#and is overshadowed by other characters

[nocek]

Ok I know it's a little bit late but turns out my big Okoye rant just has to be written down or it will keep bothering me. So here we go. Screaming into the void.

The thing is I like Okoye and I think she had nice thing going on in Wakanda Forever. That is up until the point that her plot threads were axed midway and rest of it was given to Nakia of all people? Which sucks for both of them. So in this essay....

The first Black Panther movie build her up nicely as Lawful Neutral character. Which is rare and for me makes really interesting character. She dutifully followed the law when Killmonger took the throne and then just as dutifully was about to kill her husband when it was revealed the throne taking wasn't so lawful after all. Both of those choices were incredibly emotionally hard for her and actually quite rare storytelling wise. Which I loved. What is even better: on top of all that she wasn't punished by the narrative for being lawful instead of going after her heart.

Great! I really, really loved it. Especially when in the new movie they started to nicely build up on that to give her own little plot and character growth.

Well. Up to a point.

But lets focus on what they were clearly building up to.

Okoye loves Wakanda. It's her character virtue since she is Lawful Neutral. But at the same time loving it too much and too blindly is her character flaw.

Wakanda is the best and thus doesn't need to change.

First we saw it in Infinity War with a little side joke about opening Wakanda to the world meant maybe Starbucks and not, well... war.

In Wakanda Forever in one of the first scenes she tells Aneka to give back the daggers since spears are traditional weapon. Which, by virtue of being traditional, are better and it's not going to change on her watch.

For that, the obvious plot resolution would be that Okoye needs to open up to new things (particularly technology). Unfortunately, the thing is, they sort of did that in the movie but in the worst way possible (and I don't just mean that Midnight Angel armor is ugly, you are right sister. It's ugly af) but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Wakanda is the best and thus I'm the best.

Okoye is a bit full of herself, or to be more precise thinks others are not as good since they are not Wakandan. She assumes she can deal with Americans and duh, she is right. She can actually deal with them like nbd. So does it really count as being blinded by her own/ Wakandan awesomeness?

Yes. Yes it does. I love that she is confident in her skills and she has all the right to be but she also knew there is new unknown threat. It was overconfidence on her part to think she can deal with Talokans too.

And she got her ass handled to her in fair fight.

And she broke her promise to queen Ramonda and lost Shuri.

Consequences as plot resolution? It's more likely than you think.

Because yeah. That's where clearly her further plot was axed and given to Nakia (which could be whole other big rant but just so you know: she was done dirty here too). Because let's be real it would fit perfectly.

Classic plot. Hero gets overconfident. Fucks up. As consequence hero loses their privileges/status/whatever. So they go on a quest not to regain their privileges or prove themselves but to right their wrongs.

Often they initially want to prove themselves, but then they learn they need to fix their mistakes because it's a right thing to do. Just after that the narrative can reward them with actually-you-just-have-proven-yourself-plot-twist - here are your privileges back and then some.

In Okoye's sake we can even cut on the second part of that plot. She just goes on a quest to right her wrongs and to save the princess.

Rewrite of a rewritten plot?

So her first overall wrong was dismissal of new technology. Could be righted easily by going to Griot to ask it to help her locate Shuri. It's even still in the movie but instead it's Ramonda who talks with Griot. It shows Griot can locate Shuri, they just added little scene with Nakia doing spy stuff and talking to people because it's her forte.

It would even fit the underwater cave rescue scene better. Because the forceful solution of going in guns blazing would fit more Okoye's desperation. Nakia is a spy. She would be more level headed and just sneak in and out unnoticed. Moreover, since she is more caring people person she wouldn't just leave that one girl to die.

But hey. If they didn't do that they wouldn't have the excuse for war and to have whole second part of the movie and "big" action scene at the end. Which is sadly mandatory in Marvel movies.

But going back to Okoye before I get sidetracked too much.

Just a rewrite... please.

With that the last plot thread for her to resolve would be redo of the fight with Attuma.

And it could and SHOULD follow the classic plot of like Rocky and countless others:

Hero loses a fight

Hero trains some more/ learns new things

Hero wins second fight fair and square

but nooooooo

Instead of mixing it with with opening to new technologies plot - as in asking Griot to help her find weak spots of Talokans. Or even just upgrading her spear to be better in fight with another vibranium spear if you really need to go this way (and clearly don't have time for training montage in this bloated movie)...

nope. Instead we go sorry Okoye you are just too weak. Here, have an armor. Which ok ties to the same new technologies plot thread but at the same time is so damn insulting to Okoye and her skills.

Like really fucking insulting.

It's like going to Cap or Black Widow and saying you are cool with all the fancy kicks and all but lets be real here. You are to week to fight real super powered villains - here have an armor.

Would anyone do that? No. Because it's insulting and goes against what those characters are at their core. Even if they are "too weak" they still would win by their skill, their smarts, their cunning nature or just by their sheer stubbornness.

Because those are their cove virtues.

Because that's how storytelling works.

And just FYI I'm not shitting on characters actually using armors. Oh no. Tony or Riri would win by learning and then building smarter armor. Rhodey would win because he is a solider and for him the armor is just tool of the trade - it's just a tank he happens to wear. But for Okoye or Cap or Natasha or any other hand to hand badass fighter it would go against the very idea their character was built on. It would be plot breaking Deus Ex Machina solution. Everyone would be bitching that writers written themselves into a corner and found very unsatisfying plot resolution that doesn't work.

But since Okoye is a side character and this movie has way too much going on in general, it's just left as it is.

And I'm very salty about that.

[killjoy-prince]

House M.D. but it's when a character says the name of the episode

[inklore]

everyone wants stories about powerful women and women finding and knowing their worth and coming into their own without having a man be the center of it all until it doesn’t look the way THEY want it to. then it’s just chalked up to lazy writing.

[ezralva]

Two weeks after anime Nanami's death and there are still ppl bitching about how sick Gege is to k*ll off his favorite character brutally like that. I started to think those ppl conveniently skipped the fact that Gege had canonically wrote Nanami as the most gentleman and (not) arguably had the best personality among JJK's adults that made his character so loved by many. That the way his death was narrated is without question better than other deaths in the story. As we saw him gave his best to protect others and being worn down first then his last moments with Yuuji and Haibara. That it was clearly shown how impactful his death was for Yuuji. That all of those narratives combined made Nanami such an unforgettable supporting character. Which spoke a lot about how Gege treated Nanami as a character and it's definitely not a bad writing or doing him ugly.

[priceofreedom]

funny how everyone seemed to adore Zack until he started having more screentime...

[old-skyguy]

Look.

Ace Attorney fandom.

I know why people don't like Turnabout Bigtop. I am among the people who dislike Turnabout Bigtop.

But I GET why people like the case. I'm not going to be one of those annoying people who just blindly dump on it because I hate those mfs too.

Thing about Bigtop isn't that it sucks. Thing isn't the weird grooming stuff (though that is a huge part of it). It's not that it could've been good.

It's that - in my personal OPINION - it could have been *great*.

I think it had the potential to be one of the best third cases in the trilogy. It had everything; a fun and goofy setting fit for a pretty dang goofy lawyer game - where the environment itself had jokes and quips and one-liners and mishaps and tomfoolery written all over it, it had the previous case introducing a very interesting and important plotline that gave background for one of the more well-loved characters while also introducing an equally fucked up and lovable new one who was a child forced into a shit childhood of naivete in a CIRCUS with another character who was very naive and childish - whose interactions could have been funny and cute and reflective of said shit from the previous case (seriously she becomes such an important character in the 4th case, WHY would they not include her in this one for some character development? How did they fuck up letting a CHILD explore a CIRCUS?? That would have made the interactions flow MUCH better).

They had a pretty good, sympathetic killer imo, a morally dubious victim, an asshole of a client (who was pretty flat admittedly in-game, but I like his weird, topsy-turvy reasoning for it in the anime. Also, I think Max being kinda a dick would have bode well for the themes of Farewell since most of his clients up to this point have been like...nice? Not nice, but sympathetic, but him having to defend someone who's innocent but a prick would have shown him that just because someone is an asshole, doesn't mean they deserve to suffer for it and that they have the potential to grow as people, which is almost a complete foil to what Matt was. Ultimately, I would have loved the contrast of them as clients and I think it would have also served as character development for Phoenix, especially with his low-empathy tendencies).

They just didn't think that far ahead. They just didn't execute it well enough. They just decided to make three of the adult characters fight for the hand in marriage of a teenage girl. (Bat's part of the story was actually kinda good if he was just YOUNGER, I think him doing that for Regina would have been a stupid thing someone in the circus would do to impress their crush. Damn you Ace Attorney and your weird treatment of underage girls!!)

It just flopped and that's ok.

Even though it kinda sucked, it can still mean something to me.

Also I'm a Moe Curls apologist. I liked him, shut up.

[eyes-of-nine]

I think I'd be way more into the magnus protocol if half the fandom wasn't already obsessing over jonmartin all over again. like honestly I'm kinda over them tbh I miss when we cared more about the horrors

[gumm1defloor]

There is a theory out there on the internet of Velvette secretly being Carmilla’s third daughter whom she had a fallout with and separated from, which is why they don’t see eye to eye with each other in the present. And while I’m still personally on the fence about this particular interpretation, it does make every previous fanon about Velvett's found family dynamic with the other Vee's infinitely funnier.

Like Vel really just said fuck you mom actually I'm gonna move out and go live with my two shitty drunk, gay college roommates who don’t pay rent and they will be my new family we're GONNA BE RICH TOGETHER AND I’M NEVER COMING BACK like wow ok-

[astranauticus]

stultifera navis rerun AKA thinking about Iberia hours again because a lot of the Iberians have such fascinating relationships with the concept of home but specifically Thorns and Lumen are eating at my brain. like where do you call home when the place that is your home Just Fucking Hates You? Elysium's rewinding breeze specifically makes a point to hammers home how differently Iberia treats its Liberi and its Aegir

(which is especially interesting since this comes right after a conversation where Purestream commented on how despite Leizi being a high ranking government official, there are still some experiences that are universal for all Yanese people - because the experience of what Iberia itself is like isnt universal for all Iberians)

But all that being said, Thorns also straight up states that Aegir is not his home, and yeah, how could it be? How could a place you've never been to, never truly known, ever be your home? How could it ever feel like a home?

so where do you go when the place that you are from hates your people and the place your people are from is completely unfamiliar and alien to you? Thorns' answer at the end of the conversation with Aya is: my home is where i chose it to be. my home is where there are people I care about and people who care about me

in the complete opposite direction, Lumen's oprec asks: why do you still stay in a place that wants you gone? because the people of Gran Faro like Jordi well enough but when push comes to shove, they will want the only Aegir in town gone

and yet, when Rald the messenger offers him a chance to leave Jordi turns him down and when he's forced to escape Gran Faro after the people there literally try to send him to his death (or worse) at the hands of the Inquisitors he keeps trying to go back because like everyone in stultifera navis, Jordi is clinging to his own dreams of a golden age

but the shape of that dream is unique to every character and for Jordi, his dreams are deeply, inseparably bound to the Eye of Iberia, the legacy his parents left behind

and it's this dream of becoming someone great, of bringing about that golden age that his parents devoted their lives to help create that ties Jordi to this nothing town because despite everything, despite the mistrust of the townsfolk and the hostility of the Inquisition and the danger from the ocean, he simply cannot leave it behind

(or, because i personally dislike the official translation,)

"I just see this place as my home"

so yeah. not sure what overall point i was trying to make here i'm just. deeply in love with these stories about chosing what is and isn't your home, of saying you will not call a place your home because it has given you no reason to or saying you consider a place your home even though it has given you every reason not to. deeply unwell about them <3

[strangertheories]

Being a fan of Stranger Things means knowing that there are way too many characters now but also not wanting to get rid of any of them because you love them all dearly.

[bigskydreaming]

But also I’m just saying, Scott McCall did not smirk like a smug asshole at the twins after taking apart one’s motorcycle to lure the other into getting caught with their motorcycle in the school hallway just for ppl to act like this guy was new to Shenanigans. Like. That was a Scott-Allison-Isaac group project, Stiles was nowhere near it, I know its been 84 million years since then but the myth of Scott having no sense of humor or prankster energy of his own will always make me itch irritably.

[marlborohero]

I wanna talk about veronica (my oc) soo,, yeah!

Veronica is the embodiment of bitterness. She makes other people miserable for her own enjoyment, and ALWAYS pits the blame on someone else. She's always believable with her blame game, so someone's life ends up getting ruined one way or another.

she used to go to church a lot when her husband was still alive. she was actually quite happy when she was younger!! she'd be a helping hand in the community and all that jazz, but now she can't stand the community.

She was cheated on and didn't know about it until after her husband died. no one bothered to tell her despite literally everyone knowing. they didn't want to 'start drama' is their excuse.

she's polite to people in morelton, but she really doesn't like them. people call her "that depressed old widow from up the street", so that makes her bitterness worse LOL.

she's so complicated

[checkyourgeography]

I think the reason Aoko's mom being introduced is so frustrating is because 1) both Kaito and Aoko were assumed to have dead parents in the beginning, and it was nice to see both kids have the parental figure they were missing in one another's family 2) she didn't add anything to the story. She was introduced, wanted to chase KID, realized he was different from the old KID, and then gave up. Despite her intelligence she couldn't connect the really obvious dots that were laid out in front of her like KID's tricks being similar to Kaito's, KID being able to get in her house and knowing her family very well, Kaito and KID both having an aversion to fish.

She had all the potential to be an interesting character who was in on Kaito's identity as KID, but having to keep the secret from her own family. Obviously she wants her family to be happy and Ginzo and Aoko are hellbent on chasing down KID and arresting him, but Kaito should be someone important to her too, and keeping him safe while his mom is away should be a priority as well. I just think giving her an actual role in the story would have made it at least understandable to introduce her character so late in the game but whatever.

[triglycercule]

mtt playing poker but why would they bet with money thats soooo boring boo boo boo no they bet with increasingly worse and concerning things and its fun for some reason

oh theyd LOVE that shit istg. luck and bluff and tells and lies??? god who knows your own lies and deceit better than another version of yourself??? and yet picking up the other two's tells is oh so very hard because theyre not the same anymore than when they were all sans and sometimes they dont even know themselves so how could they pick up on a mirrored version's? it works out a lot more than they think

killer would have no disregard for what he bets. he plays unpredictably and sneakily. probably faking some emotion here and there to get the hasty (horror) confused and concerned about what he could do and then it turns out killer had a fucking ass hand yet he won??? BULLSHIT horror cries out!!!! but dust just picks up the cards on the ground and deals them again and they play another round. sometimes killer purposely loses. why? he dont know its just to throw a wild card into dust and horror's predictions and mayhaps for the reactions

dust is a dirty player he is a fucking CHEATER‼️‼️‼️ phantom paps are his eyes that he uses to spy on killer and horror's hands. would he need to even try anymore at that point when he could easily win every round? well yes because that wouldn't be a fun game and dust wants to have as much fun as he can in this game of lies. he pretends he doesn't know what horror and killer's hands are. they both know. theyre both more than aware of dust's cheating. and that's why their betting starts going against him specifically and then dust has to figure out how to bet them higher while also trying not to fuck himself over

horror's main thing is just to not get fucked over. goddamnit why did he agree to this he's not as open to getting hurt than dust or killer are!!! (but you still agreed anyways?) so he thinks he's the only one to have a real reason to win (because horror no wanna get hurty hurty owww owww painpainpain ouch!!!) maybe he gets too cocky and ends up betting too high because dust or killer had been losing and he wanted to take a chance. maybe that high bet was actually what got him to win?? it's all a game of chance of course and horror'll only show what he thinks after the round's done. when the cards are dealt and the stakes are up he'll just analyze the hell out of the two (don't YOU hate being analyzed??) and tap his fingers on the table over and over

their way of betting would be like: the winner gets to do whatever the other two said as their bets to the betters. like if dust loses and horror wins and he said he could get sucker punched horror is sucker punching the FUCK out of him. but these three argue they fight and bicker and throw gibes and taunts!!! how would they ever agree on what bets are higher and which are lower ⁉️⁉️⁉️ to horror a bet of saying that he'd have to eat something could be like straight hell to him but killer and dust could just put the argument that it doesn't REALLY mean that much (they know it does to horror) and then force him to bet higher because cmon coward you can do better than that!!! dont you want to get some sort of revenge on us if you lose a previous round and win this one??? and other forms of logic like that 4 dust and killer

killer starts off with an absurdly high bet (because he would) like getting to mess with his soul or something. is he sure that dust and horror have losing hands? he doesn't know. and because killer has no form of limit for himself and that's already a high bar to set for dust and horror to reach (if they don't have good hands i think they'd probably want killer to bet lower. but would they tell him??) so damn it horror has to pull out some bullshit fucking bet like he'll allow himself to get hunted down by the two with every trap he's ever set on a human in horrortale (sooo much more psychological thinking and trickery going on without betting money and instead scenarios its SO FUN). and then could dust fold? does phantom paps say he should? it depends on the cards dust has (and what if he doesn't believe paps based on his own assumptions? (paranoid bitch)) and if he can't fold he has to match the bet or go higher and then he comes up with some bogus situation like ok i'll let you guys dress me up in my human's clothes and throw me in an au and have to do what they did (and OH GOD what about if they make a bet that the other 2 wouldn't actually want to do if they win??? if killer won that round with that as dust's bet would he want someone to reenact something similar to what his own human did and have to watch??????)

oops they just got another new set of scars from last week's poker night and another layer of trauma but why the hell are they sitting down at the table again??? idk man i'm just the dealer here trying not to get killed

[shrineofprophecy]

I know no one talks about Lingsha but can we thank this sassy Crimson Dragon?

She had to take care the trio while they all just want to get out, like stop making her job difficult! But she also worried sick about them, as well as for Yunli who is her precious child.

Meanwhile Lingsha had to think about her own past and master while hanging with Jing Yuan. As always, he's good with words so not even she can hate him... but imagine being left in the dark why you were exiled and then being plagued by rumors when you return.

[spyres]

i wanna make a joke about iris killing ash by having him get crushed to death as a way to make fun of iris haters but now i'm just sad because they genuinely talk about her like that and mean it seriously