on purpose!

Okay, so I have more than the average number of Supernatural opinions, probably, but I'll try to keep this to a dull roar! Inside Me There Are Two Wolves: one of them believes that only the original five seasons of Supernatural are worth defending in any way, the other really, really loves seasons 11 and 12. The Kripke Era had a lot of problems, particularly in its treatment of women as bodies without agency and its treatment of Black men as literal predators, but also for all its flaws, it had a kind of coherence and narrative drive that comes from being the product of a dude who obviously cared about it and had something to say. Taken on its own, seasons 1-5 are a brutal and compelling story about the traumas of being men in a universe that's been absolutely destroyed by its Fathers: on almost every level, it's about these abandoned and brutalized boys discovering that their entire reality is the product of an abandoning and brutalizing God, populated by authority figures who are universally demanding and arrogant, but also completely fucking useless. It's quite literally about Sam and Dean trying to hang onto their souls and their own agency when everyone around them wants them forced into shapes formed by conflicts that fell into place at the beginning of time. It's hard to remember, but back then even the Lucifer plotline was about that! It was about the damage fathers inflict on sons! Things were about things, in the Kripke era!

Then we get to the Gamble era, and. Woof. I actually -- don't hate 6 and 7? Like everything Sera Gamble touches, those two seasons are kinetic and memorable and funny and weird and hit some really, really great emotional beats. There are Some Problems, but Gamble was saddled with a pretty dire job, trying to find a way forward after everything about the series really had effectively wrapped up in Swan Song, and I think she did an okay job. People got mad at her for killing Castiel, but you know, damn, I give her this: that was a storyline. Like, this character who was fresh out of the cult he was raised in becoming disillusioned by how messy normal life is and deciding that maybe people need better authoritarianism instead -- the way he's driven to take too many risks by the fact that he's abandoned and desperate -- Crowley as a legitimately scary villain while still being charming af -- and the tragic resolution of Castiel being torn apart by both his hubris and his heroism. It's actually really good. I understand why people didn't want what Gamble was serving up -- and I'm able to like it because it was undone later, you know? -- but she really did commit to a full season of character arc and saw it all the way through to an earned ending, and I gotta respect that.

I genuinely hate seasons 8 and 9. I think everyone is a dick, particularly but not exclusively Dean, to the point where I just find it a bummer to watch. I mean, you get Benny, and I love Benny. You get, I dunno, bits and bobs of decent episodes, but overall they are very fucked up seasons in my opinion. So Carver era is on thin fucking ice with me, but I do think you start to get a rebound in season 10 with the Mark of Cain stuff, although I wish they'd managed to keep Cain around longer. All the really good Claire stuff starts happening, which is nice because Claire, but also because for once the show is really letting itself go back and deal with the mess these protagonists leave behind them constantly. Castiel and Claire have maybe the most interesting non-Winchester relationship on the show. Oh, and Rowena shows up around here too, right? Love her. So the back half of Carver, 10 and 11, are starting to really gain traction for me. The world is building outward, secondary characters are starting to be genuine characters in their own right, the politics of Heaven and Hell get a little richer and more interesting. The show is really starting to feel like it takes place in a universe, which is great because we love the Frigging Winchesters, but they shouldn't be the only thing going, right? We have 15 seasons to get through! Season 11 is basically bracketed by what are probably my two favorite Supernatural episodes: Baby and Don't Call Me Shurley. (I think I'm the world's only living Metatron fan; I fucking love that little dude.)

Dabb takes over in 12, and I really, really, genuinely love season 12. I fucking love Mary. There are so many episodes I adore -- Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox is a special favorite of mine, and I remain pissed off that the Banes twins never made it to recurring status, bluntly that feels wildly racist to me -- probably the best three-episode streak in the show is Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets to Regarding Dean to Stuck In the Middle (With You), three just almost perfect episodes. So I was poised to really love the Dabb era. I wanted to! My body was ready!

And I do really love the first chunk of season 13, the Widow Winchester arc. Obviously I'm a romantic, love that for me, but it's just also really good? The acting, the writing, the psychological complexity of Dean wanting Jack to be Bad so he has an outlet for his anger and Sam wanting Jack to be Good so he can retroactively parent himself and raise a Lucifer-tainted child who isn't crippled by self-loathing. Billie's great, and it looks like she's going to start being one of the major powers of the universe. Unfortunately -- with the occasional exception of this or that solid episode -- that's kind of the end of Pretty Good Supernatural. Season 13 kind of unravels; season 14 always feels like it's looking for itself (which is a bummer, because I wanted very much to care about Michael); season 15 is, idk. Idk about any of it, it's all pretty pointless. I feel bad complaining on some level, because the show's been on for like fourteen years at this point! It's kinda justified in feeling a little worn out. But the reality is that the later seasons systematically undo all the expansion that had excited me earlier -- the Wayward Sisters crew pretty much vanishes when the spinoff isn't picked up, Naomi and the angels stop doing anything, Crowley's gone, Mary's gone for much of it. We're just kind of futzing around with monsters who don't seem to matter (very much including Lucifer, who hasn't mattered in ages) and a lot of Jack, who. I try not to shit all over, because I know he's a popular character, but I find him just ungodly boring. Everything in the last two and a half season just feels like it's headed nowhere in particular, and also it bored me. The Empty deal is just sadness porn; it doesn't have any resonance or meaning in terms of Castiel's character, it's just him agreeing to die for his kid, which is okay, it means he's a loving dad, which he is, but there's no conflict there, ergo no real drama. It's just mean; it happens because it'll make us sad, and no other reason. Rowena is the only strong secondary character left, and her ending also doesn't feel particularly relevant to her, it's just a generic Sacrifice to Save the World. Everything just feels like they're autogenerating plotlines, rather than letting the actual needs and drives of the characters shape the narrative. So while I have this weird split personality with Carver where I either hate what he's doing or I love it, most of the Dabb era is just. There. It doesn't make me feel anything except kind of tired and embarrassed. Which is a bummer, because I have an inexplicable fondness for Dabb, probably just because of how much I love s12. I wanted to love his seasons! I did love his first season! I feel like maybe something happened when the CW rejected Wayward Sisters? I know that was kind of his darling, and it feels like maybe losing that kind of sucked the joy out of him, and he's kind of checked-out by the end. That's genuinely just my guess, however.

That's Professor Milo's Intro to Supernatural Studies, don't forget to fill out your course survey on the way out!

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basedsakura · 3 years ago

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if u could rewrite naruto starting at chapter 699 onward what would u have changed for sakuras character? I love that girl to death but B*ruto did literally nothing for her and it makes me so sad thinking about how satisfying her development could have been if kishimoto cared to develop her the way he did naruto and sasuke

oof the thing is i don't think that Naruto the Series became bad post-699.

i believe its undoing first started when kishimoto decided, intentionally or not, to start going against the principles that were the pillars of the story we loved so much, namely the ''hard work beats talent'' and ''choose your own destiny'' philosophies that gave inspiration and strength to so many kids because it wasn't something that you'd hear a lot of back in the day (another story nowadays with the hustle culture)

this is not limited to sakura. the storylines of so many characters were essentially rendered pointless. what was the point of neji being beaten by naruto philosophically? why make him believe that you CAN change your destiny if you're just going to end up making him a sacrifice for the member of the clan's main branch? why even introduce MY MAN ROCK LEE in the first place?? why have naruto go on all those rants about changing one's destiny if he's the LITERAL child of prophecy DESTINED to be strong? why make him the underdog and carrier of the series' message if he's just going to end up being the most privileged hypocritical contradiction of that very message? i swear i'll make my point eventually

this ties into sakura's character because i don't believe kishimoto's misogyny is the sole culprit for the waste of her character, it's his inconsistency. i genuinely believe that, at one point, he had planned to build her character arc so it's in accordance with the story's message. sakura's character is literally the character to do this with - she's a civilian in a glorified army base, she's not particularly combat efficient, she has no kekkei genkai and doesn't have much going for her overall.

up to and during the kazekage rescue arc, sakura's character was on an upwards trajectory, i think this is one of the few things this fandom can agree on. after the hidan and kakuzu arc, i think kishimoto started riding the sasuke-naruto hypetrain a little too hard. most characters, and ESPECIALLY sakura, started being used as props to somehow further the sns story. the story started being less and less about enduring pain and changing your destiny and more about how great naruto and naruto only is. it got so old and i stopped caring abt him as a character halfway through shippuden.

but i digress

to answer your question anon, in order to change sakura post 699, you'd need to start much earlier. however i do have some opinions abt post 699

blue-plums talked abt this a long time ago, but i dont think gaiden has been kind to any of the old cast characters. yes, naruto and sasuke get a lot of screen time, but their characters, and especially sasuke, are caricatures of their old selves. sakura too. their situations feel like regressions into their old selves (naruto being the hokage and caring about little else, sasuke wandering the world and restoring his family de jure, sakura being married to sasuke).

what was the point of a 700 chapter manga if their dreams and aspirations remained as one dimensional as they had been at 12 years old?

yes, good for them for achieving their dreams, but how did these people grow? naruto's the hokage, but he's thirty years old now. surely the cruelty of the world has thought him that the shinobi system needs changing? sasuke has restored his clan and is still a lone wolf, but this sasuke has accepted bonds and love into his life, so why isn't he behaving in accordance to these new values of his? sakura married sasuke, but WHAT ELSE?

i personally would've loved to see sakura in her role as the head of the hospital, the story of how she started a mental health clinic, her relationship with ino, some new skills that she might have had acquired, her actually giving sasuke some actual lip when he deserves it. i wanted to see her as sakura, but grown up, in every sense of the word

sorry for this word vomit, you didnt even ask for half this stuff

#thanks for the question tho!#meta #again sorry for whatever this wall of text is #sakura haruno

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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

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Yugioh Ep 36 S4: Seto Joins Dragon Wife in Hell

So I dunno about you guys, but 2020 aged me like a lot in just these 8 months, so I figured it was time to embrace the feeling of being on death’s door and I decided to learn Mahjong. So I could truly embrace the ancients and vibe in their natural habitat.

Anyway, once I learned some Mahjong lore, some parts of Yugioh just open up. Namely--Seto’s dragons. Like a whole lot of stuff about early Seto Kaiba that confused me at the time just makes so much more sense now.

But unfortunately, he dies this episode, and he never pulled out his Blue Eyes White Dragons, and it’s just like...

...but my Mahjong deep cuts...

Like every episode I’m just rubbing my palms together in anticipation that someone will die, but like...I never get to talk about how in Mahjong, there’s only 4 white dragon tiles, but if you have 3, you can steal the fourth white dragon from another player’s discards, and that when you that, other stuff happens...I don’t get to talk about that because Seto’s hella dead.

So lets just get to the death. Dartz decides to make all of our soldier frenemies attack Pharaoh--because that’s all he needs to raise the Leviathan. Like Dartz doesn’t even really need to finish this game. He just needs Yami.

Seto picks up that these friend (and Pegasus) soldiers that Yami refuses to kill are probably going to end the world very quickly so he decides to do something about it. If this were a blog where I talked about cards instead of Mahjong, then I’d dive into the intricacies of what that even was.

But, we’re not, so lets just talk about Pegasus.

(read more under the cut)

This guy harnesses some psychic energy he’s got leftover from S1 and communicates directly to Pharaoh’s mind.

So, hey, what was that about Pegasus not having powers anymore? Like? He’s still doing this? He’s still psychic and he very clearly can still make blank cards so like...I guess you can take out the eyeball and make him nicer, but you can’t take out some of the effed up magic side-effects. (like there was a comment I didn’t respond to (which, sorry about that, been a little nuts over here in California), but apparently there was a movie in between seasons where Pegasus saved their lives--so he’s legit good now...there was a DLC where character arcs happened.)

Which kind makes you wonder about Marik, but we’ll probably never see him again so o well, save it for the fanfiction.

PS Yami is totally fixating on that eye we can’t see, right? Like...it never outright tells us, but does this spiritual Orichalcos manifestation of Pegasus still have the golden eye? A human eye? Or no eye at all? Just skin?

Not like it matters because Seto does some sort of card shenanigans that undo the whole friends that are soldiers thing like it never happened.

MMMMM I don’t like these weird legs on Yugi. Don’t like the thighs it gave to Joey. No! I’m seeing like this skin-tight silhouette of half an ass right now and I really don’t like it.

Along with other card things I won’t go into that consumed most of this episode, Seto finally got hit by a...well, I mean you can clearly see it in the next cap.

So, in Mahjong, there are 3 types of dragons: a white dragon, a red dragon, and a green dragon. I used to think it was really lazy that we’re just calling monsters straight up “white dragon” or “red dragon” in this show, but now it makes more sense because this whole time it was probably baby’s first Mahjong reference but I’m too Western to know that.

Anyway, the white dragon is funny looking because it’s a white tile--just a completely blank white tile. I thought it was a wild card at first but nah--it’s a white dragon in a snowfield--which is a very funny Dad joke from 200 years ago we’re still doing today. But, often, instead of a Dad joke, they’ll just make the white dragon tile a drawing of a blank card, like this:

Kind of funny that the guy who’s shtick is white dragons, ended up with his soul in a blank card. Was that a mahjong reference? Probably not, but I noticed it.

And mahjong aside, the show paid it’s respects to Seto dying and so he took his sweet time passing on. It’s still not that much respect. We aren’t gonna get that amazing Joey death sequence from S3 that took like half an episode of scene-shredding for our mains to recover from, but like...Seto was very determined to keep going, despite not having a soul.

He even finished his turn of cards, as if to just spite Joey Wheeler for that one time Joey hella died before killing Marik.

Shippers rejoice, it’s a Yami and Seto Kaiba death sequence. If you squint really hard, it might even be an embrace. I mean they both have very sharp duel disks on, and if Yugi’s closes for whatever reason, it’ll snap Seto’s head clear off, but what other “hugs” do we really get on this show?

And as for Mokuba, he was quite tragic this episode. I mean it’s Yugioh, so it’s not like you’re gonna cry or anything, but Mokuba just doesn’t really have anything else going for him without his brother so it is legit like...man Mokuba gets a lot of crap thrown his way and even when he’s happy, he still has to live with Seto so just...Mokuba...

Again we get this bubble effect of other people trying to enter the Orichalcos which happens just a Hell of a lot this season. Like Dartz probably has never had a single person WANT to go in the green zone in 10,000 years and then these bizarre children happened and they just want to bounce off that thing like a jello pudding.

I think it took over 5 minutes for Seto to die, and he was very, very, VERY angry the entire time. Just fueled by literally nothing but rage. Could probably go a couple more episodes if he had taken a nap in the KaibaCopter, but alas, even Seto Kaiba eventually runs out of fumes.

Anyway, another Mahjong fun fact. The dragon tiles are considered an “honor tile” and how many times have we heard Seto--who is such a scumball--go off about his honor? It can be hard to use honors tiles because their rate of success is lower, so when Seto’s like “I have to live up to my dragon’s honor or I can’t keep these in my deck” could he be like...making a Mahjong pun as well as a literal reference to whatever he defines as honor?

...Again, just a Mahjong reference I noticed, but probably not what they intended at all. Which is Good Enough for this blog.

After he tragically passed on, and Yami delicately put his body on the ground, -- Dartz decided to make this moment very funny for me, instead.

Bless.

Not as good as Yami the both times his body was chucked casually across the screen this season--but a very good toss, nonetheless.

I have made so MANY clips of this season!

Tristan and Tea kinda just stood there this entire episode while this was all going down and like...I know they can’t really do anything else at this point but like...can someone give Mokuba a hug???

I can’t believe Valon was the only guy in this entire show about friendship who knew how to hug people. He was in prison since he was 9, and then was raised by freakin Dartz, why is he the only hugger?

PS, apparently Seto’s yummy soul was enough to make the Leviathan open a single eye-ball in curiosity.

Mokuba out there flinging so many insults that he got everyone else banned from watching devil cards. It’s like sports competitions in Middle school with that one kid who won’t stop cussing. That one kid who is the reason everyone else has to sit through a boring ass assembly about sportsmanship? That’s Mokuba.

Now that everyone is ‘passed out’, we can get to the juicy stuff only the olds talk about--which sounds a lot like I’m about to do another segway into talking about Mahjong again, but I’m actually all out of the Mahjong juice. Again, I’m ass at Mahjong.

(and like...the peanut gallery died in the original version, right? I know to never trust a “they’re just sleeping” line in Yugioh.)

Dartz telling me he dragged that ass length blue hair across Egypt?

Man.

I would say that it must’ve really thrown people, but then again, their Pharaoh looked like...that.

So Dartz ended up wandering the earth for 5000 years, cursed to live immortally, unable to revive the great Leviathan, wallowing in his failure. Sentenced to suffer the entire existence of humanity that he never wanted to see survive anyway, unable to die himself.

That’s an interesting plotline that I wish I saw more of. I really like the idea of a supervillian who is already past his prime, who’s already burnt out, who’s so far removed from what happened that he’s fully accepted his demise and is just wandering around out of habit. But, most importantly--that changes my math. That’s like...5000 years he wasn’t slurping no souls because he was too damn depressed. So I’ll append the Deathcount. One second.

OK so we can just subtract 7.3 million from what we had, leaving us with: 7,805,844,047. Barely even made a dent but...eh...when you got the current population of the Earth in there it’s really hard to make a dent in that thing.

PS I still have that google doc where I keep track of the deaths, we have 55 lines of entries, haha.

Yugioh is interesting because you do have some racial stuff going on here where Yami is SO OLD that he doesn’t remember not only his own name--he doesn’t remember what he looks like. He’s even seen it a few times in hallucinations but like...Yami legit doesn’t know what it is to be an ancient Egyptian anymore. It’s been a hot minute, and he still sees himself as a pale skinned Yugi clone when he spiritually manifests in the show. Because the modern day, set in Japan, through Yugi’s eyes--that’s all he knows about life.

Dartz was so impressed by Pharaoh’s magic powers that he knew--he just KNEW that this Pharaoh with the worst hair would be the yummy soul for the Leviathan tummy. But unfortunately...

This is a show that has had so MANY overlapping apocalypses that I did have to sit back and kind of count off on my fingers which crazy person this would be about.

Honestly? Either Seto or Bakura...guessing Bakura because we haven’t finished his storyline yet and I know that he’s the big bad of S5. But man...Dartz was just like “oh...no thanks to that guy. I’ll just take a nap for 5000 years, BIG no thanks.” and it does make you wonder...

...oh...so that’s why you didn’t bother Bakura in this timeline.

It also helps make Bakura even more of a threat. Again, Bakura is great because he’s just constantly leaving nuggets of what a threat he is and then just...disappears for seasons on end. The Bakura we’ve made in our head is probably way more awful than what he may end up being.

But for now, it’s fun to just fill in the gaps instead.

anyway that was it for this episode, I’m off to pretend it’s Thanksgiving week and will look forward to drowning my anxiety in a 16 lb turkey shared between four people.

Anyway, I brought up the cat that falls asleep on metal rods so I have to do this:

And for those that are new, this is a link to read these in chrono order: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

#yugioh #ygo #yu-gi-oh #yami #dartz #seto kaiba #dies #mokuba #tea gardner #tristan taylor #Yugi Muto #Joey Wheeler #'s weird ass pants with the flap thing going on #mahjong #S4 Ep36

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darkpoisonouslove · 4 years ago

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Ranking the Winx Club Finales

I recently finished my rewatch (and first watch of a season and a half) of Winx Club and wrote out my thoughts on all of it. However, to send off a year that was in experience a lot like watching this series - meaning, generally frustrating and downright disappointing whenever I got excited over a thing with a few highlights that actually stuck the landing - and to get out any remaining feelings over the series, I have decided to rank the finales from least to most favorite. I just have a lot of rage to spare over season 8′s finale and needed an excuse to do so. Plus, I am being thematic here goddammit! Here we go:

8. Season 8

Yeah, I really spoiled that already. To sum it up:

But let me elaborate. Like I already said, this finale enraged the living fuck out of me. I just cannot comprehend whatever possessed them to write a finale so, so... excruciatingly devastating... to a season that started out with a lot of promise and had some extremely solid decisions (except for the art style, which is just NOT IT). This finale is an absolute disaster in every way. First, there is a new plot point introduced mere minutes before the finale and it is never tied into the overall narrative of the season which doesn’t do it any favors, especially after the two halves of the season already have trouble connecting together into one overarching story. The reason they brought in the creatures from the Dark Dimension was to distract Valtor while Winx make their attempt at stealing the stars which could have very well been a role filled by Arken confronting Valtor in an opportunity to clear up all the muddy details around their partnership and bring together the two halves of the season. The Winx’ plan had potential that was completely wasted by their own interruption instead of seeing each girl (provided Layla was playing Icy, Stella - Darcy and Musa/Tecna - Stormy) doing her best to pretend to be the Trix she’s posing as to give the Trix the due role they should have had in this finale. Instead, we get an Icy that is a complete opposite of the character we’ve known her to be for seven seasons all for the sake of a wish she doesn’t even get fulfilled despite her decision to help. Her motivation is a direct contradiction to the original plan of the Trix and disrespects her character from all previous instances of her being on the show for absolutely no reason as she is left with nothing in the end and the whole backstory they invented for her out of nowhere and couldn’t fit in any way with anything previously known about her was in vain because it was never resolved. Winx essentially manage to defeat Valtor once they wish for their own power-up and are gifted powers they haven’t really earned only to be pronounced great heroes who even get their own constellation in the sky. Come again? There was no narrative tension in this episode, no big climax to resolve what is supposedly the biggest threat in the universe at the moment, and no actual emotional conclusion to the season. It can’t even be called a messy wrap when so many threads were left hanging in there. A true disaster on every front.

7. Season 6

Even if you count both 6x25 and 6x26 as the finale of season 6, the structure is still lacking big time. Acheron who is the main drive of the entire season is defeated before the end of 6x25 and the Trix who are the other main villains were also more or less neutralized at that point to leave absolutely no stakes for the last episode so they had to pull some bullshit to fill it. The Winx are useless for the entire episode, including Bloom whose battle with the Trix is an absolute joke. Like, they can’t even think of syncing their attacks so that she can’t protect herself from all three of them with her ridiculously small shield and Bloom couldn’t even bother to actually buy herself enough time to leave the Legendarium. The only saving grace of that fight is the little emotional moment it causes for Bloom but that was also not really set up at any point of the season so it was just out of the blue. Selina changing her affiliations permanently even after the imminent threat for her life was neutralized made about as much sense as her turning evil in the first place and the fact that they needed her to lock the Legendarium made everything 1000% shittier because of how convenient it was that she just decided to turn good again without any justification for her course of actions. That coupled with the lack of consequences for any of her actions (she nearly killed Flora for heaven’s sake and no one even brought that up?) plus the dreadful info dump monologue they gave her just brought the whole thing down. The wrap-up of the season was also underwhelming after they had an entire episode that was mainly free of villains in order to close the other storylines... but, of course, there were no other storylines. Pretty disastrous.

6. Season 7

Just like in season 6, Winx were pretty useless here as they really didn’t do all that much for the plot. Luckily, the fact that the Trix were brought in allowed for the villains to have a battle that was more intriguing and provided some action as for a finale. The other key elements of the season (fairy animals, Trix, wild magic, Kalshara and Brafilius and the time travel) were actually woven together pretty well to make for a pretty satisfying finish to a season that really lacked any solid plot. The mini worlds and the Tynix transformation did not have use in the last episode but that wasn’t too catastrophic. There was actually a pretty emotional moment between the fairy animals and Winx that would have been even better if their relationships had been better developed throughout the season... You’d really think that since fairy animals were the main point of the season and there was no solid plot to account for, they would have taken the time to pay attention to Winx bonding with their fairy animals but nah. I am still impressed with how touching their goodbye was given the fact that they didn’t really have all that much time to actually become close so bonus points for that. The very last scene is a little generic but what else to expect from a season that has sung all its songs already (thank god that there were no musical numbers in this because I have a feeling it would have been even worse)?

5. Season 5

Season 5 could at least pat itself on the back for dealing with the main villain of the season even if there were a couple iffy things about the whole deal. I’m taking away consistency points for a) the fact that the Throne was supposed to be activated with the seals from the Pillars of the Infinite Ocean, yet suddenly stealing a random Sirenix would do, b) Tritannus being defeated by simply having his trident taken away even though he literally grew in body mass implying that the power of the Emperor’s Throne had seeped inside of him (also confirmed by Mystery of the Abyss) and c) the mutants inexplicably turning back into people once Tritannus lost his powers even though they never turned back during his times of relapsing back into a human thanks to running out of pollution. His defeat was just ridiculously easy and Bloom got to do it even though Layla was the one with the personal connection to Tritannus and the one most directly impacted by his actions as her family fell prey to him. Instead of getting to shine in a season that focused heavily not just on her home world but on the environment from which her powers come, she got benched in favor of Bloom getting to do everything again with only mild assist from Layla’s cousin. They should have kept it in the family and left Layla and Nereus deal with Tritannus. The Trix were blasted out of the narrative extremely conveniently and the rest of Winx were saved twice by the mutants just turning their back on them instead of destroying them right then and there and then being turned back into their original form as well. There wasn’t the usual teamwork of the whole Winx unit which I am still salty about despite being sick of all the time they reached for convergence in that season. Theredor fighting alongside Winx (different from his own daughter) was a nice touch but the king and queen of Andros coming off as so helpless (and apparently the only people in the castle unless you admit that everyone else drowned) was frustrating. Where was the Andros army? We only got Tressa, Roy, four of Winx and a handful of mermaids. Is that the whole population of the Heart of All Oceans? Additionally, the finale left no time for any emotional resolution of the season’s events, especially considering the big deal that Daphne’s revival was. Instead they opted for a musical number at the end. Not the best form.

4. Season 3

Season 3 had a finale and then another finale. Granted, better than season 6 that had a finale and then filler but there was not a lot of glory to the ending of a story with such a strong opening and emotional moments that send you bursting into tears. The spell of the four elements was pretty decent in its first appearance in 3x25 but the way Valtor lost it all was a real let down after the climatic confrontations between him and the Winx girls throughout the rest of the season. His return was more or less a desperate last attempt at personal revenge against Winx as his goal was mostly out of reach at this point. The spell of the elements was brought down in both its use to create clones of Winx’ boyfriends and in its power as it was much easier to undo in its reappearance. The saving graces of this season’s finale are the couple emotional moments sprinkled through both 3x25 and 3x26. Bloom’s willingness to sacrifice herself for her friends and the world was the thread that the finale hangs on as she is mostly the one resolving the whole conflict which was a bit dissatisfying after the emotional damage Valtor inflicted on all of them directly or indirectly. There is a few moments left to recover from the emotional intensity of their battles against Valtor but nothing that really addresses the seriousness of the trauma they had to survive because of him. The Trix didn’t even get to have a last stand of their own in either of the last two episodes despite the position in which they started the season but that was more or less unnecessary anyway since we’d already seen they can’t hold their ground against Enchantix Winx even with a boost from Valtor. Overall, the finale is pretty weak, especially as a follow-up of the dynamic and strong experiences that the season put them all through. It was the first finale that was confined to a single episode (or rather two separate battles spanning over an episode to end the season) and there wasn’t enough tension building in the confined storyline an episode told.

3. Season 4

The season 4 finale is overall a solid conclusion that delivers both a final battle with the Wizards and enough time left to address all the other storylines left unfinished. The final battle was pretty short but there was enough intensity in the previous couple episodes to have covered the action demand that the season had already set up and it also provided the opportunity to have Winx come back together as a team after Layla split up. Not only that, but Nebula and Roxy also get to play their part while the Wizards make their last desperate attempt to regain the upper hand. It’s pretty climatic for something that length that also left about 15 minutes of the episode still to fill. Everything that had to do with the closure of the Earth fairies storyline was emotional beyond belief and gave more depth to all of them and Layla’s decision to join them. Winx had to face all of the separate responsibilities they have on their shoulders and find a way to balance them all so that they can pursue their dreams. There was a plethora of emotional moments and a deserved spotlight shined on Layla’s situation and how she’s dealing with it, plus the others’ feelings. It was a really touching finale and also an inspiring one to see Winx stand behind their dreams while still balancing their responsibilities. It seemed to achieve the initial goal of the season to have them adapting to the adult life they were shifting into.

2. Season 2

I’m gonna be honest, I had a very hard time deciding whether this would be number one or two because the season 2 finale had a lot more character moments that were very moving. It really corresponds to the season since it was more character driven than the first one and the finale suited that. However, ultimately I decided that it would take silver because of a couple minor things that bring it down. To get that out of the way, the second portal to Realix that led Winx there was imo a copout that destroyed pretty much all of the tension that the entire season spent building around the search for the Codex. It just felt so wrong for there to be another way to enter that dimension and to me it was a big disappointment. Especially since the key to activating the copy of the Codex was the color riddle that was a ridiculous panicked attempt on the writers’ part to show that Stella isn’t useless and has what to give the team but it only made her look worse in my eyes. Also, minor gripe for the fact that there wasn’t that much of a final battle since everything ended with a single convergence. Of course, there were several battles across the episode between different sides that made for good action and tension and there was magic involved in more ways than simply the convergence in order to defeat Darkar but it was still a bit of a letdown to never truly see him put his everything in battle. And the fact that Griffin and Faragonda held him off for as long as they did on their own actually hurt his credibility as a threat as well. But hey, on the plus side, remember when the teachers actually helped and did not leave the fate of the whole universe in the hands of 16-year-olds? Good times! The MegaTrix and her? their? battle with Darkar was epic. 20/10 on that concept alone, plus it really brought a great feeling of vindication after the number Darkar did on them and felt so satisfying even if they were also part of the villain team of the season. They were portrayed as three-dimensional and weren’t cast out of the narrative without care just because they were villains and that was actually probably the most solid moment that the Trix have ever had on the show (just minor gripe for the fact that they were supposed to be trapped in Realix when the dimension was sealed forever but they were later somehow brought out of there which was never explained). Sky’s speech to Bloom was actually a pretty emotional moment and the payoff from it felt earned and allowed for Bloom’s victory against the darkness to feel natural and in place. It was probably one of their best moments as a couple. Plus, the cute little interactions that we got during the celebration party to send off the season on its merry way made for a great finale. (And a shoutout to the Musa x Riven scenes both in 2x25 and 2x26 because that was some good shit and some cute shit and it was exactly what we deserved).

1. Season 1

Season 1 reigns supreme with its finale. There is just no other finale that can rise to the level of the first one that was built for about one third of the season so that the last episode could dive right into the action without wasting time on setup. This is also the only place where we truly and fully get to see each of the Winx and the Trix (well, minus Layla who hasn’t been introduced yet) showcase their powers but especially Bloom and Icy. It is the longest battle we have seen and it builds a lot of tension on top of what was already there to leave you on the edge of your seat. The exploration of magic in this episode makes it so iconic and such a great watch even on the 300th time. There isn’t really much more to say than simply “It is epic”. What makes it even better though is the fact that there is enough time left in the episode to wrap up everything else and not in a rushed way. The battleground is extended to the locations that have already suffered the previous battles to show the full extension of the action and to setup the wrap-up that comes at the end. They even find the time to let some of the minor characters have distinct and touching moments as well and thus expand the universe of Winx further than just the main characters. Speaking off, they all get their moments, too, and the Specialists aren’t left out of that (you will never catch me not fangirling over Sky and Riven fighting back to back). The finale also doesn’t forget about the overarching story about Bloom’s origin which is commendable considering the constant lack of consistency the show suffers. This is really the only finale that isn’t lacking in any of the departments and manages to provide a truly fascinating story that keeps you entertained and in suspense while at the same time does not discard the emotional payoff or the logical continuation of events. It just excels in every way.

Well, this is my analysis on the finales of Winx Club. What started out as a bitch fest actually left on on a positive and uplifting note to make for a great ending to a harsh year. Let’s see what beginnings 2021 will bring! ;)

#winx club #winx club meta #winx meta #winx analysis #analysis #winx club season 1 #winx club season 2 #winx club season 3 #winx club season 4 #winx club season 5 #winx club season 6 #winx club season 7 #winx club season 8

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arcticfox007 · 4 years ago

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The Stars Within You

Destiel December Challenge 2020

Day 15: Lights

The conclusion of the main storyline! I do intend on posting an epilogue in a few days to tie up some smaller plot points, but this is the last official prompt. If you haven’t read the rest of the story you can check out my masterlist here or head over to AO3!

Thanks again to everyone who has reblogged, left me comments/likes, given me kudos, and continued to follow this story. I have been blown away by the positive feedback and it has really made my holiday season <3

***

Castiel lets himself feel all of the emotions that had been let loose from his time as a human. It’s a risk, even with everything that’s happened between him and Dean this past week, Castiel is well aware he could be setting himself up for disappointment. He just doesn’t have it in him anymore to resist the feelings pounding at his grace enforced walls. He wants to feel the joy at Dean making a room for him here in the bunker, for telling Castiel that he belongs here. He wants to feel the bubbly happiness at the absurd bee pillow on his bed, the swooping feeling of loving Dean more than he has loved anything for the entirety of his existence. Maybe he’s diving off a ledge with no ability to fly, but he refuses to stop every glorious feeling permeating his being as he drags Dean back to the Christmas tree. He gazes up at the doll version of himself propped up on top of the tree, takes in the Scooby-doo ornaments he’d brought home to make Dean and Sam smile, wrinkles his nose at the truly awful taste earlier Men of Letters had in décor, and indulges in a goofy grin at the lights he and Dean put up together. He dives towards the handful of presents underneath the tree and picks up two small ones carefully wrapped and garnished with curly ribbon. He pockets the smallest of the two, and turns around to press the larger of them into Dean’s hands.

Dean fumbles with it for a moment. He staring at Cas the way they often stare at each other. A moment later and Cas sees the corner of Dean’s lip tick upwards, just enough movement for them to come back to themselves. Cas pulls at the sleeves of his pajamas nervously, urging Dean with a motion to open the present. Cas watches Dean’s nose scrunch up in concentration as he tries to pull apart the curly ribbon. Giddy with the rush of uncontained emotions, Cas rolls impatiently on the balls of his feet. Dean looks up in surprise.

“Dude, are you actually bouncing?” Castiel responds with his trademark stoicism.

“Of course not, Dean. Hurry up.” Dean rolls his eyes fondly at Cas and skips the ribbon to just tear off the paper. He lets the paper fall to the floor and stares at the small potion bottle as his brow furrows in confusion.

“You want to tell me what this is, Cas?” Cas smiles, feeling almost giddy, and then looks boldly into Dean’s green eyes as they reflect the Christmas lights.

“I would like to show you part of my true self. A part you can safely see with the aid of that potion.” Dean’s eyes sparkle, he’s clearly intrigued and Cas’ smile grows more confident. “It will give you partial access to otherworldly sight, similar to what many human psychics can see. With the dosage Sam and I measured out it should last for about a day. It’s somewhat variable dependent on your metabolism. If you decide to take it, I will meet you halfway and manifest a small representation of my true self.”

“Um, okay. Will I have control over this sight, or am I going to be seeing trippy stuff all day?” Castiel snorts.

“Yes, you will have control to an extent. If something else were to work at manifesting you may see it, but most of this depends on me meeting you halfway. Born psychics tend to take years to see anything substantial, much less be exposed to visions.” Dean nods seriously.

“Any other side effects I should worry about?”

“Unlikely, unless you were to go on a hunt. It would make you slightly more aware of ghosts.”

“Alright, good enough. When do you want to do this?” Cas is nervous again for a moment, but silently redoubles his commitment to finding out where this will go.

“Now, but we should go outside to the rooftop. I will require space for this. You may want to get a coat and your boots. I believe it is still snowing.” Dean passes the potion bottle to Cas with an eager grin, and rejoins the angel with his coat and shoes in record time. Cas feels his excitement build as he leads the man he loves to the rooftop where Sam had helped him work on this gift only days before.

“Hey, look, there are lights up here too!” Dean gestures to the string lights propped up on tall stands around the edges of the rooftop. Castiel knows Sam must have put them up and wonders how Sam knew he’d end up doing this at night. Cas silently thanks his friend for the forethought. Dean follows one of the strands back to its source to find the on switch and suddenly the rooftop is softly lit with tiny imitations of the stars in the sky. Cas silently hands the potion back to Dean. It feels as if words aren’t needed in this moment, and Dean must feel it as well. He acts rather than speaking and throws back the potion as if it were a shot.

“Close your eyes, it only takes a moment to go into effect.” As Dean shuts his eyes Castiel pulls of his pajama shirt, draping it on one of the light stands. He inhales the sharp, cold, snow filled air and pulls on his grace. He breaths out as he shifts his much healthier wings further into the mortal realm, adjusting them to best fit his vessel’s frame. He turns away from Dean, too anxious to see his reaction right away. He keeps his wings close to his body, wanting to give his very human companion time to adjust slowly. Despite the shrouds and adjustments between him, the wings are still very much part of his true form and may be a bit overwhelming for a human.

“Can I look? Is it okay? I don’t feel any different.” Dean sounds almost disappointed, perhaps worried that the potion did not work on him.

“You shouldn’t feel different. You can look now.” Castiel hears a soft gasp behind him. “Tell me what you can see, Dean.”

“I – wow Cas… I see you. Your wings. They’re fucking beautiful.” Castiel hesitates for a moment, but allows the wondering lilt to Dean’s voice to sooth his doubts. He turns slowly to see Dean looking at him as if he’d never seen anything better in his life. This look, more than anything, undoes the knots of worry in the angel’s chest and he smiles broadly and unfurls his wings a bit, stretching them towards the stars. A rush of joy runs through his body as he takes in the awe on Dean’s face and the way he reaches out for Castiel without trepidation. Cas takes his outstretched hand and gently pulls him closer.

“I can only make them partially corporeal here. Without the potion they have an impression here, the snow falls on them, I can use them as a shield, but you can’t see them except for a shadow. So, please Dean, tell me what you see. I want to know how much of me you can see.” Cas’ can hear his voice grow smaller with need as he speaks, but he can’t deny how much it means to share this small part of himself with the man he loves.

“They aren’t just shadows anymore Cas. I can see individual feathers; I can see their color – I think. It changes. It’s uh, it’s hard to describe but they look like every color I’ve ever seen shimmering through the blackness of space,” Dean says breathlessly. He seems startled at his own description and laughs softly. “Damn, Cas, they’re so spectacular they’re making me sound fucking poetic. They’re amazing. You’re amazing.”

Cas inhales sharply as Dean looks right into his eyes, something intense and warm in the way he seems to see more of the angel’s true self in his blue eyes than in the wings themselves. Before Castiel can define what he’s seeing, Dean’s eyes dart to his wings again. Cas notices his wings curling in towards Dean and halts them with a thought. Dean looks almost disappointed, making Cas grin.

“You can touch them. If you’d like.” It’s not a question, Cas can tell how much Dean wants to pet his wings. Cas is sure it must seem like an odd impulse to a human, to want to pet what appears to be bird-like wings growing out of an adult man’s back, but Cas wants Dean to touch him. He’s never had a human touch his wings before and he’s curious as to what it will feel like to have Dean’s fingers in his feathers.

“Um, I won’t hurt you, right? I know that, er, birds winds can be fragile, I guess. I know you’re not a bird but they kinda look like -”, Cas cuts Dean off before he starts comparing him to a parakeet.

“You won’t hurt me. Angels are warriors of God, and our wings were built to aid us in battle.” To illustrate this, Castiel raises his wings above his body, snapping them out all at once with a sharp ringing sound.

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” Dean’s eyes have widened at the intimidating display of the angel’s wings as they tower over him, but Castiel takes pity on him and softens his stance, bringing them back down. He curls them loosely at Dean’s side to give him easier access. Not one to hesitate when invited, Dean reaches out and gently brushes his hands through the feathers closest to him.

“Cas… they’re so soft, and warm.” Dean begins to dig his fingers in with more confidence and chases the rainbow of lights reflecting off the obsidian black of Castiel’s wings. At Dean’s continued attention, Cas finds himself relaxing as he lets his head fall on top of Dean’s shoulder. Dean laughs happily.

“I’m glad I could share this with you.” Cas feels strange but happy. He can’t quite describe what the newer emotions are pouring through him, but it is similar to the relief of coming home when you have been away for a very long time. He does manage to catch himself before he literally begins to purr, but he must have made some sort of sound because Dean ceases his exploration of Castiel’s feathers.

“Does it feel okay?” Cas manages to pull himself away from Dean just enough to see his face.

“Yes, I’d imagine it’s like grooming.” Dean chuckles.

“Grooming? That wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.” Cas tilts his head to the side, trying to interpret Dean’s response.

“Yes, tactile communication for comfort and bonding. The PBS special on primates said it’s called grooming.” At this point Dean is laughing hard enough that he bends over to try and catch his breath.

“Yeah, hah, grooming. I think most people talk about it like that for the non-human primates though, Cas. But I don’t mind ‘grooming’ with you.” Dean smirks and Castiel is still not sure what is so humorous. Regardless, this is his gift to Dean and he is not done yet.

“Dean. Can I touch you with my wings?” Dean’s eyes widen just a bit but he nods his head in agreement. Castiel pulls his wings in and up until he is cradling Dean and they are in a shelter created by his plumage. Dean directs his gaze around the impromptu cocoon and runs his hand lightly over more feathers as they minutely shift in color against a background of darkness.

“Cas, you’re practically a planetarium. It’s like there are whole galaxies in here. I could look forever and never see all there is to see.” As this is one of the better human descriptions of angel true forms, Castiel feels content that he has shown the man he loves much more of what he really is. That Dean shows such quiet wonder at this glimpse of the heart of Castiel makes him feel safe to take another risk, one that means even more. He presses his wings in to bring Dean even closer, until their chests are almost touching. Cas pulls the smaller gift out of his pocket and lays it in Dean’s hand. Dean’s eyes are alight with curiosity as he peels off the paper. He shoves the crumpled paper in his coat pocket and lets the pendant that had been within drop, carefully holding the chain in his fingers. He squints at the pendant, a feather preserved on top of bronze, and then gasps.

“Cas. Is this – is it yours?” Castiel nervously raises his fingertips to Dean’s jaw and slowly raises his gaze to meet Dean’s eyes.

“Yes. It does not retain all of its properties once shed, and it’s once of the smaller ones as it wouldn’t have been possible to make any of the larger feathers as conveniently wearable. It is still a part of me though, a part of my grace, of my true self.” Castiel pauses to make sure Dean understands. Dean’s heart is racing but besides that he seems to grasp the depth of this gift, so Castiel continues. “If you accept this, I can find you if it is with you. If you wear it, I can feel your life, hear your heartbeat. And the feather preserved inside the pendant will exists as long as I exist, no matter where I may be. If there is ever a real need it can even be used to locate me, although it will destroy the feather in the process. If you accept this, it will be part of you and no one else will be able to use it. Do you understand?”

Dean drops Castiel’s gaze to cradle the pendant in his hand, a bit of a dazed look on his face. Cas waits patiently, wanting to make sure this is Dean’s choice.

“Cas. I need to know something, because I don’t want there to be any miscommunication here.” Castiel waits for several minutes as Dean works to find the words he needs. “You say you’re giving me a part of yourself, that it will become a part of me. That sounds like, well, more than a friendship to me. And I’d like to know if I’m getting that right.”

While it’s not exactly a question, Cas understands that he needs to put this in more human terms. “Yes, Dean. You would be accepting that what we have is more than just friendship. I love you Dean. I am content with just being by your side, and if you do not love me the same way nothing has to change. However, these past days have allowed me to hope for more. So, I am offering you more. I am offering you me, if you choose to accept me.” Castiel’s hand has moved up to cradle Dean’s face, but he needs Dean to choose what he wants and does not move further.

“Please don’t cry, Cas.” Castiel is surprised to feel tears drip from his face, he hadn’t realized just how much his emotions were spilling over. Dean wipes the tears away with his thumbs and then he leans in and kisses Castiel.

Cas feels a rush of bliss and his grace warms his wings as he feels more feathers push into existence. He leans into the kiss and wraps his free arm around Dean’s neck as the hand cupping Dean’s faces slides up into his hair. Dean opens his mouth and Cas dives in, the sensation of their tongues touching better than anything Cas could have imagined, although Dean’s hands on his bare waist place at a close second. Too quickly, Dean pulls back to breathe and takes a small step back before Cas can drag him back for more.

“Wait. Just a sec, Cas. Here, I want you to put this on me.” Cas’ eyes widen with surprise and joy, and he thinks that the kissing can wait for just a moment. He takes the chain and pulls the pendant over Dean’s head. Dean pulls his layers away from his neck just enough for Cas to drop the pendant below his undershirt to rest close to Dean’s heart.

“I accept you Castiel.” Dean smiles, glorious in his choice, and his voice is saturated with love as a small flare of grace glows where the pendant hangs. Cas sighs as he can feel Dean’s heartbeat through the new connection, and he watches as Dean takes in the small change in feeling as well.

“You can feel me? I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to.” Dean nods slowly as he presses his hand over his chest.

“Yeah, wow. It’s nothing noticeable I guess, just this feeling of warmth. If I focus on it, it seems to get a little bigger, and I can tell it’s you.” Cas decides it’s time to get back to the kissing part as he feels he may actually be on fire with the amazing feelings coursing through him. Dean participates enthusiastically. Eventually though, Castiel notices that Dean is shivering, even with angel wings around him.

“Let’s go back inside. You should sleep for a while, so we can exchange gifts with Sam in the morning.” Dean frowns in response to this suggestion.

“You said the potion would only work for a day. I want to see your wings for as long as I can.” Cas laughs at the pouting expression on Dean’s face as he grabs his pajama top and switches off the lights.

“Well, I didn’t say anything because I wanted an honest choice from you without bribery, but when you wear my feather you should be able to see them anyway, especially since you said you can feel me through it. You may even be able to see them at times when they aren’t manifested in this realm.” Dean’s face is almost giddy at this news and Cas laughs again. Cas grasps Dean’s hand and this time he doesn’t protest as he’d led back into the warmth of the bunker. Cas takes a moment to push his wings away from the physical realm before going back inside. Dean continues to look behind Cas.

“I can still see them, more like shadows the way I’ve seen them before, or outlines of shadows, but maybe that’s just the potion.”

“Only time will tell, but I believe you will retain the connection. I can manifest them inside later, so you can determine the pendants impact; I just have to be careful and keep them pulled inward.” Dean pulls Cas towards him and kisses him again, this time is softer, and almost hesitant.

“Come to my room? I, uh, I’m not asking for anything else tonight, but I was wondering if you’d be willing to just stay with me until I sleep? If that’s okay, I mean.” Dean stumbles over the words but Castiel is already tugging him in the direction of the bunker rooms.

“I will watch over you when you fall asleep Dean, and I would enjoy doing that while sharing your bed. I would also like to try doing this in my new bed at some point. With my bee pillow.” Dean snorts and Cas smiles happily, wondering what he was so afraid of in the first place. When they reach the room, Dean closes the door behind him and strips down to his boxers, looking at Cas questioningly. Cas mirrors Dean’s actions and then joins him under the covers.

“Cas?” Dean mumbles into Castiel’s chest sleepily.

“Yes Dean?”

“I love you too.” Castiel feels as if he’s flying again, damaged wings or not.

***

@galaxycastiel, @jellydeans, @my-favourite-hellatus, @nguyenxtrang

#destiel december 2020 #destiel december #destiel fic #destiel #supernatural #supernatural fic #castiel #castiel with wings #dean winchester #sam winchester #deancas #casdean #spn #christmas fic #christmas fluff #christmas #love confessions #angel wings #arcticfox007writes

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mayabishopapologist · 4 years ago

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station 19 - season 4, etc

this is long but i want to put down my thoughts before thursday comes and i guess i have A Lot To Say.

honestly didn’t pay much attention to this show until halfway through season two— always liked maya and was glad that they gave her more to do. going into season 3, i was excited for more character development &stronger storylines. however, by the end of 301 the dip in quality was glaringly obvious. a quick google search revealed that there was a new showrunner and, well, it showed.

while the show had been going in a really good direction with balancing the screen time between andy and the other regulars, this season, the plot was all over the place. it was uber dramatic and just. so much happened just to happen? seemed like every other episode had a major event(deaths alone; ryan,rigo,pruitt?!!?). they were so frequent, it was hard to process. it was also hard to get invested as the characters themselves moved on(or were shown to have moved on, extremely quickly!)

i enjoy the show for what it is and i have no delusions about broadcast tv shows (or shondaland productions, for that matter)but the suspension of disbelief.... i mean: a stabbing, a robbery, a shooting and a car crash? all in one episode? please! lmaooooo. drama for dramas sake is always boring and weakens the story.

& as for the characters... .

everyone felt like a hollow version of themselves this season and it was hard to watch sometimes, actually. characters switched motivations /personalities for the sake of the current episode and i know this show is very ‘monster/emergency of the week’ but. some consistency! please! like—

maya: she’s always been determined and focused but they went so far with it this season, it was almost cartoonish. her competitiveness was hinted at in season 2 but she was always portrayed as self aware. ‘the beast,’ as she dubbed it to andy, was something she knew of and tried to contain, because she knew it could get out of hand.

yet, in season 3 she suddenly forgets this and just. becomes the most power hungry/singularly focused person, ever. she goes after the captain position behind andy’s back, (citing andy’s emotional state, because of the death of her best friend as a reason she shouldn’t get the job?? huh. since when is maya this purely callous??!) she just doesn’t give af, suddenly, about andy at all, and goes for a job that she is hardly qualified for(she was lieutenant for like, a few months?)

and then after she gets the position, she just. loses all sense of reality? literally she was so unhinged(fun to watch but so much) and it was like. um?? maya has never been the uptight one (they've mentioned and depicted andy as being the one like this, multiple times!) and we know she knows how to have fun, so, for her to all of a sudden just. not know how to read the room? yeah okay. to make her so intense and severe, especially w the drills and training was, a choice. a bad one, on the writers part. like, i get that they needed her start as captain to be dramatic or whatever, but there were ways to do that. and even the animosity with the team and her went so far, i just think that whole storyline was amazingly lazy, honestly.

and the friendships!! andy and maya’s friendship is just, a mess. at this point they've spent more time at odds, and the idea that they're supposed to be best friends with this super close bond? yeah, i just... i dont buy it tbh. if they'd spent more time building up their connections and making us understand why they would be friends and showing them being there for each other past a few scattered scenes her and there? maybe. but so far, that hasn't been the case. making that bond real, solidifying that friendship, would have made this conflict have more of an emotional impact. but doing it now? making maya ‘turn’ on andy, this soon and this drastically just. it made her seem like she was extremely jealous and had been waiting to pull the rug out from under andy all along. and also, why would they stay friends when, so far, maya has showed, time and time again, that she’s willing to let her wants/ambitions leech on her loyalty to andy? (jack thing, job thing, etc). although, it’s not like andy’s a good friend to maya either, she’s selfish and seems to like it when maya is in her corner but isnt always there for her. they went so far with the idea that maya was this coldly calculating asshole that she was almost a villain?? it was so silly to me.

and the traumatic home life plot they gave to maya was clearly their attempt at some adding nuance to her character and trying to explain why she would act the way she did, but to me? it fell flat. it was rushed, and they went from zero to 100(why did her mother come to talk about her divorce/abuse at maya’s job? like she was literally working? idgi. no boundaries lmaoo)

and i actually relate and sympathize w maya a lot. and while i liked that they were exploring the many ways abuse can present itself, it was very... hm, ham-fisted. just super rushed and then wrapped up so quickly. they have, i think, written themselves into this dark place i fear they have no intention of exploring.

and while i understand it, i hated how far they let maya go, especially because i don't feel they’ll adequately address it. they move on so quickly( maya was deaf for like half a season and then. she just. wasn't) and i hate the idea of her just being ‘fixed’. a relationship and an apology doesn't undo years of abuse, idc. also will they ever address maya’s um, thoughts about death??? because that was super heavy and not just something someone gets over? going to need for her to get actual professional help. that isn’t her girlfriend, like. asap.

speaking of carina, i do like her and maya together a lot. big part of why i watch, ngl. but i need their relationship to be a lot more reciprocal. like, lets dial it back on the codependency, maybe. carina cant (and shouldn't have to) hold her up so much ! that’s not love. also maya needs to start being a good girlfriend. they started off that way, i know they can get back there. but like, we hardly got to see them settle into it, we got those cute 30sec clips of sweetness then maya was lashing out and cheating and it was like. wait a minute! what???

for s4, i want to see them working at reconciling—im talking, groveling, awkward in-between moments where carina isnt sure she can trust her. okay, tough conversations, hell, even jealousy because let's be real. maya working with jack is a lot for carina to just. take? i know i absolutely would not be happy about that, but i also wouldnt take maya back so... anyway! brushing over that would not just be a missed storytelling opportunity, but it would also be super unfair to carina and do a huge disservice to their relationship as a whole. as cute as they are, having cute moments with no real depth would get very old, very quickly.

carina: what can i say but-perfect, amazing, fantastic, WOW

seriously, carina is almost unrealistically perfect. she takes a lot and has been through the most (can they be nice 2 her this season? like just for fun) going forward, im going to need her to be more than a plot device to calm and soothe maya. i get that she was introduced as a love interest, but in season 4(as a season!!regular!!) that cant be all she is.

speaking of, it was really weird to me that she was promoted to station 19 and not greys because... what is a gynecologist going to do at a fire station? the general consensus seems to be that she’ll join warren’s PRT but like. she’s not a general surgeon so that’s a reach but, i want her around so ill buy it. i just want better and more for her tbh. not just screen-time, but also character development and depth! also friends! tired of carina being isolated, they did it on greys which. a waste! i meaaan, amelia was RIGHT. THERE. just look at the material! for s19, i want her, vic and travis to be friends or even just her and vic, like yesplease! i also want to know more about her and im tired of her being treated badly. like, i think society had progressed past carina being shitted on, thanks!

vic: my fave!!! they did so lazy by her this season ugh. she’s so charismatic and charming and just so good!! yet, her storyline was all over the place. we hardly got to see her sit with her grief (spontaneous crying aside; barrett doss is so good!) she was just kind of... around. and that relationship w jackson. lol. it was so obviously for crossover potential and well. i didnt hate it or like it. actually, i was mostly indifferent. bored, even when they were onscreen together. i just didn't care and wanted more of vic, not vic and whoever. i know they're up in the air rn but i wouldn’t be torn up if he doesn’t come back.

i want more for vic past just romantic entanglements. i know we’ve gotten a bit of her past, but i would like to see more! also, what about employment accomplishments? her artsy theatre friends? her family? just. more vic, please!!

she’s so fun and cool and when they let her, she shines. they need to let her!

jack: my boy! so dumb, but i love him sm. he def needs like. major help, though lmao. and maybe it’s just me but im tired of his sex addict plot. like, we get it, but can we move on now? kthanks. they need to let him work on himself especially, the constant self sabotage. it's getting old. for ALL of them, actually, seriously, how many times can they all get in their own way.

andy: don’t really think about her. the mom storyline seems like it would be wonderfully dramatic, im intrigued. she and sullivan are cute, i guess. hope they make it.

ben: no major issues w his storyline, hardly remember it honestly. i liked the rapport he was building w vic and want them to explore that relationship more, its cute.

travis: so funny and adorable, let him do more.

dean: loved him in all his entitled first born African son glory. i didnt so much love the baby plot but that always bores me. his sudden love for vic though. lol. since when? it def, came out of no where and while i really enjoy their friendship, to me, there is zero romantic chemistry there so i would prefer it if they just. stopped. lmao. also. the way he treated her because he could get a handle on his emotions? ridiculous. has humanity not like, gotten past the ‘he’s mean bc he likes you’ thing?? like grow up maybe?

and this isnt just about dean but like. are there not more single young people in seattle? why do they all have to sleep with the same 5 people. ik for the sake of plot, workplace relationships are easier but still. i think they should branch out. really.

overall, i want better for all of them, and i think if the writers would just. take a moment and stop trying to tell so many stories in such little time, they could do better! also, whoever’s out there. please, enough w the crossovers! dont want to be forced to watch greys just to know what’s happening on 19. i get that they're in the same universe. it’s only mentioned every other episode. we. get, it. i liked what they did with private practice, it was like once every few seasons. and i know they won’t do that, but maybe, two a season.

this is so much. but this how does have a ton of potential and i just really want it . like, get there.

#either way #im still watching lmao #h8 it here lol #station 19 #maya bishop #vic hughes #andy herrera #dean miller #jack gibson #ben warren #travis montgomery #s19 #mtxt #if u see spelling mistakes #no u didnt xx #me writing dissertations to justify why im stuck here lmaoo

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Fear Street Part Two: 1978 Ending and Theories Explained

https://ift.tt/3dY2DiL

This article contains Fear Street Part Two: 1978 spoilers.

When it comes to horror movies, things are never as easy as they first appear. The key influences of Fear Street Part Two: 1978 could’ve taught its characters this unfortunate truth. The final girl in 1980’s Friday the 13th, Alice (Adrienne King), thought she was home free after she beheaded Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer); then she got a good look at her beautiful boy Jason in the lake. And Sue Snell (Amy Irving) thought she was honoring the memory of the title character (Sissy Spacek) in Carrie (1976) until she realized she was being haunted from a literal grave.

So too did things go sideways for Deena and Josh (Kiana Madeira and Benjamin Flores Jr.) at the end of Fear Street Part Two. After hearing an adult Ziggy’s painful memories of her time at Camp Nightwing and the slaughter that followed, the pair seemed to have discovered the answer for putting the witch’s curse over Shadyside to rest once and for all… but things didn’t work out that way, huh?

Fear Street Part 2 Ending

How Deena ended up time-warped to the year 1666 is itself pretty nifty. Beforehand, she and Josh were mostly passive characters as the invaluable Gillian Jacobs recounted her character’s golden days at summer camp. Initially set up to appear as the older version of Cindy (Emily Rudd), we eventually learn Jacobs is the thirtysomething future version of Sadie Sink’s Ziggy. I guess Ziggy dyed her hair in the same hue as her sister to honor her memory?

Back in 1978, Cindy was the optimistic-to-a-fault popular sister at school/camp while Ziggy was the rebel who renamed herself after glam rock royalty. Yet both girls’ hope for the future and their town is shaken to its core when they discover Camp Nightwing is situated atop the very site where the witch Sarah Fier cursed the land in 1666 with her severed hand before being hanged from a nearby tree. Perhaps this is one reason why the witch selected Cindy’s perfect boyfriend Tommy Slater (McCabe Sly) as her next vessel for movie murder mayhem.

Going from everyone’s favorite benevolent counselor to a Jason Voorhees stand-in, Tommy begins a killing spree, slaughtering kids who looked up to him and former friends alike. Eventually, Cindy discovers an ancient book which confirms that the only way to stop Sarah Fier’s curse is to reunite her severed hand. As the local legend goes:

Before the witch’s final breath, she found a way to cheat her death.

By cutting off her wicked hand, she kept her grip upon the land.

She reaches from beyond the graves, to make good men her wicked slaves.

She’ll take your blood, she’ll take your head.

She’ll follow you until you’re dead.”

So by discovering her severed hand buried near the Satan stone where Sarah cut it off as part of her pact with the Devil, Cindy and Ziggy thought they had found the solution for ending the curse: They’d bury it with Sarah Fier’s body! Unfortunately for both sisters, especially Cindy, they were wrong to believe the legend’s claim that the witch was buried beneath the hanging tree.

The Berman Sisters thought they were digging up Sarah’s grave when instead they were digging their own. After finding nothing beneath the dirt, they only had a moment to see the reanimated corpse of Tommy Slater and other previous Shadyside ghouls coming for them. Ziggy is brutally gutted by “the Milkman” (yet somehow later survives the holes in her intestinal track thanks to CPR?!) while Cindy is even more cruelly eviscerated by her possessed boyfriend’s axe. For a movie aimed at kids who grew up on Stranger Things, this sequence is merciless.

However, unlike the Berman Girls, Deena and Josh know where Sarah Fier is buried in 1994. So they take Ziggy’s story to heart by finding the hand where the Bermans left it, and then Deena puts it to rest with the rest of Sarah’s actual bones scattered by the highway. In theory, this should’ve been the end of the nightmare…. and yet, when Deena personally shoved the witch’s hand in its proper resting place, she was transported to 1666.

… Kind of. In the ultimate cliffhanger tease, we get a glimpse of the past just long enough to realize Deena is not herself, but rather she is inhabiting Sarah Fier’s body circa 1666. What?!

Fear Street Part 3 Theories

…So that ending leaves a lot of questions, both in regards to what exactly was happening during 1978’s final minute and what it means for Fear Street Part Three: 1666. Well, without having watched the third entry yet, we’d like to posit some theories…

Firstly, there is the actual logic behind Deena’s trip into the past and, specifically, into Sarah Fier’s witchy shoes. At a glance, the way the time travel works is somewhat similar to how comic book writer Chris Claremont imagined it in the seminal X-Men storyline Days of Future Past, which became a pretty good superhero movie in 2014: The only way to travel into the past is to assume control over the body of a former self. Except, of course, Deena wasn’t alive in 1666… she’s in the body of the witch!

In fact, she has possessed Sarah’s body in much the same way that Sarah apparently possesses the bodies of her “slaves” Tommy Slater in 1978 and Ryan Torres in 1994. It is a home invasion of someone else’s biological space. So why would Sarah Fier want Deena to do this?

Personally, I suspect placing the hand with the rest of Sarah Fier’s corpse succeeded in undoing the curse, at least temporarily. Deena has broken the witch’s thrall that has lasted for more than 300 years over the Shadyside landscape… but perhaps it only works if the hand stays in Sarah Fier’s grave.

Movies

Netflix’s Fear Street Part 1: 1994: Shadyside Killers Explained

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

How Netflix’s Fear Street Could Become an MCU-Style Shared Universe

By Rosie Fletcher

There are multiple reasons Sarah Fier could wish to bring Deena back to the fateful days that doomed her and her community for centuries to come. It is telling that in the preview for Fear Street Part Three that many of the faces of villagers in the 17th century resemble the countenances of victims and descendants from the future. A many times over great-grandfather to Tommy Slater, also played by McCabe Sly, can be spotted in the sizzle reel; as can Olivia Scott Welch who plays Deena’s first love, Sam, in 1994. Even Sadie Sink as a girl decidedly not named Ziggy can be seen in the puritanical setting.

Ergo, it is possible that every person bewitched into becoming a killer in the 20th century and earlier—or at least bedeviled by the witch’s minions—is descended from an ancestor who persecuted Sarah Fier in 1666. Based purely on our understanding of the superstitions and misogynies which led to the witch hunt manias in Europe and colonial New England, it is easy to already predict that Sarah Fier will be at least somewhat unjustly harassed and hounded to her death.

So is there even the possibility that Sarah Fier is not the actual witch who cursed Shadyside? Could she even be just a victim of false accusations and then centuries of propaganda that have disguised the identity of the true spell-caster?! While it’s possible, I don’t believe this is actually the case. For starters, there is the fact that uniting the hand, which is said to be Sarah Fier’s, with the actual remains of Sarah Fier’s body—which are so identified by the chains around her coffin in its unarmed grave—is something the witch fought hard at preventing in 1978. When Cindy and Ziggy picked up that hand, the guilty party behind all this death sent all her minions after them.

Then there is the fact that once the hand and other bones are reunited Deena is instantly transported into Sarah’s skin. All of this would seem to suggest Sarah is, indeed, the actual witch who damned Shadyside in 1666 and is tormenting it to this day (or at least in ’94). I do not believe Deena was asked to walk in Sarah’s shoes to come to realize Sarah’s innocence… Rather Sarah wants Deena to understand her rage.

If I had to guess the direction of Part Three, it’s that by living through the torment Sarah Fier endured in 1666, Deena will be asked to empathize with and even come to agree with Sarah’s witchy vengeance; the final part of the trilogy will reveal Sarah’s origins and also act as a motivation for Deena to remove the hand from Sarah’s grave, thereby allowing the witch to continue her curse into the 21st century…and all there sequels therein.

That’s at least one theory. What’s yours?

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autoplaysdigimon · 4 years ago

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Top Five Villains

HERE WE GO, THE FUN LIST.

#5 Gatomon

Controversial, maybe, to have her be on the Villains list as well, but she was a villainous character for a while.

I’m a real sucker for a good redemption storyline; failing that, at least a turncoat character. While Gatomon didn’t really commit any real atrocities onscreen to atone for later in the story, she still proved a fun villain while she was one. She was no nonsense, efficient, knew exactly what she was doing... if she’d stayed on Myotismon’s side, she could have been a real force to be reckoned with. One of the things that I’d have really liked to have seen explored more in this series was Gatomon’s time with Myotismon, and how much she’s changed since then.

Plus there’s something so weirdly entertaining about a group of creepy, ominous, obviously evil monsters and then a small white kitty cat who’s just as dangerous as them.

#4 Myotismon

This guy.

When this guy came onto the scene, the entire show changed. Devimon’s arc was fun, if a little generic; Etemon’s was very similar with a different villain, and then Demidevimon’s arc came along and we got a fun, goofy villain who can’t Evil properly. Even so, we knew he was following orders from a higher power, and Myotismon’s eventual appearance changed the dynamic from “Team Rocket Fools Children Repeatedly” to “oh shit an actual vampire is going to kill us”. And then the whole Eighth Digidestined thing happened... Plus, that #aesthetic, amirite?

To tie into Gatomon’s thing up there, the Eighth Digidestined arc was one of the best of the season, if not the best. Taking the fight to the Real World made it more, well, real. It was fun as hell watching the parents interact with the Digimon, both good and bad, and finding out exactly what the kids had been up to lately. The kids watching their families getting dragged into the fight was TOP. NOTCH. Plus Myotismon actually knew what he was doing as a villain so.

He knew to go after the one kid without protection. He knew how to cut everything off effectively. He did take a shot at some of the kids when they were on their own, instead of thinking only of killing Kari. Death didn’t stop him the first time. Even when he pulled the classic villain “You Have Outlived Your Use” thing and killed his own minions, it was on Digimon who had already turned against him, like Wizardmon, Pumpkinmon, Gotsumon and (arguably) Darktyrannomon.

(No, wait, they’re still alive because he sent them to his Dungeon, isn’t that RIGHT DUB TEAM.)

(Even though pieces of them were left behind and dissolved on their own.)

(No, I’m still not over that.)

#3 Ogremon

Another redeemed villain! I just like them, okay

Maybe it’s just me, but just the act of Ogremon turning good at the end made me like him. He was a little bit generic in the Devimon arc, though at least he had the feud with Leomon to make him interesting. (Any logical reason to that, by the way? Was it just that we had these two Digimon who could fill in the character roles we’d set out for them? Nothing mythological about lions and ogres hating each other or anything? No? Okay then.)

All Ogremon really did in that first arc was serve as the henchman. He made some... interesting choices, and then he was absorbed into Devimon for power. And then he came out of the back of Devimon’s knee. Sure. When Devimon was defeated, he ran screaming off into the distance, shaking his fist and yelling “NEXT TIME, GADGET. NEXT TIIIIME.” The very act of bringing him back when he wasn’t employed by the Big Bad of the moment made him an interesting character, who had to atone for what he did. I’m a sucker for redemption, like I said, and the best part of it is watching them go soft.

Plus, how great is it to have multiple conflicting alliances within a group? When Leomon returned, even though Ogremon was firmly on the Digidestined side now, he had absolutely no problems with trying to immediately murder Leomon. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? They’re rivals, it’s just natural! He’s also kind of a shithead in general, even still.

Also, Ogremon is incredibly hard to draw. I’d just like to bring that up.

Okay, next!

#2 Etemon

HE’S A MONKEY WHO TALKS LIKE ELVIS, NEXT QUESTION.

But for real, Etemon is such a fucking great villain. Great character all around, I’d love a version where he was an ally or something, but how else would we get the trademark Elvis-laugh-turns-into-villainous-laugh thing that Etemon has going?! Come on, that’s great.

Devimon’s villainous style was one of corruption; he wasn’t all that powerful on his own, but by using the Black Gears he could build his own damn forces and control small areas. He only managed to control a handful of Digimon in the end. He was also taken out by a single Digimon in a single one-on-one, though you could argue that the others had weakened him by that point, they hadn’t really.

Etemon’s style was drastically different - he was far more comical, but far more dangerous. His introduction scene involved him panicking over the Digidestined already being in the area. He sang a lot, he cracked jokes, he threw childish tantrums, and again, he was a monkey who sounded like Elvis. There is nothing not awesome about this guy. And yes, he was deadlier - his main attack can undo Digivolutions and leave the Digimon vulnerable as hell. He ended up taking a couple of episodes to take out, only losing because another villain tried to sabotage him in the end.

And coming back partway through the Dark Masters arc as Metaletemon?! FUCK YEAH. Every pun he made, I laughed at and I don’t apologise for that. Even starting a series-wide tradition, he was stylish until the end.

Also he called Ikkakumon a goat that one time.

#1 Demidevimon

T H E B A S T A R D O R B

Nobody is surprised that he’s my #1, right? It was a close call between him and Etemon, but ultimately I just like Demidevimon’s arc more. We have Devimon and Etemon, as I discussed above. After that wave of villains who are dangerous because they’re powerful, we have one who is dangerous because he’s just a little bastard.

Demidevimon wasn’t strong. Most villains had their huge beatdown happen in the form of a Digimon Digivolving to Champion, Ultimate or Mega for the first time, Demidevimon had his when Patamon reached Rookie level again. In his debut episode. He was never a threat physically once the kids realised that he was not to be trusted. His arc came right after two arcs of the kids being stranded in this strange world together, only briefly separated - and then everyone was torn apart, and he could manipulate them individually.

I’ve argued in the past that Demidevimon was a more effective manipulator than even Puppetmon, one of the Dark Masters, and I stand by it. Puppetmon managed to physically manipulate them with the dolls, sure, and he had Cherrymon convince Matt to attack Tai. But, uh, he didn’t exactly have to twist his arm very hard to get that to happen, and that was Cherrymon’s doing anyway. Plus you could argue that physically manipulating someone isn’t much of a social power as it is more a matter of strength. (also Puppetmon is more of a “play with them like toys” type, but still, being a literal puppetmaster, you’d think that manipulation was more of his domain than a BAT.) Demidevimon, however, managed to:

convince TK that Matt didn’t want him as a brother anymore and to ditch Tokomon

nearly have TK, Tai and Agumon eat poisonous mind-wiping mushrooms

convince Digitamamon to keep Joe and Matt in the restaurant, simultaneously threatening Joe to help keep Matt there and sabotaged them constantly to manipulate them all further

trick Izzy and Tentomon into Vademon’s trap

tell the Gekomon and Otamamon about Mimi’s singing voice, somehow knowing that they’d end up hindering her progress somehow(???)

And, even after knowing that he’s an evil manipulating Digimon, he managed to convince Sora that she’d never manage to activate her crest, causing her to believe it in a self-fulfilling prophecy, even as she worked to sabotage his efforts otherwise.

I mean, apart from all that, I just like Demidevimon as a Digimon. He’s a tiny flying motherfucker and that’s great! He had some of my favourite lines, even his death was kind of tragically funny, and I have a clear bias when it comes to his voice acting, because I just like Derek Stephen Prince. He does it well! I don’t know how Demidevimon closes his eyes like that, though, those appear to be his pupils closing. I don’t even know.

Really, I just find great nostalgia in comical villains. They were all the rage back in the day, especially in children’s media. They’re still around sometimes - Doctor Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, the Rubies from Steven Universe, the Ice King from Adventure Time, even Team Rocket from Pokemon are thriving still. Good, menacing villains are great and all, but where’s the fun?

Honourable Mentions

Scorpiomon, who probably benefited the most from the dub’s style - his constant cried of “hey, stop it, come baaaack” while chasing Joe and Mimi are more remnicient of a kid trying to get his toy back from the bully who just took it away from him than someone trying to murder children, and that’s just fucking hilarious.

Mimi, when she was briefly an antagonist in that one episode. Just as I really like Heel-Face turns, I really like Face-Heel turns, even temporarily, and even as petty as this whole thing was. It was the perfect trap for her, who just craved the comfort of home, and who could be easily confinced to go for more. And it was the perfect trap because she was the jailor and the jailed at the same time, trapped as long as her own selfishness would allow. It was one of my favourite episodes.

Datamon, who had his own agenda and didn’t care that he was stepping on Etemon’s toes to get what he wanted. Just like Leomon and Ogremon had conflicting alliances on the protagonist’s side, Datamon and Etemon were opposing forces on the antagonist’s side, and multiple villains fighting each other are always fun to see.

Actually, Etemon later fought Puppetmon as Metaletemon, didn’t he? Wow, dude just doesn’t get along with other villains.

Gizamon. Give them more lines, you cowards.

The Dark Masters, as a whole. Just as Myotismon changed the entire tone of the show, these guys took the entire first half of the show and murdered every safe thing about it. They immediately started playing with the Digidestined, fully intending to off them all right then and there as a team. They were competent, for the most part - only failing when they were forced to split up, and their dirty tricks could be dismantled one by one. I’ve never seen a more co-operative group of antagonists, who never tried to dethrone each other and take everything for themselves.

And okay, sure, Kokatorimon. Purely for this.

Dishonourable Mention

Apocalymon.

Look, dude, I’m sorry, you’re cool and everything, but where the fuck did you come from? We killed Piedmon, it’s over, no, wait, here’s one last guy, no wait he’s dead, nevermind. What?

The fact that Apocalymon didn’t get any fanfare before being dropped on the Digidestined without warning made him seem like an afterthought, like the writers forgot their own endgame until they got there. Even if there had been a mention of the effect that caused his existence before he showed up - a “hey, did you know that not every Digimon survives Digivolution? Their data just gets deleted or something,” really would have helped, but even then.

Apocalymon’s existence in the show really highlights how disjointed the series as a whole is - Devimon has no relation to Etemon, who has no relation to Myotismon, who has no relation to the Dark Masters, who have no relation to Apocalymon. The kids face a constant load of “okay, so we beat this guy and we can go home, right? ...no, maybe this guy??” where every new villain is dropped on the like a hot potato, making their first appearance in less time after their existence is revealed in less time than it takes to heat up said hot potato. Myotismon is the only one who gets any decent buildup before his first appearance before the children, and he’s often said to be the best villain of the show, so see how that works?

Digimon Adventure is the story of a bunch of kids who were brought to the Digital World to take care of one guy, and hey, while you’re here, we’ve also got some sort of demon on this island causing trouble, and there’s this monkey threatening us, and also a vampire, and then these four have joined together... It was a fun adventure, and I love that it could be part of my childhood and my life, but wow it really needed a more cohesive throughline for the story.

I hate to leave this post on a negative note, because it was full of mostly nice things, so here’s another picture of the bastard orb.

Hahahaha, oh you silly little man.

#digimon #digimon anime #digimon adventure #auto plays digimon #auto watches digimon adventure #character analysis

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years ago

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The above is from Spider-Man: Lifeline #3

For context, everyone is after an ancient stone tablet (the same one from the classic Stan Lee storyline) that will grant it’s user immense power even over life and death.

When creating the formula to imbue someone with this power Peter considers how the power could be used to bring back Uncle Ben, Captain Stacy and Gwen. When Hammerhead (temporarily) obtains this power he offers Spidey the chance to restore them to life.

What I want to talk about is who Spidey and Hammerhead don’t mention, namely Mary Jane.

You see this storyline is distinctly set when MJ was presumed dead after a plane crash. Thus a No. prize is demanded to address why Peter wouldn’t consider resurrecting his wife!

This is my attempt at reconciling the issue.

The first thing to bear in mind is that this three part mini-series was released towards the end of the era where MJ was believed dead. Specifically issue #1 came out the very same month we learned MJ was in fact alive and issue #3 was released after she’d definitively returned.

So clearly this was an editorial issue. When the first issue came out MJ was dead when the last was out she was alive again. Not only might it have been weird to reference her as dead when she was very much alive but given the controversy surrounding her death Marvel were probably in damage control mode and wanted to move on as quickly as possible. It’s telling that MJ’s fake death was rarely if ever mentioned again in any story after Mackie left the titles.

Additionally Ben, George and Gwen form the ‘iconic trio’ of dead Spidey supporting characters as their deaths were easily the most iconic and integral to the Spider-Man mythos. Given how the story (as evidence by the art style) was trying to recall the halcyon ‘good old days’, it makes a thematic sense to emphasis those three and not list every Jo or Jane Blo who’s died in the Spider books.

From an in-universe POV Peter didn’t just omit MJ but numerous other loved ones who’d died. Ned Leeds. Lance Bannon. Nathan Lebunsky. Ben Reilly. Baby May and of course Harry Osborn. All of them weren’t even referenced.

Does this demonstrate how callous Peter is for only caring about those three dead people?

I think the more likely explanation, as hinted at by the story itself, is that Spidey was less concerned about people who’d died but more people who died because of him.

Whilst we can debate technicalities, the fact is that Peter honestly was far more directly involved in the deaths of those three people than any of his other loved ones. He will never know if MJ would’ve still caught her deadly flight even if he didn’t miss her before she left. He knows enough about the Osborns to see that Harry was thoroughly screwed up regardless of anything he did. Ben Reilly was a hero like him and literally did what Peter would have done in the same situation, wherein he gave his life to save Peter from a murder attempt. Peter couldn’t truly have done anything to have prevented that sans knocking out the Goblin. Even then he wallped Norman with everything he had short of a killing blow so there really wasn’t anything he could do. Similarly lance Bannon and Ned Leeds were murdered by third parties Peter never knew about.

In contrast Peter’s selfishness actively facilitated Ben’s death. His carelessness snapped Gwen’s neck. And whilst George gave his life to save a child, the child was endangered due to Peter sending Doc Ock’s arms out of control.

So I think this scene is ultimately about Peter wanting to undo mistakes that caused him to lose loved ones rather than wholesale play God and restore his loved ones altogether. In other words it is about Peter’s guilt, which obviously weighs heavily upon him.

#Spider-Man #Fabian Nicieza #Steve Rude #Gwen Stacy #Ben Parker #Uncle ben #Gerorge Stacy #Captain Stacy #Captain George Stacy #Peter Parker #Hammerhead

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hermionegrangerislifegoals · 4 years ago

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The Open House - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Open House is a very long journey of a book about a woman who experiences strange things happening in her home following an open house viewing of the house she intends to sell. She is afraid and unsure of what is real and what is imaginary, and believes to be unable to protect herself or her kids and using every resource she has to try and piece together the mysteries that have landed on her front door.

I truthfully quite enjoyed reading 3/4 of the book. It is a very long read and not just because of the physical pages and words, but the journey of those pages and the toll the characters go through all rubs off on the reader. I read through a day and a half to finish it. This book is very high on the list of un-put-downable books, no doubt.

I was honestly expecting something quite different, more along the terms of people coming over to view a house, on Open House day, and they get locked inside because the person who all brought them together mysteriously, brought them together because they're all a part of some cover-up or crime and in order to get freedom, they need to find the person responsible and kill them. Thus; 13 people go in, only 12 come out. However, it's not like that at all. The book is full of secrets and twists that are not easy to figure out. The book literally keeps you guessing until the last page. As soon as you think you're in the clear, there couldn't possibly be more to uncover now; bam! there's some new secrets revealed that makes you question everything all over again. All throughout this book, I theorized, I guessed, and I solved many many mysteries and storylines throughout the book. Many characters have storylines that lead into a particular set of mysteries and there are several sets! There's also many red herrings so watch out for those!

The only part I did not like was the ending. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the way the book leads the reader, the ending goes through a lot and it becomes overwhelming to learn so much in such a short time. The suspense is ten-fold throughout the book. There are strange occurrences that are experienced by the MC, Amber, and many mysteries that make her life difficult. Her paranoia also brings out the detective in the reader as everyone is a suspect all the time. The book has an ending full of unexpected twists and new characters that undo everything you're mentally prepared to learn about.

All in all, this book was a great story, with many fun tropes, and fresh storylines. Most of the characters are enjoyable to read about. The only thing I vehemently hated was the lack of autonomy of one particular character throughout the book. The choices this character makes, especially at the very end make me question if I even know the character at all, and it also made the efforts I put in to read the book not completely worth it.

But in any case, the book is enjoyable and fun to read, and of course open to interpretation as all works are. The issues I had with it are personal in a sense, and I urge everyone to give it a try to see if they like it. I recommend this book to anyone who appreciates book on psychological thriller novels, murder mysteries, domestic drama, family issues, romance, and real estate!

*Thank you to the publishers; Avon Books UK, and the author; Sam Carrington, for my free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

#book review #The Open House #Sam Carrington #3 stars #bookblr #book reviews #netgalley #arcs

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lightninginabottle0613 · 5 years ago

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some post-ttlr reflections 🚌💛

typing this from beyond the grave, as you all have killed me/are continuing to kill me with your sweet comments on this epilogue. what are you all doing, why are you all perfect angels. why was my “””epilogue””” the longest goddamn chapter of this story. i have so many questions and not a single answer.

if you are at all interested in some deeply personal ramblings and feelings (tw: depression and mental health and all of that), those are below the cut. i was honestly just looking for a place to dump them all, so i could properly process this whole experience that completely turned my life upside down in a matter of months. but if i learned anything from writing this story, it’s that maybe some people can relate to what i’m feeling! so they’re there - if that’s something that floats your boat.

if not (and you will not offend me, seriously, it’s long lol), then please please please just know one thing - i love every single person who read this story. i can’t believe it’s over and i’m going to miss the fuck out of it, but i’m so happy that i could write something worthy of consumption for a fandom/pairing that is so close to my heart. i sort of felt the whole time like i wished i had waited until it was finished to start posting, instead of updating after i was done each chapter, but looking back - i’m so glad i didn’t. this story was so heavy in so many ways, and every comment and private message made me want to keep writing. so much about this felt like a shared experience and a collaborative effort, even as the author, so i just want to say thank you to anyone who showed it even the slightest amount of attention. i can’t wait to keep writing both for and among such incredible people.

(also, i would be remiss if i didn’t say a special thank u/i love u to @yanak324 and @harrenhollaback. for the emotional support and for gifting me with friendships i never expected when i joined this community. i owe you both more than i can say.)

ok hey! i’ll get right to it - 2019 was the worst year of my life, and i very nearly didn’t survive it.

i’ve struggled with depression for about ten years, to varying degrees. it runs deep in my family, in pretty much every person on my mother’s side, and i didn’t learn that until about four years into my own mental health journey. my entire life, a lot was expected of me - not a super uncommon thing for an eldest child, i think. but as a result of a lot of repression from other people in my family of their own mental illnesses, i was confused by a lot of the heaviness i was feeling, and i thought i needed to handle it the same way, because that was the only example i had.

a lot of my progress was stunted after that, but i did start trying to make some changes when i turned 18. even so, i was doing a lot of the work on my own and in silence, and i still made a lot of decisions based on what i thought i should do, instead of giving myself the space and time to figure out what i actually wanted to do. i think my main focus for so long was just on not feeling sad anymore - because i was still so in the dark about the complexities of depression, and i had no idea how much work it actually takes to undo a lifetime of destructive behaviors and negative thought patterns.

my life was pretty nonstop from 18-24. for six years i dealt with one crisis after another. i was forced to react to all of them in real time, but i wasn’t able to thoroughly process any of them, and it wasn’t until may of 2019 that i realized just how brutal and damaging that pace was. that month was the first time that my life was even remotely calm for the first time in six years, and once my mind had a second to breathe, i realized just how numb it was.

i really, really did not want to be here anymore. i was so far down in the pit (something i’ve been calling it for about five years), that i could barely breathe. i can remember one specific saturday that month where i sat on the floor of my apartment for three hours in silence and didn’t eat a single thing until 6:00 that night. even now as i type this, i’m curbing the urge to call myself dramatic (ha), but i don’t know how else to describe it - other than saying that i quite literally could not function.

as suuuuper dumb and cheesy as this probably sounds, this was all concurrent with the last season of game of thrones and my subsequent discovery of the character of arya (i hadn’t consumed any asoiaf content prior to last year). i was so fascinated by her - i know so many arguments can be made that show!arya was not really her by the end of it, but trust and believe that i have read everything about book!arya that i can get my hands on. i had never seen so much of myself in a character before - both book and show - and i found such a comfort in watching her navigate childhood and deal with trauma and learn how to be vulnerable.

i couldn’t tell you the first fic i found or even how i stumbled across ao3 to begin with. but i can tell you that - not unlike probably anyone reading this, lol - i think i tore through like five stories a day for the entire summer. you know that post that’s like ‘all i did this summer was read fanfiction and cry’ ? hello. LITrully all i did. reading so many different authors’ takes on a character that i connected with so deeply and how she leaned into love/grew from pain/strengthened her convictions was a catharsis i’d never experienced before.

i had a massive upheaval in my personal life toward the end of august that resulted in my living out of a hotel room for five days, and one of those days i blinked and had 6K words of a gendrya fic written. it contained zero of the angst and pain i was feeling, and i still have no idea which deep recess of my brain it came from. it was light and silly, and i had no intention to continue beyond that, honestly. and then the literal first comment i ever got was from someone that said ‘please don’t let this be a one-shot,’ and i suddenly realized i was doing something so harmful (something that’s been a habit of mine for so, so long, but one that fic-writing has forced me to break) - i had found something that i genuinely enjoyed, but i was talking myself out of pursuing it, because my own insecurities were telling me it wouldn’t be worth it.

ttlr was supposed to be similarly light. i’d seen a post on a really long prompt list that was written by someone whose parents actually met in the same way that gendry and arya meet in the story, and i thought it was hilarious and serendipitous and perfect for their canon storyline, which is very much a pseudo-road trip in a way. i wanted arya to have struggles with depression and self-worth, because that’s true to my interpretation of her character, and i knew i wanted to sort of explore her conflicts with catelyn as a bit of a side plot, but nothing could have prepared me for how heavy the story became. the basic gendrya plot remained the same, but the rest of the story strayed so far from the outline i planned out, in the best way.

i really hate to call it self-insertion, because i think that sort of cheapens the messages i started to try to send with each chapter, but almost every non-gendrya detail in the story is something that’s happened to me. 99% of arya’s conversation with catelyn in chapter 10 came from verbatim text messages between my mom and me, that i had to scroll back to in order to reference. i struggled so much with how to characterize ned, because i think he’s sort of difficult to get right since a lot of his canon characterization is learned through memories that other people have of him, but in this story, he is my dad. all of arya’s introspections and bad habits are mine, her conversations with her therapist are mine (adapted accordingly), and her attitude toward romantic love is mine. i do my best to keep a journal, but writing this story all but replaced that for me, for months.

so EVEN AS i slowly started to adjust to what this story was turning into for me personally, absolutely nothing could have prepared me for how it resonated with other people. depression is like a tailored suit. on the outside, it looks like any other suit for any other person, and it has a lot of the same surface-level features. but beyond that, it preys on your specific insecurities and traumas, and no one person’s experience is exactly the same as someone else’s - obviously, because no two people are exactly the same. so when i started getting comments and messages from people saying they felt seen and understood, and that my depiction of mental illness was like a punch in the gut/made them cry/was so true that it was at times hard to read, i knew that there was a reason that my brain wanted me to write this story, beyond my need for my own healing.

one of the best comments i got was from someone who said that in the future, if they ever met someone who said they didn’t understand depression, they were going to show them ttlr. i cried for like half an hour after i read that (like the choking, sobbing kind), because all i ever want to do is educate myself and other people on this really hard stuff, and make people feel like they have the right tools to be empathetic. i know that the story ended on a hopeful note - because there is always hope but it’s also a fiction story (and i would never write an un-hopeful ending for gendrya…miss me with that) - but i also really hoped to convey the idea that she still has work to do.

because i am so far from done, myself. i’m still living in the city i moved to when i thought that all i needed was physical space from my problems, and i’m finally (sort of) at a place where i can take the time i need to figure out where i’m meant to be next. i’m in my last semester of grad school, studying something that i recently learned i hate, because i picked it thinking it was the logical decision, and now it would be stupid to drop out. and i really did have that text conversation with my mother, but that was about nine months ago, and i currently haven’t spoken to her since new year’s day.

i’m also in therapy, and i’m slowly starting to reach back out to some of the people i love, who i’ve shut myself off from for the past eight months. i’m at a job that i kind of hate in a lot of ways, but it also allows me to have one-on-one time with people and help them develop, and that’s super fulfilling. and i have a real hobby now that i previously hadn’t done since before i was a teenager. that’s thanks in large part to arya, but it really comes down to this community of people.

i am fully aware that i’m on the younger side of the people in this fandom, and the last thing i want to do is come off as preachy. but while i have big plans to continue writing for these characters and treating them with the care they deserve, i also do really want to continue to be someone that can make people feel a little bit less alone (through the stories i tell, and beyond that). the entire journey of this story for me was a lesson in how to say what i feel in an unapologetic way, treat even the darkest and saddest parts of myself with the same amount of love that i do the happy parts, and hopefully create a space where people feel like they can do the same thing.

i read something once that said that a member of a family who actively chooses their own healing will go through a period where they become the enemy, because they’ve disrupted the family system. i don’t know that this is true all the time, but i think it’s a really eye-opening way to think about a lot of situations where people find themselves isolated even more for prioritizing their own recovery. it was certainly the case for me, anyway. again, i know that i’m young and i have a lot of life left to live, but (at the risk of sounding ….. dramatic) i have that life to live because i’m making that prioritization. if ttlr, and any other story i write, can serve as the reminder for at least one person that healing is a choice we make and a long road to travel - and based on the comments i’ve gotten, it sounds like it has - then there’s nothing more that i could ask for.

this story is my entire heart and soul. i worried every step of the way about whether i was doing justice to the characters, but i mostly just loved having an outlet for such tough stuff. i’m excited to write more, but i don’t know that anything will ever mean as much to me as this has. so thank you to every person that gave it the time of day (or night lol). writing it genuinely changed my life.

(also as an additional resource, i’m sharing this podcast interview with none other than the hero of winterfell herself. i watched this when it first came out, and i’ve watched it probably 50 times since. if you’ve made it this far in this post - first of all, omg. but also if anything i said struck a chord and you haven’t seen this, it’s a must-watch. she hits the nail on the head perfectly, and she puts so much into words that i was never able to before.)

my messages are always open. i am always free to talk about anything and everything mental health. if you’re struggling, just know that i’m with you and i love you. 💛

#gendrya #arya stark #personal #tw: depression

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