#and it's just so much better and more coherent imo when he's like no. none of that. not at all. not ever.

[ptsdangeldust]

honestly i think alastor is the best canon aroace character i've seen in media so far. like yeah canonically aro and/or ace characters have been around and certainly implied acespec characters have always been a thing. but he's the one i really look at and i'm like this guy is the acest aroest motherfucker in all of hell and it is so central to his character and i love him so much. and it's not just like "... and this character is aroace by the way" or it doesn't come up or it's easy to say "well they're like acespec obviously but not clear cut 100% everything-repulsed aroace" but no alastor is like you are NOT fucking me i am NOT dating you. not unless it's funny. but even then i'm not into it for that i just want to see you flail around thinking i give a shit when i don't.

guy who gets to intimidate people for tearing off a tiny piece of his coat. guy who gets to repeatedly turn down sexual advances. guy who loves fucking with some guy who clearly wants him so fucking bad when it's never going to happen. i've said before but he also is like way more physically affectionate in the pilot vs the actual show as far as i personally noticed and it goes a long way. like it's so clear that this is not something he's down for in any way. get the fuck away from me. stay in your goddamn lane or i'll kill you. that energy LOL

but at the same time he's not remotely emotionless. yes, he has a constant cheshire grin, but you can tell when he's annoyed or angry or observant or sarcastic or actually happy. he does seem very very in control of his outward emotions and appearance, so even if he had a reason to be sad, i doubt he'd ever show it. and that's really important to me. he is aroace, but he's also his own person. being aroace is clearly a big part of him. and he's also loudly aroace in the goddamn 1000 fuck words a second horny as fuck edgy demon show. it's great. i love him.

[namikiheights]

hey, asker of the web / light novel differences that was passed over to u the other day, thank u for all the things u brought up. i am curious to hear more about kiritos violence in particular bc that aspect always felt like it was missing smth which definitely checks with the information u gave. his dream sequence and battle w internalized guilt has always interested me but again it just felt like it wasnt quite all there. im also very curious about kyouji and since that seems to be ur area id love to hear u expand. i havent gotten to the phantom bullet lns cos im trying to catch up on progressive first and im a slow reader but the way hes portrayed in the anime just felt so ,,poorly written and overall bad?? like he just completely did a 180 and it never rlly made sense to me, i just assumed his character would be more coherent in the ln and they cut it out of the anime for time or whatever.

Thank you for sending the original ask, and thank you for sending this one!

The other violent thing about web novel Kirito IMO is specifically HOW he killed the Laughing Coffin members in the raid. In the web novel, he mentions that he had sort of… lost grip of what he was doing? I guess? And got really into the fight, thus actually slicing a Laughing Coffin member’s head clean off (not a stance or slash you would take or do if you were only fighting in self defense). He does say his anger and vengeance took over in the light novel, but I think the decapitation in the web novel came from another place in his heart. Perhaps the same place that led him to beat up and steal from his beta tester friend in-game.

As for Kyouji! This boy has gone through so much, changes wise. And, as a Kyouji stan, it is my duty to not hide the monster he used to be.

TW: Mentions of sexual assault, discussion of suicidal characters, suicide attempts, and suicide as a religious and literary trope

The easiest way to put it is this:

For the most part, both Kyoujis are the same. They are nerdy and runty, something that got them bullied. That led them to dropping out of high school, so they are angry of those who seem to have it better. This leads them to make Death Gun, something that both backs them into a corner and yet also gives them an opportunity to attempt shinjuu with Shino (will elaborate what this means later). Now to contrast them a little.

Web novel Kyouji:

-Mocks Sinon when she makes mistakes (laughs in her face)

-Seems to think of Shino as a doll (or, at the very least, gives Shino the idea that he thinks this way of her)

-Is so obsessed with Shino he refuses to talk about her to anyone else because that is how sacred she is to him (that he doesn’t even want her name in other peoples’ mouths!)

-Is partially sexually motivated (remember the scene where he lightly touches a picture of Sinon on his computer? In the web novel, he, uh… does the nasty to it)

-Actually killed someone (he didn’t just play the part of Death Gun in the game)

-Doesn’t feel remorse for doing so

Light novel Kyouji:

-None of that lol 😭

This is what I mean by just a few cut sentences can change a character entirely! Without him being aggressive and ruthless and misogynist and this possessive, he ends up being a good friend who is just a bit whiny sometimes. The removal of his sexuality also makes it so that his motives are entirely religious. It’s still wrong for him to force that on Shino, but I think there is a difference between a delusional boy who doesn’t realize what he’s actually doing and thinks he can save both himself and this girl he cherishes who actively thinks she’s going to Hell… and an asshole boy who is very much attracted to this girl and is using this as an opportunity to force himself on her (which he nearly does, Shino is almost entirely naked by the end of the web novel’s iteration of the scene, but she fights back and then Kirito saves the day).

Wait, hold on! Religious motivation?

Here comes the part where I explain what shinjuu is. Shinjuu means lover’s suicide, in which a couple take their own life together. The religious component is that shinjuu is specifically a Buddhist practice and, within that, a free ticket to Heaven.

Hold on! But Kyouji and Shino aren’t a couple!

They may not be, but they like each other. This is certain in the light novel, and sort of there in the web novel. Shino thinks to herself that she does like Kyouji and want to date him, but simply thinks her trauma would cause too many problems in their relationship. Kyouji knows this and accepts it.

But also probably gives him the idea that this shinjuu thing could actually work.

In Kyouji’s mind, and partially Shino’s, the two of them are fellow tormented souls (Shino with her PTSD, Kyouji just not wanting to be here anymore). With the added layer of Shino thinking she’s going to Hell for having killed someone (real line in the light novel!), shinjuu sounds perfect! And with the religious belief that there’s something after death as well as Kyouji’s own delusional mental state, the gravity of death disappears.

Okay, this sounds plausible. But the word shinjuu is only ever used in the Sachi side story! How do you know this is the intended reading of the murder suicide attempt scene?

Some more context on shinjuu now. It’s actually a trope, having its own subgenre known as shinjuumono (“love suicide story”). It was popularized in theater in the 1700s, when playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote Sonezaki Shinjuu (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki). The format of shinjuumono is that there are two lovers (usually a merchant and a courtesan) who cannot be together (think Romeo and Juliet), so they decide the only way they can get their happy ending is in Heaven. A motif of the older theatrical shinjuumono is that they would have Buddhist chanting as part of the performance. Very religious indeed.

So, shinjuu is sort of a big deal in the creative world. It makes sense for an author who unabashedly pays tribute to his inspirations to include it. I’ve gone over how Kyouji and Shino’s story is particurly similar to Sonezaki Shinjuu in the past, so I won’t delve too much into it here. The point is that Kyouji’s murder suicide attempt is shinjuu.

Some smaller tidbits that point to that are the placement of Kyouji’s hands during the scene. He puts the syringe on Shino’s neck — not on her side like in the anime or manga, which pisses me off! — which is where the protagonist of the Sonezaki Shinjuu places his knife on his lover. Kyouji’s whole spiel about reincarnating into a better world is also Buddhist, and so is his reassurance that “I’ll carry you all into the mountains where nobody is, and then I’ll follow right after you. So wait for me once you’re there, okay?” The mountains are a place in the afterlife in Buddhism, and this sort of journey he speaks of is often poetically depicted and performed in shinjuumono classics.

But I digress. This is just me trying to make sense of what’s in Kyouji’s head as he does what he does. When it’s just this, without any sexual motives like in the web novel, it paints a more depressing tale rather than one of abuse and fear. But since the anime frames it in a more sexual way (as they always do) and ALSO cuts out Kyouji’s backstory (that he was bullied and extorted for money, that he isn’t doing well in cram school) and makes it seem like Shino never liked him…

Well, it’s almost like they reduced him to a shell of his web novel self instead of adapted his light novel self. He’s no longer a misguided boy in pain (who feels remorse for his actions, so much that he can’t speak at ALL, unlike his web novel counterpart who bragged about killing and only refused to talk about Shino), he’s a one dimensional creepazoid like all the others in the show. It’s a disservice, since the light novel went out of its way to take out the sexual assault whereas most of the other villains didn’t get theirs cut out (it almost seems like Kyouji specifically was edited that way… because they knew the character he COULD be, as opposed to the other villains who were too far gone).

And, man, I’m real sad about that! Because now my favorite character is just a meme, someone people barely remember anything about other than him screaming Shino’s name.

There’s a lot more I can say, but I think this covers a lot of it. I hope this helped you understand him more! If anyone wants to ask clarifying questions, please go ahead! I know it can be confusing to know which Kyouji I’m talking about sometimes, lol…

Thank you for reading!

[andthebubbles]

[reskimwatch of bridgerton s1 anthony scenes because APPARENTLY i’m fucking obsessed atm. also, it’s very rambly and unstructured and i wrote parts of it ‘live’ (whilst watching) so just skipppp]

(1x01)

doing a skimrewatch of bridgerton s1 for just the anthony scenes (and any other scenes that take my fancy) and skjfngkfnjfng anthony is such a dick in s1. but, i do think that perhaps if we transported s2!anthony into s1 and refilmed all his scenes, he might not come off as dickish since i kinda get the impression that jb hadn’t been briefed on all the anthony trauma issues. which is fine, he wasn’t one of the leads in s1, but it’s very obvious imo that there’s some depth missing in eg the ep 1 scene with his mum when they’re in his study and she talks to him about responsibility and how he’s not living up to his father etc

anyway!

[eta: later in the series i think this gets better ^ but i’m not gonna rewatch that scene in this ep again just to see what i think of it after skimwatching all 8 lol]

-

1x02

i’ve been reading this wonderful fic which is basically a collection of anthony-centric angsty oneshots and mmmmm okay so in this ep (2) there was that convo between anthony and his mum and hmmmmmmm so in the fic, his relationship/interactions with his mother is a lot more fraught, and i thought it was more the author’s take on it/perhaps something from the books, but now after watching ep 2 i’m thinking that maybe it was sourced from s1 (and maybe boosted by the books)? after all, that fic/the oneshots were written before s2 came out.

now i’m not sure what the canon take is on how much all that stuff impacted on anthony kdjngfkjngkfkgkfk the fic is REALLY good, maybe it’s influencing me. that fic!anthony would’ve been like... after what violet said to him... well idk, maybe 4.15am is too late to form coherent sentences, but ... okay so he reacts after violet says “but i assure you i am more than capable” and that fic!anthony would’ve been like ‘she thinks i am not capable, i am incapable, i’ve been trying so hard and for what?, i am a failure’ and then etc, spiralling from there, but i am not suuuuure if that’s canon!anthony. like i said, the fic is really good haha. 

...tbh, i think that scene can be interpreted however one likes, you don’t really get anthony’s pov in s1 in scenes with his family, and none of the backstory yet, so yeah.

-

1x03

i have nothing to say about this one really, except that violet is kinda annoying now that i’m on anthony’s side HAHAHA (the first time i watched it, i didn’t care because i didn’t like anthony). and mmm on the siena stuff, good on her for kicking him out haha

-

1x04

benedict is such a dear!!!  if i had to be any bridgerton sibling, i would be benedict

i have not much to say about this either, except that anthony is still goddamn condescending and the prince is a much preferable option for daphne compared to the duke imo

-

1x05

yeah the fic definitely amps up the antagonism between anthony and violet lol. not that i’m complaining! i love angst KSJdnfkjngkjgngjfkn

-

1x06

i feel like there’s so much to unpack here if you wanted to, but also nothing at all if you didn’t want to, so i shall just leave this screenshot here lmao:

and maybe say that anthony is an arse and i love that he is skjgnkfgk

-

1x07

(that fic does such a good job at unpacking anthony ‘that does not concern you/you would not understand’ bridgerton lol)

-

1x08

violet being like (5:02) “it’s certainly been an eventful season, what with daphne and the duke, and then anthony” and what?? what has he done skfjngkf

anthony’s definitely a bottom btw KSJDJGKJ (that thing where he put his hands on the beam thing above him when he was getting started with siena lol. also, man was fully whipped with kate, and even kind of with siena tbh)

also yeah uh just general comment, i hated the invasion of privacy and stuff that the duke and daphne went through, and the lack of communication between them and the... by modern standards, sexual assault, although idk if it would’ve been termed that back then. anyway, it stemmed from the utter lack of communication between them, so... that’s why i don’t like simon/daphne as much as kathony. also i just prefer kate and anthony to simon and daphne, i find them more interesting/rounded characters? but that’s very subjective haha

i would loooove to read someone’s unpacking of the whole anthony/siena thing, in fic or like a meta post

anyway! that’s my s1 anthony rewatch done lmao

[berlinini]

i’m not a huge fan of some of Harry’s music but if you could I’d love a comparison of some sort of his lyrics versus Louis’ (who is known for being a lyricist and whose songs are incredibly powerful)

I'm sure this was not meant to be funny but I'm sorry it made me laugh so much!!! The idea of comparing Harry's and Louis' skills as songwriters loooooooool - here's why:

Louis writes stuff like this:

We're sleepin' on our problems like we'll solve them in our dreams We wake up early morning and they're still under the sheets

Harry writes stuff like this:

Honey (Ah-ah-ah) I'd walk through fire for you Just let me adore you Oh, honey (Ah-ah-ah) I'd walk through fire for you Just let me adore you Like it's the only thing I'll ever do Like it's the only thing I'll ever do

Louis writes stuff like this:

Now if happiness is always measured By the life you design, that car on the drive Then you should feel better than ever But you know as well as I, it's all lies

Harry writes stuff like this:

Watermelon sugar high Watermelon sugar high Watermelon sugar high Watermelon sugar high Watermelon sugar

Louis writes stuff like this:

It's an old curse, dreamers divin' head first Broken beaks and dead birds Can't get through the glass There's no use cryin' over spilled blood Carin' only kills love A kiss won't bring it back

Harry writes stuff like this:

Shine, step into the light Shine, so bright sometimes Shine, I'm not ever going back Shine, step into the light Shine, so bright sometimes Shine, I'm not ever going back Shine, step into the light Shine, so bright sometimes Shine, I'm not ever (Ooh)

So... yeah.... 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

(OK, I'm being purposely shady here, sue me!)

Both Harry and Louis have talked about the importance of the tracks order on their albums. For Louis it's because Walls tells a story - "about a break-up". Louis talks about the meaning of each song in the Track by Track videos. You can tell how involved he was in the writing and it's not a surprise coming from someone who prides himself of being a great lyricist and for having written a lot of songs during 1D.

For Harry, my understanding was that the track order was more important on a musical level. FL definitely doesn't tell a coherent story (and imo isn't musically coherent either). It's "all about having sex and feeling sad" and (I just found out) "the album contained “the toughest, most soulful songs he’s written yet”" [WS has entered the chat] LOL! Imo the lyrics are either bland pop love song lyrics or telling the story of someone who's whining about "being an arrogant son of a bitch" with the emotional maturity of a toddler. I guess Harry had some slightly more interesting lyrics in his first album, but everything got watered down simpler when FL had to be a commercial success. Also I would like to add an * when I say "Harry wrote". His inability to talk about the meaning of his songs (probably because there is none) and the fact that Kid Harpoon (his collaborator) has to be brought in all the time to discuss them makes you wonder about the depth of Harry's involvement in songwriting.

TLDR: let's not compare the genius, depth and storytelling of Louis' lyrics with Harry's generic-pop-song-made-for-radio lyrics (that he doesn't even write).

[volfoss]

ships to rate: bruabba and gyjo? maybe even yasugap if you're up for it

ok ur about to see such a long post its nto even gonna be funny, tldr i love them all

also gonna put a fic i really like for them if ive read one/ a fic idea i wanna write plus maybe ranting, this is not coherent but my spelling isnt too bad

post under cut bc its very long

Bruabba:

my loves my lifes

they r so soft for each other

the fucking rain scene when bruno extends his umbrella

and how bruno is like trying to hold back his emotions post abba dying

in case its not super obvious by the sheer volume of bruabba content i reblog this is one of my otps

ALSO the fucking boat scene where abba pretty much is like yeah ur home bruno

ajdskjghdsgjk

hc that they r meeting up in the afterlife w nara and having a good time (also read a phenomenal fic about it that ill link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33118039 it is emotionally fucking me up days later <3)

dads dads dads but bruno is the caring dad that just gets you and takes care of you in the most gentle way and will sacrifice himself over and over again to see u happy and abba is the sitting in the armchair and u sneak in like 2 minutes past ur curfew ur busted but i was also worried about you

these two men own my whole heart (also my ao3 history i exclusively am reading bruabba and dadbacchio)

i have so so many thoughts toward them like yeah i just love them so much

i will never ever not write them as in love

t4t and bi4bi

every single canon thing about them makes me so soft but i think what makes me softest is just how its so clear that they rely on each other in situations

fanon interpretation rant rq:

but how some ppl really interpret them so ooc that its just like bruno mommy and abba cares about literally none of their kids (explanation on the mommy thing is bc most of things that do that are weird bc they really r treating bruno like a single parent who is raising the gang on his own and thats all when abba is literally there and caring about ppl (ie the purple haze incident w giorno, like he wasnt the most nice in his wording but why else would he be like hi move away from the danger if he didnt care??)

ppl also just tend to not really do the separation between how abba acts around others and how he acts towards bruno and has him being kinda aggressive towards him for literally no reason when they r literally so soft w each other

and also they r both so fucking pretty and i am in love with them both

if i think about them too long i will combust and i am blaming u solely for that one

ship dynamic of savior x savior bc they both really did save each other and i love them sm

fic ideas for them r they both live and leave passione and take their kids w them <3 (gang would crumble but thats not my problem)

ok also another hc that i have for them is that bruno will buy larger sweaters and wear them and give them to abba if hes having a rough time, they have a shared closet imo

10/10 ship

Gyjo:

OK OK OK

FEELINGS ON MAX

these guys r also my beloved but in a depressed x very happy but hiding depression way

the the fuckingn way that gyro ltierally risks everything in the ringo roadagain fight to save jognny

and the way that johnny is literally fucking broken post gyro persiheing and adopts his speech pattern a bit and ugh

I am obsessed w gyjo but i think the funniest crack ship is poly but w diego and they all fucking suffer (fic that sold me on that: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22887796/chapters/54705517)

i cannot find the one fic that i really loved for them but needless to say i am soft w them living and just being together

update i found it: its a modern au and really really sweet! https://archiveofourown.org/works/31821940/chapters/78780595

one day ill actually write the fic idea i had for them which was basically they live and they dont sell the land they got from the sugar mountain arc and johnny wanted to start somewhere fresh anyways and gyro adopts marco and they make a lil log cabin and have a nice rest of their lives

i am a massive sucker for their ship

ALSO how johnny is always laughing at gyros jokes

smth i wish we got more of in canon were those moments where they just chilled and talked and had those kinda interactions

fandom complaining time!! the fucking way that some ppl just really take the gyro funny and johnny submissive trope is like my biggest pet peeve. did they not read sbr?? did they not see the multiple times that johnny has murdery eyes? i think personally its ppl infantilizing him a lot and it makes me really frustrated

ok also a fic that really really fills me desire for a they all live and everyone is happy is this one: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22812394

i love them sm but unfortunately cannot have coherent thoughts about them :(

10/10 ship

Yasugap:

gonna start this out w saying i did mildly speedread through jojolion so i dont have as many big screamy thoughts

BUT!!! them!!!!!

their canon interactions r the cutest thing and even if they werent, id ship it solely to spite joshu

josuke is a million trillion times better for yasuho (not just bc of how joshu is a fucking freak and is absolutely the worst i would run him over with a dump truck)

i really like how they both r so happy around each other but i think my favorite scene w them is when yasuho has to explain to josuke that hes crying and hes just like :') yeah

but they have so so many cute moments and the ending makes them the only couple to make it out of this list

i love how yasuho is just like willing to drop anything to help him and how they help each other out a lot during the whole time (if im remembering right?)

their dynamic is just 2 sweethearts

also love the moment that hes like look away yasuho :) then proceeds to beat a man up

they r canon (as is everyone else sorry <3)

i dont read a lot of part 8 fic since i need to reread it to properly understand the plot post like chapter 65? so i dont have any recs or complaints

BUT i do have a few hcs!!

i think yasuho would get josuke matching phone straps or phone cases

and when they move in together, i think they would raise sugar gliders (or potentially kidnap squirrels from the local park)

i love all of yasuho and josukes interactions but oh man every time that josukes past gets brought up i do start bawling

they both mean the world to me and how their romance is just built on such a clear foundation of trust and care it makes me so soft

they both give off such dog ppl energy tho and i love that for them

ALSO ok the way that yasuho helps josuke w his memory and is always there for him

i will never ever ever get over them

but i think one of my favorite scenes is the one right at the beginning where she gives josuke his name and how that plays into the rest of the story with him discovering his identity but still clinging to the one that she gave him since it was him, he wasnt just kira or josefumi he was josuke

10/10

if i think about them anymore i will start sobbing, the last chapter wrapped every last thing up so well and im so so glad that it did

[gra-sonas]

I haven’t been following the BTS of season 3 of Roswell but I just saw the comments under your post about Carina’s insta stories that you guys already see the difference in writing etc. Can you elaborate on that? What do you feel is different now?

There’s obviously no way for us to know whether there’s going to be a difference in the writing of the show, we won’t be able to judge that until we get to watch S3.

There are things that are already different tho (or at least they feel different imo).

CAM’s always come across as extremely controlling. Everything (down to what kind of underwear actors would wear in a scene) had to be decided and approved by her. I guess other people had input on things, but overall it’d always be her who’d make the final decision.

The THR article indicated, that she used to rewrite scripts [others wrote], often on short notice. She’s claimed that the article didn’t tell the truth, but going by her behavior and what she’s said and how she’s talked about things in IG stories or in interviews, I believe that it’s actually true - it fits the pattern tbh.

She’s also been the one who decided on the final cut of episodes - meaning she made decisions which scenes to include and which to cut. She very much shaped 26 episodes of a show that she technically ran with a co-showrunner and co-developed/wrote with a group of writers, to her very specific personal liking. And while it’s not necessarily a bad thing when show runners do that, the RNM “end product” left a lot to be desired (mainly S2).  IDK, imo it’s usually better when there’s not just one person making all the decisions.

While we only know very little about Chris Hollier so far, they’ve said in interviews they’re pretty much polar opposites (I think they said sth like he’s the Yin to her Yang in one interview). Where she thrives on 90s high school trope driven drama and misery, he’s a romantic who likes scifi, but I assume that’s not the only difference between them. For one: he doesn’t come across as a control freak. 

Not based on truly “provable facts”, it just feels like things have already shifted a bit, like there’s (finally) room for the show to breathe. IDK, maybe we’re completely wrong about this, maybe Chris is a terrible show runner, maybe S3 will totally suck - personally I just don’t believe that’s going to be the case. 

Going by the few Hollier interviews that exist, he comes across as a super nice dude (and I mean that in the best possible way), apparently he has a knack for sci-fi, but is also a big fan of romance - the two things the show should actually be about. CAM’s always said that she’s not really interested in scifi (which shows tbh...), and going by what we’ve seen on the show so far, she thrives more on drama, miscommunication and queer trauma than romance.

Hollier co-wrote 1x04, 1x07, 1x12, 2x04, 2x08 and 2x13 - 1x12 and 2x04 in particular had some of the best Malex scenes. He’s been able to co-run the show and compromise with a VERY demanding and headstrong partner for up to 3 years (all the kudos tbh). He knows all the writers, he knows the cast and crew, and according to Jeanine and Vlamis, they all love him.

I hope with him running the show, things will be much more collaborative, I also hope he’ll put more faith in other people doing their jobs without him having to control every single detail. The RNM writers room seems to be quite diverse, I hope that the voices of these writers will get louder and clearer (and they won’t be overruled/rewritten by one “mostly straight" white person at the top).

I hope that Jeanine - who’s made it pretty clear in the interview with AbnormallyAdam that she wasn’t very happy with S2 - gets to be heard more, and that her pushing for more Indigenous and Afro-Latina stories will come to fruition, I also hope that Tyler’s input regarding how a queer love story could and should be handled, will be taken into consideration, and so on.

The show will likely not be able to deliver on everything we’d like to see (they only have 13 episode after all), it will probably fail sometimes, but overall I feel much more hopeful and optimistic about S3 than I did until CAM announced her departure.

Ngl, while she was still in the picture, I was dreading S3 (bc I expected more misery, heartbreak and trauma for Malex). That feeling has vanished. It’s wonderful that there’s next to no input from her on her social media anymore, no retroactive “rewriting” of scenes, and the fact that she now confirmed that A LOT of what she’d outlined for S3 with the writers room has already been changed, and that even the final script she wrote for the S3 premiere has been changed? Music to my ears, it gives me hope that Chris and the writers have taken over control of the narrative and 

Again, none of this is a guarantee that everything’s going to be amazing from now on, but we have an incredible cast, diverse and talented writers, and a showrunner who seems to be a kind and warm-hearted man - if this combination provides us with alien-themed scifi entertainment, mostly coherent stories, decent character development for the entire core cast and Malex getting together, I’ll be more than happy.

[mariaiscrafting]

yo i saw your post to canon about gender studies and stuff and i ran out of asks ages ago so I couldnt send this until now, but feel free to go off about gender and stuff, i would love to hear it- maybe tag me in it if you do? - evilglitter (canon's canonical spouse)

Heya, @evilglitter! Lol yeah, I saw canon’s reply and I was just gonna ask, like, what exactly y’all would like me to go off about. It was kinda an open-ended sorta reply where I can really talk about anything y’all are interested in/questioning about, I guess.

If y’all don’t have any specifics you wanna know about for now, that’s cool, too, I can go off about what’s been bothering me lately and helping me along my own journey to pin point my gender identity. 

The first thing my brain’s been hung up on is the difference between gender identity & expression. So, just as people say pronouns /=/ gender, I’m of the belief that expression /=/ gender, either. To explain this to people and better-conceptualize it myself, I always return to the kind of example this trans lady on Youtube (Contrapoints) goes back to. She brings up various examples of people who wear makeup: First, there is a cisgender man who might be mistaken as a woman when he wears feminizing makeup but is still a man nonetheless, whether wearing makeup or not. Then there’s a cisgender man who uses he/him pronouns when out of drag but she/her pronouns and a female name when in it, but still identifies as a man in and out of drag, almost like he’s playing a character. There are non-binary, genderfluid people who will identify as men and use he/him pronouns out of drag, while identifying as women and using she/her pronouns in drag; they identify themselves as women and men depending on their expression. And there are transgender women who identify as women in and out of drag, regardless of their expression. I’m not sure if I’m articulating this example too well - it’s much better-articulated in video format, I think - but that’s basically how I see gender identity and expression. They are two separate things that draw from each other and might have links to each other, depending on each individual’s view on their own gender, but don’t have to match at all. Butch lesbians can have a more masculine gender expression, and yet identify as cisgender women. Transmasc people can also have a masculine gender expression, and yet identify as trans men, non-binary, or anything else. Gender identity does not have to equate with expression, and that’s a really difficult box that I’ve had to learn to break out of, for my own sake, and through the gen & sexuality studies I’ve been doing at uni. Like, as a presumed cis woman my whole life, I’ve just assumed that to be perceived as a woman, I need to express myself femininely, and that if I fit into that feminine gender expression, I do not deviate from the identity of a woman. But lately I’ve been grappling with the idea that maybe I don’t identify as much as a woman as I once thought, that when I look inside myself and question the role I want to fit into in society, how I want my peers and colleagues to treat me, and my own characteristics/tendencies, I might not be as binary a woman as I always was taught to believe, and none of these things are affected by the fact that I’m curvy or wear skirts and heels or wear makeup; I can be as feminine or as masculine as I like, but to me, those do not equate my gender, and it’s okay if they don’t.

Lol the other thing I’d like to rant about for now is different theories of gender. First, I’d like to say that I’m by no means an expert. I’m literally just some second-year G&S minor who’s watched a lot of videos from trans people, learned a lot from Tumblr over the past 7-8 years, and read a couple texts here and there. I don’t know nearly as much as I’d like to pretend, but I’ll give my take on what I do know a little about. There are lots of different theories on what exactly gender is that overlap and contradict each other, at times. There’s the biological perspective that I’m sure we’re all familiar with - the belief that gender = your sex assignment. The problems with this theory are obvious, in that it doesn’t account for intersex people/people with chromosomal/hormonal discrepancies, or binary transgender people. Basically, the theory that XY = man and XX = woman is pretty... antiquated and flawed, imo. Then there’s the theory that gender is a bunch of performances, which I think came from Judith Butler, this well-known 2nd Wave feminist. This theory basically states that gender is this, like, specific, stylized series of actions that we perform everyday to fit into what our society’s roles for our genders are. Butler would probably disagree with me about expression versus identity, because to her, gender identity doesn’t go beyond the performance of one’s own gender. Basically, what we perform everyday, whether it be to act feminine, masculine, or androgynously, is telling of what our gender identity is. If we perform the actions of being a woman, then we are a woman, etc. Finally - and I’m sure there are many more theories on gender, but these are three I’m most familiar with - there’s the theory I personally most agree with - gender as a social construct. This is the idea that gender is constructed by societies, that gender roles are imposed onto us from the external, and that we are then socialized into whatever gender. I don’t totally agree with this theory because I do believe that gender goes beyond just the social roles we try to adhere to to fit into society, and the socialization we undergo from childhood; I do believe there is something at least a little innate about one’s own gender identity. The road social construct theory goes down is this one where, if we created a society free of hierarchies and gender roles and such, gender would cease to exist, which... is that true, I don’t really know. But I do think that gender is at least somewhat of a construct that society first created because it was useful for the creation of an efficient society, but is now just used to justify oppression, and that beyond that, gender as it functions in society is just this illusion that we could 100% do without if we want to obtain equality or whatever.

But anyways, lol I dunno if any of what I’ve just ranted about makes sense or is what y’all were looking for, and honestly at this point, I’m just using this as an opening for me to rant about something I’ve had bottled up for quite a while. I apologize for not being totally coherent since I’m not very experienced in actually talking about gender theory. If y’all want to chat about something specific, feel free to ask anything. :) Hope your journey to figure out your gender goes well, @canonurl

[reachexceedinggrasp]

So the majority of the shows I’ve seen lately can be charitably described as ‘light entertainment’, including the ones with dark elements or more weighty, ponderous plots. They might be entertaining or interesting, they just... don’t stand up to scrutiny. Turn your brain off because this isn’t that carefully or skilfully made and you’ll only be annoyed if you start thinking about it as a whole. Including the last couple 'tragic’ historical dramas I’ve watched, which were not effective tragedy for that very reason. If you’re going to kill off the main cast, you have to earn it, and overwhelmingly writers don’t. Anyway, I’ve been getting despondent about whether stories which actually hang together and form a coherent narrative unit with consistent themes are the exception rather than the rule.

(And I feel like that should be a pretty low standard to meet, it’s sort of Step 1 of ‘being a story’: be about something! Communicate something, no matter how basic it is. Dead simple stories with rock basic messages can be revelatory! Just do it well!)

I’ve seen very little genuinely focussed or meaningful storytelling in my ventures for what feels like a long time. Basically, I can kind of count on one hand the number of films or dramas or whathaveyou I’ve seen from the last few years where it felt like the filmmakers were in complete control of their story and everything in it was purposeful and intentional. Most things have felt slapdash or shallow or fleeting. Story elements and character choices come out of nowhere just to derail already concluded arcs and fill screen time with empty repetitious drama, not to serve a meaningful narrative purpose. I would be watching with zero confidence anything in particular was going anywhere or that the writers knew where that should be. It’s just throwing shit at the wall, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type writing all the time and it fucking shows.

But then I watched Money Flower.

Money Flower is different. Money Flower is towering head and shoulders above every modern drama I’ve ever seen. Titanically good writing which rises above its genre and makes conventions seem radically new and fresh not by reinventing them or deconstructing them, but by playing them straight, taking them seriously, and committing 1000%. This is all your familiar rich family tropes but with masterpiece execution, infused with consequence and meaning because they’re all driven by the psychology of complex three-dimensional characters. So many moving pieces and none of them are random or unmotivated. Just... GOOD WRITING. And I want to make the point that it is this wherein art lives. The difference between a rank Lifetime movie and Romeo and Juliet is not novelty or tropes or plot twists- it’s execution.

This show is such a perfect example that it is not ‘mere events’ (aka plot) or novelty or shock value or cool ideas which separates something brilliant and timeless from forgettable schlock; it is solely and entirely execution. It’s writing itself, if you know what I mean. You can describe many of Shakespeare’s tragedies and history plays as soap opera plots. What makes Macbeth a deathless masterwork and Death Wish Hollywood wank isn’t a fundamental difference in subject or genre. It’s Shakespeare’s characterisation and purposeful storytelling. It’s the poetry of the dialogue. It’s the craft of writing. Most of Shakespeare’s plots are based on existing stories or on historical events and that has never mattered because novelty is not an inherent good or of any inherent artistic value.

Like, this is the problem with storytelling right now blah blah GOT, shitty endings everywhere etc. because power over the audience (can’t let anyone guess the plot, looking ‘clever’ with meaningless callbacks) and novelty are valued over narrative structure or things making sense or emotional verisimilitude. We have so many writers thinking being ‘shocking’ is all it takes to be a genius. It’s easy to be shocking if your story makes no goddamn sense because things that don’t make sense are literally unpredictable. Not in a good way, though. A great twist or sudden swerve needs to be unexpected but inevitable in hindsight or it does not work. I should be able to rewatch your thing and think ‘oh, of course! you can see it was [x] all along!’

We have so many popular writers now who are so shallow they don’t think anything needs to make sense on a character or emotional level. They don’t think their story has to be about anything. Substance is irrelevant as long as the surface is flashy enough. That has no staying power, you can only watch it once and you will forget about it quickly.

However, if you have ever wanted to experience the constant heightened stakes and High Drama of a soap opera without being annoyed at how ridiculous it all is and while actually giving a shit about the characters because they feel like real human beings, if you’ve wanted to feel repercussions when characters make choices, and get the emotional payoff that is the entire point of drama- now you can. Watch Money Flower. And let me tell you, it is fucking riveting. This show is mostly made up of people sitting in rooms talking and yet it is heart-pounding excitement nearly every episode. It is profoundly traditional and by the book while being totally fresh. It’s the most engrossing and satisfying artistic experience I’ve had in a long time.

Like, THE TENSION, THE DRAMA, THE REVEALS!!! You can, in fact, spend most of 24+ hours on the edge of your seat about family problems and business mergers. It seems unlikely, but that is the power of this series, it creates insanely high stakes and mesmerising suspense out of the most commonplace ingredients. Familiar plot elements become brand new and surprising under the deftness and tightness of this narrative. The plot itself is certainly 100% melodrama but it never feels like a soap opera and is never ever soapy in in a pejorative sense because it handles its classic tropes with such maturity and nuance that it's like you've never seen them before. The writing is incredible.

It is on an entirely different level than the vast majority of dramas, with a total self-assurance that keeps the pacing relentless yet unhurried- taking its time to let the impact of events be felt, the narrative always knowing exactly where it’s going and how to get there. The characters are all multi-faceted and unpredictable without ever being incoherent, their motives and goals always being gradually uncovered in more detail that only makes the storytelling and characterisation even tighter, even richer. The twists and cliffhangers are always mind-blowing but always earned, never cheap or nonsensical, and I can't remember ever thinking that about another show. (There’s literally one exception towards the very end where something a bit random happens for reasons of pure symbolism- it’s a misstep imo but it’s minor in the scheme of things)

Every time I started to doubt the writing, started to think ‘oh no, they’re going off the rails’, they showed me I was wrong and they were in total control. The only 'problem' with the show is that the drama is also profoundly painful to watch unfold, particularly in the beginning, because it's a story where everyone makes terrible life choices and moral corruption is everywhere. It's hypnotic though, like a car crash. If you can handle something dark, insidious, cerebral, and character-driven there is nothing I've seen in the same vein that can approach its brilliance. It’s like The Magnificent Ambersons as a slick modern revenge drama. There is also (PRECIOUSLY!!) a core of stunning romanticism around which all the horrors revolve and that saves it from becoming hideous or cynical. There is a chance for redemption and a new beginning after all, in spite of all appearances.

The ending has apparently been controversial, and it is definitely not quite as climatic as you would have expected given how powerfully climatic almost every regular episode is, but it's a good ending. There isn't full closure, they don't provide final resolution in a bow, but to me it's an ending about hope. It suggests optimism for our characters and I was satisfied with that. It's extremely rare for a 'revenge story’ to allow this kind of room for healing and it can do that because, imo, we discover in the end that it wasn't ultimately vengeance in Pil Joo’s heart. He has not become a tragic hero who will be consumed by the cannibalistic darkness of revenge, his quest was for justice. He teeters on the edge of the abyss but he avoided falling in; he didn't sell his soul, at least not irrevocably.

He is nonetheless a very tragic figure and an anti-hero, but despite having dedicated his life to bringing down the Jang cabal, it’s not that he’ll stop at nothing. He will make any personal sacrifice no matter how desolate, he lives as a mere husk of a man, and he facilitates enormous emotional harm to others in service of his goals, but he has ethical hard lines he never considers crossing. His sense of decency and compassion is never extinguished; he does care about the collateral damage he is causing even when making justifications for it. It’s important to him to give people as much agency as possible in their choices, to mitigate the damage done by his schemes as much as he can. To try to prevent harm coming to undeserving bystanders. Not that this makes it okay that he uses people, which he does, but the point is he never completely surrenders his moral compass to avarice. He’s never okay with burning down the world or ruining innocent lives just to get to his target.

Pil Joo is less a vigilante and more an avenging angel, he wants justice more than retribution. He wants fairness and a better, safer world where what has happened to his family won’t happen again. The reason this story never becomes Sweeney Todd (aka: a full on tragedy where we see the inevitable outcome of lust for revenge) and the reason he can survive twenty years spent pursuing someone’s downfall is exactly that principle. Searching for retribution would have destroyed him, he would have become the very thing he hated, but instead he goes as far as necessary to publicly expose the Jangs for what they are and then willingly submits to penance for his complicity in their crimes and tries to atone with the people he hurt along the way. Purged, he’s symbolically reborn and takes back his real name to maybe finally have a chance at the life he should have had. He moves on, content, a positive force. He’s capable of healing from the ordeal because he realises he doesn’t need retaliation, just seeing them stopped and facing consequences for their actions is enough.

The love story is a superbly poignant part of this. Their love is the ‘victim’ of his revenge and it will forever be impacted by it, but it’s not something that can be killed, so there’s still hope. Mo Hyeon’s bookending rescues of Pil Joo from death mean first that he has a purpose he must fulfil and then the second time that he has freedom to finally live as himself, for himself. There’s a future. And maybe they can be together there. I’m emo about it.

Anyway, if there was the slightest doubt about me becoming a long-term Jang Hyuk fangirl, it’s been put to rest. This performance is easily one of the best I’ve ever seen, period. No contest it’s the best I’ve seen in a tv drama. It’s also the most subtle and masterful turn he's delivered in his whole career. He's so restrained, but he is giving absolutely everything; he has total control over every microexpression, every gesture, every molecule in his body. There is so much simmering under his surface, so much going on in his eyes; the layers and depths are endless. The intensity and sharp intellectual focus he brings to the character is breathtaking. Everyone else is doing amazing work too, but he is almost constantly on screen and has this spectacular command of such a sprawling story, such a complex character, and he makes it look effortless. All artifice has melted away. The fact that being so tightly contained is in stark contrast to the bombastic element in many of his other roles renders its delicate precision even more startlingly impressive. I thought he was a great actor before, but I didn’t fully appreciate what he was capable of until Pil Joo.

[terriblygrimm]

ohmygod finally someone who shares my views. my sister and I loved fatws for what they did w sam’s character but aside from that the writing was very bad. we really could not understand wtf was bucky’s purpose to the main plot and what new side of bucky did we see. when the action wasnt happening he kept whining about steve and being rude to sam and then marvel thrust sambucky onto us and basically told us to move onto this Brand New Duo. sam and bucky were not on equal footing here and their personal struggles did not hold equal weight at all (i will give credits to anthony and seb here for making their friendship look believable) mcu keeps sidelining bucky and i thought they would do him some justice in this show but they didnt. after reading the articles and interviews post the show it was evident the writers did not understand bucky’s character at all. his whole character development was moving on from steve and now becoming sam’s sidekick? (also im really hoping and praying these writers dont go through with sarahbucky in the future because…no..absolutely not). and i do hope that what you said about a future steve bucky reunion comes true because so far mcu has been very hellbent on erasing their friendship and its just pathetic that they try to undermine their friendship so much, while weirdly enough also emphasizing that yes it has deep emotional value.

yeah like, i’m gonna try to make this as succinct and short (lol) as i possibly can without going off on tangents but tf.atws should’ve been SAM’S show. sam alone. he should’ve been the only title character, and they could’ve properly focused on his arc and the sociopolitical weight of it. that is MORE than enough content to fill up 6 hours. i absolutely love cap!sam and i think he’s gonna be a great captain america. i’m very much looking forward to his future.

but virtually everything else about this show from conception to film was a miss.

the flag smashers? (really marvel? your military propaganda perked its ugly ass head with this one. within the first five minutes of the show they were condemning ppl who believed in a world without borders lmfao. i legit almost stopped watching right then i’m not kidding) and the storyline itself wasn’t even coherent. they had WAY too many characters and arcs to focus on and it just.. didn’t work. didn’t do any one of them justice. not even their title characters - especially their title characers. the whole thing felt very hollow and emotionally remiss. the barely existent dialogue was clunky and awkward, and i’m sorry but.. to me, sam and bucky do not organically get along lol. the chemistry between the actors is undeniable which is why so many ppl ate it up, (and do i think they could eventually get along? yes) but the buddybuddy thing was pretty forced imo. very sudden and based on very little. 

their stories were at odds, with not one common goal between them all the way to the end. they fought for screen time and it caused both of their stories to suffer and not carry the weight they should have. they both had VERY heavy content to work with (a black captain america / a trauma/abuse/pow survivor) but somehow marvel - in true marvel fashion - did not commit to either and tried to tread lightly on both. 

bucky and sam only had the thin thread of steve woven between them & even that was done poorly because the writers themselves admittedly weren’t told what happened to steve, therefore they couldn’t write a definitive arc about it. and instead of actually committing to the deep bond between he and bucky, they took the no homo route and had bucky express anger over who holds property of the shield, rather than admitting it was steve himself that he emotionally and physically missed. but again, they couldn’t really do that, could they? they didn’t know if steve was alive or if bucky knew of his whereabouts. 

i’ll admit i did enjoy the peripheral concept of bucky helping steve pass along the shield, like he was its watcher, making sure steve’s legacy fell in good hands, and was there to basically coach sam along the way. in THAT regard alone, it did feel like he and steve were still a team post-endgame. that, on top of saying that he and steve discussed the future of the shield together was a sweet touch. loved that, but it was executed poorly like everything else.

& his winter soldier arc... lordy, was that handled horribly. bucky is a charming, gentle, burdened, lover-not-a-fighter (since the 40s) victim and they turned him macho, carrying the burden of his abusers and guilted into making amends? and that his problems were his fault because he couldn’t trust people? say what now? bucky is a pissed off, good-hearted war vet with a LOT of baggage- he’s not just some dude. the effort to butch up and patch up bucky in a quick fix was apparent, from the short hair, to the list of names, to the “man up�� approach everybody came at him with, to the really out of place heterosexual flirting. i mean honest to god who the has time to flirt? apparently bucky! none of the other characters even passed a sideways glance to another during the entire series aside from the one character who audiences have been vocal about being queer for 10 years. hmmm.... (and then the writers actually CAME OUT & MADE A POINT TO SAY that they did not intend for his bisexuality lmfao i mean please dear god put us out of this misery. that writer/director need to stop talking because nobody cares about their personal opinions or headcanons. media is for the viewer to interpret so please shut up.)

overall the actors did what they could w that script, that much was obvious- and they certainly tried to stay as true to their visions/versions of the characters as they could but it just didn’t end up matching up.

but yeah, on a lighter note, i sincerely don’t think they’ll continue bucky in sam’s sphere. i think that was a one off. i don’t think they actually wanted to sell them as a “new partnership” but they just didn’t know how to write the dynamic properly. i think tf.atws was just a sad, sad attempt to place them somewhere post-endgame so they can continue on in bigger marvel films. sam’s got his cap4 and his new team (torres, sharon, walker), and i think i read he’s gonna make an appearance in black panther? which will be sooooo awesome!! 

and bucky? his ending was very open, what with him miraculously “feeling better” yet not quite the white wolf, and not permanent in any place. and on top of that, he was instructed to stay away from wakanda so he can’t make future appearances there, so methinks he and steve will cross paths again as nomad and white wolf for sure (once it’s revealed what steve’s been doing, etc). maybe in space?

the power that holds anon.... i get so excited even thinking about it.

[thedarkreichenbach]

DARK : What did we missed, What Ifs and How it should've ended

S3 gave us everything, an ending to a beginning of the greatest time travel show to ever exist. While most of us were overjoyed with the climax, I personally thought it could've been better and here's how.

Human Triquetra Origin

Agnes should've been the daughter of Magnus and Franziska, thereby explaining her surname being Nielsen and closing the family branch with her instead of the couple being childless. It really did not contributed to the plot by her being Noah's sister.

This way it would've manifested as a human triquetra origin, the strongest symbolism ever - with Unknown, Agnes and Noah being the core progenitors of the family tree in Winden.

There should've been more backstory on these 3, especially Agnes and Unknown, how they met, their childhood, how did they became what they're now as adults. The creators did not do justice on the Unknowns after hyping up their characters so much. IMO the Adult Unknown should've been introduced way before in S2 maybe while having a philosophical conversation with Jonas or Martha or any of his relatives, in between his travels all while keeping his identity secret, which would've probably been a better pay off in the S3 opening scene, where he's accompanied by his young and old versions.

How did he turned out so dark like a psychopath ever since his childhood, how did he learnt how to kill, the knowledge of time travel and his opinions on Adam and rest of his family members, how his time travelling experiences made their way to his infamous personal Triquetra Diary, all these aspects seemed crucial to the plot besides him acting as a henchman to merely manipulate events by time travelling and following his predestined path.

The HOWs

The creators avoided the 'How' by always implying the question was 'When'. How did the time travel worked actually? What were the mechanisms of each of the time travelling devices, how do they differ, how does a person actually operates the devices to time travel to a specific time? I cannot fathom how and why did they left out such interesting concepts to explore and instead gave us random characters repeatedly telling each other about some apocalypse or drop of an ocean.

The splits in timelines

Every time during the final cycle due to the quantum entanglement, the timelines split. However, we are not shown if they converge. If they don't, we are not shown what happened to the timelines when Jonas and alt Martha die. Cause in one timeline/reality, Adam gets to kill young alt Martha in his world, and Eva gets to kill Jonas in her world via alt Martha 2 but in the other timeline/reality, maybe none of these things occur.

Predetermined path, Causality and Effect

Stranger Jonas knew that Adam existed in 1921 alongwith a fully operational Giant God Particle with electric Tesla control yet he only choose to follow (alt) Martha's letter given by Noah. If only Stranger Jonas had noted down what his previous iteration went through, he could've taken things into his own hands for once. Things would surely had been different in Adam's world had all versions of Jonas worked together, like alt Martha and The Unknowns in Eva's world.

If Adam had not cheated or manipulated his younger self into false pretences, young Jonas could've been on a different journey and might have formed a new quantum entanglement cycle from 2052 itself by travelling to 1921 and changing things.

The entire show runs on a really dark premise that even if humans were given choices to their decisions, they will still choose the exact same option infinite number of times, no matter what and thereby, turning free will into a mere illusion.

What Ifs

What if Unknown, Agnes and Noah had more than one child in their lifetime. Yeah obviously it would complicate the story further, but hey why not?

What if someone, preferably from Adam's world, maybe Noah, tried to kill the Unknowns at some point? Noah wanted answers and who could have it better than the Unknown. Most probably Noah would've ended up dying in this scenario.

What if Jonas did not choose to go to 2019 to prevent Michael's suicide? Maybe Michael would've still been alive.

What if Jonas had a child with his Martha? The Unknown would definitely be uncompromising and uncomfortable with a sibling.

What if the Unknowns had followed Jonas and alt Martha into the Origin World? It would've been thrilling to know how this would've turned out.

What if young Ulrich goes missing instead of Mads in Eva's world? I wonder how the change in genes, story and plotline could've worked out.

What if instead of Jonas dying in Eva's world, it's alt Martha who dies in front of Jonas? This would've played out pretty dark IMO with this Jonas having witnessed the deaths of both the Marthas. And having knowledge of the family tree from Eva's room, he sets out on his own journey to slaughter everyone who he believes is the cause of death of both Marthas making it the darkest timeline and quantum entanglement.

What if most of the incest driven family branch were to be non-incestuous?

What if instead of killing, people were imprisoned or seemingly sent somewhere out of the loop?

What if there was more than 1 ending to the show?

How It Should've Ended?

Baran and Jantje did a phenomenal job pulling this off with such grace, but maybe just maybe we could've gotten more than one ending.

Ending 1 : the original, won't wanna change that. It gave off an ever reflecting moral that living and dying infinitely in eternal time loops is damnation and the only way out of that is ceasing to exist, in death.

Ending 2 : After knowing about the Origin World via Claudia, Adam actually takes the entire Sic Mundus and maybe even all members of Erit Lux there to finally settle down and calling it a truce while playing with time.

This way Adam and Eva would've finally got to settle down with their son, Unknown with his little family of Agnes and Tronte, and Noah and Elizabeth would have got to see their Paradise. Everyone finally got out of the time loops and could choose to live their lives freely at last.

Ending 3 : Introducing the God Particle in the Origin World, maybe giving it to H. G. Tannhaus. This would've been a rather chaotic ending as compared to the previous peaceful one.

Tannhaus probably would have used it for good purposes though and could've researched it so thoroughly that he was able to make the process and formula to create the God Particles in a not so destructive way that requires the coherence of 2 alternate world's power plant disasters.

Maybe it would've given rise to new time loops and quantum entanglements, with respect to the other 2 worlds and this would've been proved to be a complex quantum puzzle to solve.

Ending 4 : Tannhaus actually operated his Quantum machine more times than we know, and has in fact created more than 2 worlds by multiple splits. Totally mind boggling.

Ending 5 : So far we know that based on intelligence levels,

Noah<Adam<Eva~Unknown<Claudia

But what if the Unknowns finally strayed a little from their obedience to Eva and started working with Noah, Tannhaus or Claudia OR maybe even with Tannhaus and Claudia from the Origin World. This way the Unknowns would've diverted from their predetermined path and started to think by themselves.

This would've been fun to follow as it would've put them directly in a sort of Mexican standoff with his parents. At this point, a sensible fanfiction about the Unknown wouldn't hurt.

Ending 6 : Exploring far future, maybe the farthest ever possible. We know the world doesn't completely ends after the 2020 apocalypse, not atleast Jonas's world and like a Futurama scenario, Jonas time travels to far future to find out answers and he finds a new descendant. Bonkers right?

Feel free to jot down your thoughts and theories or any other details I might've missed here.

[nadziejastar]

I replayed kh3 and isa/saix jokingly says "what if we just imagined her" this makes me think he was project x all along. I mean Namine can just give people false memories as sort of an anchor. I mean sticking around a cult 10 years for a girl they barely knew seems kind of hair brained. And yeah I know Namine wasn't in birth by sleep but young xehanort can time travel, so anything's possible.

But we did not find her inside on that day or the next, or any of our subsequent visits. Had she been moved? Had we simply imagined her? Lea and I knew there was only one way to be certain. And so we stand before the castle gates today, not as trespassing children but in order to become Ansem the Wise's newest apprentices.

I agree, them sticking around this cult for a decade, all for a girl they aren’t even sure existed is beyond dumb. It sounded like they weren’t sure she existed even back when they were kids! KH3 and future games can retcon Saix and Axel’s past as much as they want and shoehorn the mystery girl into the picture. But they can't get rid of all the hints and foreshadowing from the older games.

On the day we finally secured our entry, we descended the long spiral stair at the heart of the castle to find a dark space below it, lined with cages. There wasn't light enough to see if they were inhabited, and we were in no position to call out to any occupants within. Yet we could feel it. A definite presence, there in the black.

Let’s talk about the prison cell that Subject X was kept in. They were down the long spiral staircase, so I’m pretty sure they were the same ones shown in KH2FM.

Xigbar: The "Chamber of Repose". If you recall, that's where we spent our time researching the darkness that resides within people's hearts. It's a graveyard that was sealed by order of Ansem the Wise. The first thing Xemnas did once he got rid of him was to undo the seal and build a room in the back. Ever since then, he holds himself up in that room when he can, and he talks to someone.

I rewatched the scenes of KH2FM recently. This whole prison area is the “Chamber of Repose”, not just the room with Aqua’s armor, which was only created AFTER the graveyard was sealed by Ansem the Wise. So, the mystery girl was apparently being kept in the Chamber of Repose.

The experiments caused the test subject's heart to collapse, including those of the most stalwart. How fragile our hearts are! My treatment produced no signs of recovery. I confined those who had completely lost their hearts beneath the castle.

Why is it called the “Chamber of Repose”? Because that’s where the broken down specimens were confined. They were in a state of “repose” after their hearts were experimented on. Then they’d turn into Heartless. That’s why it’s a graveyard. 

Subject's memories have not returned, and our conversations remain less than lucid. What fragments can be gleaned evoke a bygone world, like one out of fairy tales. As improbable as it seems, the question may not be where she has come from, but when. If she truly has crossed through time, the prospect of probing her heart is all the more compelling. My pilot studies used a handful of subjects, but none possessed the fortitude to endure them. Ultimately, all suffered mental collapse. I knew it would be a heavy blow to lose a subject as unique as she.

I don’t know why the mystery girl would be kept there. If she was thought to be “broken” it makes sense. But if Lea and Isa were continuously sneaking inside and having coherent conversations with her, it doesn’t make sense.

If you’re an evil scientist, you’d call the collapsed subjects broken, defective, or failures. Everything Saix calls Xion.

Saïx: You cannot help your comrade. Xion will not wake up.

If Isa was thought to be broken, and locked up in the Chamber of Repose, that is quite traumatic. It explains everything about Saix’s personality so perfectly. WAY better than the mystery girl nonsense. And if Ansem the Wise did take Isa away and experiment on his heart to help him, it also explains why he has orange eyes like Xemnas. And it explains the way Axel tiptoes around Saix’s twistedness. If Isa was the lab rat, I can see Axel joining the cult and sticking around for his sake. But not for a girl he’s not even sure existed. IMO, the mystery girl makes a mockery of Axel and Saix’s characters from Days.

[idontevenwatchbl]

Rambling about The Stranded

Alright, after sleeping in way too long and getting myself a cup of coffee, maybe I’ll finally manage to wirte something coherent about The Stranded?

Spoilers for the whole series below, of course.

-I liked it? Probably wouldn’t have watched it in one sitting if I didn’t, but still. It was good.

-So I heavily recommend it. Although if you’re reading this you probably have watched it already so who am I even talking to lmao.

-Kinda hoped it would have been scarier though. There were some creepy moments but none that were truly scary. Which was a slight disappointment, but they probably weren’t even going for straight up horror.

-That said though, I got a slight feeling that the series tried to do way too many things at once and lost it’s focus at times. They kinda kept switching the tone.

-Wich offered nice diversity and kept things fresh, BUT

-It kinda made the different aspects of the show feel a bit separate from each other. There was the horror-y stuff with supernatural aspects, then the relationship dramas, and then there was also the whole thing of the kids building a mini society on the island (or maybe more like how they kinda failed at that and everything just crumbled down).

-and also resulted in weird continuity issues like everyone just forgetting Arisa in the jungle for TWO WEEKS. I mean most of them probably didn’t care, but what about Ying? To be fair, Arisa did kinda ditch her, but still. She seemed to just forget she even existed and wow.

-They all got over Joey’s death a bit too quickly too, imo. Even though you’d think it’s a big shock for all of them. I mean sure, they just survived a tsunami and don’t even know if their FAMILIES are alive, but Joey was still the first one among them to die, so it would have been nice if it had a bit more impact.

-Some of the more lighthearted aspects also felt out of place at times. Didn’t bother me too much, but it’ll probably be jarring to some people.

-Also it was slightly amusing how even in the desperate situation they were in, ppl still had time for relationship drama. But they are teenagers and all the stress is probably messing up their hormones real bad, so I guess it’s kinda understandable.

-Anyway, my main concern would be that they they don’t manage to tie together these different sides of the shows in a meaningful way in the upcoming season(s).

-When Arisa first appeared on screen, like 2 minutes into the show, my first thought was literally; wow, I bet she likes girls? AND I MEAN-

-Speaking of which, the whole Arisa/Ying thing got me so confused. It was clear as day Arisa was attracted to her, but then she got all like ‘lol nope’. To be fair, it was most likely just the case of her not being ready to admit her feelings. But still, it frustrated me.

-ALSO then there was Arisa having a few moments with Nat towards the end of the series and Ying being patching things up with Ice.

-This is probably just me being way too into my ‘Arisa must be a lesbian’ -headcanon, but I have a mini theory that she was actually in love with Mint.

-Istg if Arisa and Ying DON’T get together in the hypothetical s2, I’m gonna be upset.

-Moving on from that, I also accidentally predicted May getting pregnant lmao.

-Can’t really remember it clearly, but there was some scene scene in ep1 when I thought ‘hm, is she pregnant?’ (I think they focused the camera on her stomach or something). Sure she wasn’t at the moment, but still. Lol.

-I also kept wondering in any of them even used condoms. Did the island even have condoms? I mean probably yes, but I’d be surprised if Ice and Ying hadn’t already used them all.

-I guess it really was just a matter of time before someone got pregnant.

-My favorite characters ended up being Arisa, Ying and Nahm. Especially loved Arisa, which is absolutely no surprise at all.

-ALSO, I just have to say this, Ying is really beautiful?? I’d be crushing on her too.

-Really hated Anan, but he was such an interesting character! Really complex, and I want to know more about him (and why he hates Kraam so much).

-Anan losing his shit over May cheating on him cracked me up bc I associate March too heavily with Phu and if you’ve watched Hormones, YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID. You reap what you sow, honey.

-I have surprisingly little to say about Krit and Jack, even though I liked them?

-They mainly just shattered my heart. Like I legit wanted to cry when Jack died, how’s that even prossible? We didn’t even know him for THAT long.

-Also, I probably shouldn’t have watched LBC so close to this. At first I just kept seeing Perth and Mark as Ae and Kengkla and LET ME TELL YOU, it kinda cracked me up even among all the angst. It did go away pretty soon tho.

-I know I’ve wished a slow, painful death for Kengkla (no offense at all, i’m just... NOT fond of the character), BUT THIS IS UNRELATED. Jack did nothing wrong.

-Both Perth and Mark did such a great job and I’M PROUD OF THEM.

-Btw, the casting for Jack and Jan was perfect. The girl who played Jan really resembled Mark. They aren’t actually related, are they?

-Btw, wouldn’t it have been better to amputate Jack’s leg to stop the infection from spreading? Sure that would have had it’s own risks, but since his situation was already pretty desperate, they should have just taken the chance.

-In the same vein, couldn’t they have used the generator to power up their phones? Kraam could have listened to the voice message his dad left, and WE WOULD HAVE ANSWERS.

-Okay, most likely not their top priority, but still.

-Gun confessing his love to sleeping Nat was so soft and I loved it.

-They most likely won’t end up together, but I want it so bad.

-I’m still not sure what to think about ‘’the teacher’’, or whoever she ends up being. Is she evil or not? Getting mixed signals here. Or maybe she’s more like a neutral being, not truly evil or good.

-Nahm said she’s not and she seems to be the most trustworthy of them all, but then again she DID have that weird dream. Is she under her influence?

-Took me a while to realize, but almost all of the people they showed at the end of the last episode, also acted in Hormones? No wonder they looked familiar.

-I kinda predicted we wouldn’t get any real answers in this season, but I’m still a bit frustrated. I WANNA KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON.

I most likely forgot to include something, and my ramblings most likely make 0 sense, but if I want to add something I’ll just make a follow-up post.

I really hope the series does well enough for us to get a second season, because this series definitely NEEDS ONE.

[harusha]

Hey so I'm debating buy the new fire emblem and i was wondering to get yoyr opinion on it?? This is the first one I'm gonna get or would get of the fire emblem franchise. Do you think its a game that is worth buying?? What are some downsides?? What about upsides?? If I play as a female can I have the option to marry whichever girl I want or is it only a selected few??

I think it’s worth buying! It’s a fantastic addition to the FE series. However, where it excels, it excels, but when it’s lukewarm, it’s really lukewarm imo. You can marry 5 potential woman as F!Byleth (Edelgard, Rhea, Sothis, Mercedes, and Dorothea). If you choose to buy the game, don’t listen to people and play whichever route interests you; there is no “ideal” order to play them in

For me, the pros are

Characters- the characters really benefited from all that Fire Emblem: Heroes Gacha money. Due to the higher production value, all the characters have more supports (ie. more characterization) and feel really well-rounded overall. Unlike the previous entry, Fates, there are rarely any “superfluous” or “useless” character supports.

Setting- The setting has a lot of history imo, and you’ll learn about Fodlan as you progress through each route.

Routes- Both a pro and a con imo, but I’ll just list it here. The routes give a lot of replayability, and cross-house supports even more if you wanna complete the logbook. However, the routes also created a rather “incoherent” at times narrative for each route. It’s like...why didn’t this organization intervene after their appearance in the Blue Lions route? What happened to this character after their disappearance? It’s like they saved content so all the routes could be “unique,” but at the cost of making the routes’ stories questionable at times. As much flak as Fates gets, it did much better on this front than FE3H imo. While Hoshido, Nohr, and 3rd path all have their questionable decisions, they at least felt self-contained enough to where I wasn’t scratching my head trying to figure out who approved this.

Story-I’m told the story is really good so I’ll just put it here. Imo, the story isn’t the greatest imo, but it’s definitely up there for FE. For me, the incoherence caused by the route splits is what’s making not enjoy it as much. And the refusal to seriously approach the outcomes that you could expect from the endings (ie. they’re all rather happy overall imo). But this is also a heavy personal taste thing. 

Limited Free Roam on maps-Minor thing but it really adds immersion. It’s kinda wonky to use, however.

On Cons,

Poor gameplay- I might get knifed for this one, but I found FE3H’s gameplay to be drab after the glamour wears off. The maps are frequently reused in their own routes and between routes with few changes to terrain. It creates a repetitive experience at times unless you keep upping the difficulty. There’s good chapters ofc like a particular one in the post-skip. It’s better than Echoes of Valentia’s maps imo, but that’s not high praise considering Valentia is a faithful remake (and its OG version didn’t exactly have great maps). Not as fun as Shin Monsho no Nazo’s, Conquest’s, etc. maps for me. Also put everyone on a mount or suffer in this game because this game is where movement counts (just like FE4).

Poor Gameplay (again) but in relation to classes- The class system is wonky. Some classes don’t have upgrades, others are sidegrades, and some don’t have a coherent pathway to follow (ex. early-game fliers).

Underutilized mechanics and archaic character development method- FE3H may have excellent characters, but you have to seek out their development. This wouldn’t be a problem if the game had more cutscenes/required events for characters pre-skip, but as it is, it makes it to where their (potential) deaths in postskip don’t have impact. That is killer in a game where it emphasizes the brutality of war and killing your students (and thus your bond with them).. It’s particularly noteworthy because this game uses a calendar system, but there are barely any meaningful events on it. They could have certainly attached more events in there, AND had supports for you to seek out. Basically give development to characters outside of your chosen house, and allow you to seek and recruit them if you liked what you saw. Requiring the player to play badly (ie. spread out time for people they aren’t gonna recruit) so they can feel the full impact of their decisions is poor design imo.

Poor LGBT+ options for M!Byleth-Not as noteworthy (and also subjective) since you want to  play F!Byleth who gets five gay options but I thought I’d mention it anyway, but 2 out of 3 of M!Byleth’s are actual gaybait (ie. you marry a woman or end up alone) and the new one is free DLC which wouldn’t be “bad” if he wasn’t route locked. It kinda stings because outside of 2 options, all of F!Byleth’s aren’t locked. Also, she gets a lord romance and M!Byleth doesn’t.

Attack animations-Minor again, but for a Switch game, the attack animations are pretty bad imo, but most 3d (and 3ds) titles for the series are that way imo. There’s just nothing as exciting as the GBA animations were.

Overall, fantastic game, but I wouldn’t call it perfect or even the “best” FE game (which is a hefty and subjective title; personally, my favorite is Shin Monsho no Nazo). The story is certainly up there with the Jugdral duology and Tellius, but I wouldn’t say it outpaces them in that department. And on gameplay, it isn’t great, but it isn’t the worst. What makes the game, however, is the characters, setting, and the fact that none of the routes are purely ideal. It’s no SMT on that front, but it’s a very good try on Nintendo’s part. 

Sorry for the late reply as well. I had to type this up, and I went to go make beans with toast before this since I was kinda hungry.

[bigskydreaming]

And another thing!

Can we like, just collectively fuck offffffff with this whole ‘the natural opposite to Bruce’s abusive relationship with Jason is Jason having a warm, nurturing relationship with Talia after she adopts a pseudo maternal role with him when she dumps him in the Lazarus Pit’?

This trend has kinda been around forever, but I feel like its been popping up in like, every Jason-centric fic I read lately, and uggggh, dislike. Look, I actually feel no desire to defend Bruce and his parenting, ever. I try and go with AUs and canons like Young Justice where he’s like, Bad At It, but not to the point of the absolutely toxic abusive shit he’s guilty of in various writers’ runs in the comics, but that’s just because I want his kids to have nice things and his kids all at least WANTED Bruce to be a good father at one point. But if your take on Bruce is that he’s abusive despite his best intentions and the best thing for any one of his kids is to move on and get the hell away from him, I’m not gonna argue with you, or try and defend him in the slightest. I will read the fuck out of that, happily.

Until you try and pretend Talia’s not...just as bad?

Like, okay, I have complicated feelings on Talia, mostly because the shared universe nature of comics makes it impossible not to. She’s an extremely nuanced and complex character and has been for decades, which means I really enjoyed her and found her every bit as compelling as Bruce, until....Morrison happened. And I loathe Morrison’s dumbass writing and try and pay it as little heed as possible, so wherever possible, I go with one of the takes or canons or AUs where Bruce and Talia had fully consensual sex and she just never told him about Damian til later, because I will never ever ever excuse the date rape interpretation of Damian’s conception. And I’m fully aware that it was written that way largely BECAUSE Morrison’s a dumbass and most likely didn’t think through the full implications of what he probably just saw as an expedient way to give Bruce a longlost kid he knew nothing about, or how it would throw Talia’s character under the bus. It’s different with Dick and Tarantula, because Catalina didn’t have those decades of prior characterization and attachment, her agenda was pretty clear from not long after she debuted. (Although, we gotta talk about how just like with the aggressive man of color stereotype, the only times comics show a man being raped by a woman, its a woman of color. Pin in that for now).

So I mean, I don’t automatically write off Talia unless we’re dealing with a fic, AU or run in canon that clearly expresses its going with the version of events where she date raped Bruce. I vastly prefer being able to still enjoy her as the compelling equal and foil to Bruce that she was for a long fucking time before that. 

But even with that, the idea that she’s a superior parent to Bruce and a convenient candidate to step into the void he leaves in any of his sons’ lives, let alone Jason, and just...Do Better....umm...how about could we not?

Like, YMMV obviously, but to me the entire point of Talia in the context of her relationship with Bruce has always been she and Bruce are as alike as they are at odds. Selina and Bruce, the appeal of their romantic dynamic is they’re opposites. Talia and Bruce....they have far more in common than they don’t. They have different goals, different lengths they’re willing to go to, they’re not the SAME by any means, but they understand each other in a way few other characters do, because deep down, they always GET why the other one does what they do.

So I mean, I’m not saying Talia is inherently WORSE than Bruce, I’m just arguing that even with all of Bruce’s flaws, she’s usually not any BETTER. Like...its pretty much a lateral move.

Sure, you could easily WRITE Talia as being a loving maternal figure to Jason or Damian or anyone....but just the same as you could write Bruce being a healthy paternal figure to them. The potential is there in either character, depending on what takes in canon you choose to focus on and you clarify where and in what ways you’re diverging from any takes where they both devolve into outright abuse of their kids. Because both definitely have, and thus, you don’t get to just....handwave away any problems with Talia’s character (and parenting) and default to her as this superior parental figure on the basis that hey, she’s not Bruce. 

Like, okay....you want to write Jason moving on from Bruce and rejecting his attempts to reconcile because he’s come to view Bruce as having essentially raised them all to be child soldiers? I WILL TOTALLY BACK YOU ON THAT. I mean, the dude’s memorial to his SON, was a case containing his uniform and a plaque that said A GOOD SOLDIER. Case made, you know? Not one fucking argument from me. Your take is valid, and Jason’s complaint has my full backing.

But here’s the thing....if your fic does NOT significantly diverge from canon prior to Damian’s joining the rest of the Batfam, if it does NOT show Damian having a WILDLY different upbringing than he did in all versions of canon, and by extension, resulting in Damian having at least a somewhat different approach to interactions, worldview, mannerisms and ideology.....

Then no matter what relationship you craft between Jason and Talia, you are STILL swapping out his parental figure - who he resents for raising him as a child soldier - for another parental figure, who LITERALLY RAISED HER KID AS A CHILD SOLDIER.

Like, hellooooooo? Any take where Damian grew up in the League of Assassins without Talia objecting to him being trained with them or getting him the hell out of there, is a take where Talia literally does the exact same thing you’re holding against Bruce on Jason’s behalf. (While, I might add, ignoring that while Tim at least was well into  his teenage years by the time Bruce became his mentor, Dick, Cass and Damian ALL have this child soldier upbringing in common with Jason. It really doesn’t work to single Jason out as the only one who was victimized by their parent in this way).

But okay. Let’s say you’ve got an explanation for Damian’s upbringing or have written that differently. If you’re going with the take that Jason has a connection with Talia now because Talia’s the one who put him in the Pit and either brought him back to life or restored him to full coherency, then almost inevitably (because you COULD do this differently, but I’ve yet to see a take where a writer DOES)....you’re also going with the take that before coming back to Gotham, Jason trained with the League of Assassins, and this is how he was so competent by the time he went up against Bruce and the others, given that he wasn’t nearly as skilled back when he died at age fifteen.

And it really, really, REALLY bugs the fuck out of me that people so rarely spend much time or focus looking critically at Jason’s time with the League of Assassins, and how that contributed to his ideology and methodology as the Red Hood.

And this is a complaint I have both with fics/writers/headcanons that are pro-Jason and anti-Jason. 

Again, don’t get me wrong. I honestly don’t have a problem with Jason’s initial return to Gotham. Like, he can murder the fuck out of every rapist and crime boss he wants, I’ll be in the stands holding the OMG LOOK AT MY BABY, LOOK HOW GOOD AT MURDERING ASSHOLES HE IS sign and doing high kicks up and down the bleachers. 

But ESPECIALLY if your take on Bruce and his raising of Jason is that he was abusive and trained him as a child soldier.....it absolutely IMO does not work to overlook the role the League of Assassins...and by extension Talia....played in shaping the man he was when he first returned to Gotham. 

And they abso-fucking-lutely played a role.

Because Jason is not Bruce, was never going to be Bruce, was always going to clash with Bruce’s ideology in ways even Dick never did, especially when it came to killing. Even before Jason died, it was very well established that they did not see eye to eye there and likely never were going to. It IS part of Jason’s core characterization that he fundamentally disagrees on the subject of killing criminals, the worst of the worst. Whether you think he actually killed Felipe Garzonas before Bruce benched him, or whether you think he didn’t, or that it was an honest accident...this was a hard line they were always going to end up on opposite sides of, and that inevitably was destined to create at least SOME kind of divide in the family.

But thing is, arguing that its okay to kill a serial rapist they have evidence that should convict him, but who keeps getting away with it because of diplomatic immunity and legal loopholes that show how ineffective a corrupt justice system is.....is NOT the same thing as arguing even to kill a murderer in the name of avenging your son that he murdered.....and even THAT is still along way away from.....

tossing eight heads in a duffel bag down onto a table in the middle of a meeting of local crime bosses as an intimidation tactic.

Felipe? That was Jason’s own personal thoughts and morality, his own perspective on right and wrong at work there, 100% him. The Joker? That was a natural, easy to follow extrapolation of those same thoughts and perspective and how they might change and grow as a result of the trauma of what the Joker did to him and how it affected him.

But Jason’s tactics when he first came back to Gotham weren’t either of those things. They were textbook League of Assassins methodology and justification.

And its just fucking WEIRD to discount that when examining his character and how he changed from the Robin he was to the Red Hood he became.

Like, even with varying canon takes, the youngest Bruce took Jason in at has him at about twelve. He wasn’t a trained acrobat like Dick, he was a malnourished street kid with none of the head start on his training that Dick came to Bruce with, already having it under his belt. Everything Jason knew how to do as Robin, the detective work, swinging around Gotham on grappling hooks, various martial arts forms and mastery of weapons....Bruce had to train him in all that from scratch, and that took time. Jason was at the earliest still only like 13 or so when he became Robin. And pretty much every take I’ve ever seen on his death has him at around fifteen when the Joker killed him. That’s two, at most three years of time spent training and being Robin, under Bruce’s tutelage.

Then things split into two takes....some go with the sequence of events where Ra’s or Talia take Jason’s body right after his funeral and put him in the Lazarus Pit, others go with the sequence where he was resurrected on his own, and was found by Ra’s or Talia a year or two later, still largely catatonic, with them putting him in the Pit to heal his mind the rest of the way.

But either way, by the time Jason comes back to Gotham he’s put at around nineteen or twenty, with it usually said that it was five years after his death, and AT LEAST two or three of those years were spent training with the League of Assassins, or with other teachers thanks to Ra’s or Talia’s patronage.

So.....any way you cut it, if you’re going with a take where Jason’s skills post-Robin come from training with the League....he spent at LEAST as much time being trained by them, with their perspective, in their methods, according to their philosophies....as he spent being trained in all that by Bruce.

There is no angle here in which they didn’t play EVERY BIT as much of a role in shaping him as the man he resents for raising him as a child soldier! With it also largely unacknowledged that even WITHOUT the effects of Pit Madness from the Lazarus Pit, you’re talking about a KID, someone who was either fifteen or at most seventeen by the time the League started training him....who is recovering from a trauma the likes of which pretty much nobody can even comprehend. While nursing a massive grudge and resentments born of insecurities and issues that carried over from his fucked up childhood from even BEFORE he met Bruce, and that Bruce absolutely failed in addressing. 

Again, no matter how you look at it, we’re talking about an extremely traumatized and impressionable and suggestible minor, desperate for anything to hold onto, any ideology to grasp hold of, any justification to make sense of all the shit that’s happened to him and where he goes from here, a purpose, a way to move FORWARD.

Like.....I’m all for Jason resenting Bruce raising him as a child soldier. What I DON’T get, is neither him nor anyone writing him in this way displaying the same awareness of the fact that....the League literally raised him to be a child soldier after he was brought back.

Same shit, different generals. That’s it. But again, that’s not an upgrade! That’s not better for Jason! That’s not an improvement over Bruce! It’s literally a lateral move!

And if your take includes ANY aspect of Talia training or overseeing Jason’s training to help him get back at her ex, someone she definitely has issues with at the time, no matter what canon or existing adaptation you’re going with.....you’re talking about someone literally weaponizing a traumatized teenager against her ex.

Ummm. Yeah. We’re just....not gonna call that better for Jason, or healthier for Jason, or in any way, shape or form to JASON’S benefit, okay? Cuz its not. No matter what his issues with Bruce, no matter what your issues with Bruce as a reader or writer, no matter where you fall on the ‘is killing bad people bad, y/n’ spectrum.....it is just deeply WRONG to just generically write Talia as forming a maternal bond with Jason WHILE he’s being trained by the League she holds enormous influence over, even if not as much as her father.....and act like this is the opposite of Bruce and how he failed Jason. Instead of just more of the same.

Like sorry not sorry Talia, but if you actually give a shit about Jason when he comes out of the Pit all traumatized and chock full of issues....you put him in fucking THERAPY, not How To Be An Assassin and REALLY Get Back At Your Dad 101.

And it doesn’t have to be that way, to be clear. You can write Talia taking off with Jason and toddler Damian in the middle of the night, abandoning the League of Assassins to take both of them far away and hide them so Jason can heal and cope and find himself and Damian can grow up not learning how to poison people by age five. You do that, all my objections vanish, THAT is infinitely superior to Bruce’s parenting, and that’s a parental bond with Jason I can happily stan as being for his benefit and to his betterment.

But no fic where he debuts as the Red Hood with years of League training under his belt has that. And this oversight is realllllly starting to get on  my nerves, lol.

Again, from both sides of the Jason camp, pro and anti alike.

Cuz if you’re a Jason fan for any reason, no matter whether you’re in favor of him reconciling or bonding with any or all of the Batfamily or not, why WOULDN’T you want them acknowledging that who he is now and what he’s done as the Red Hood has every bit as much to do with the skills the League gave him and the philosophies the League taught him as it does with what he learned from Bruce? That he was conditioned in these things while in a highly vulnerable point in his life?

And if you’re not a Jason fan, no matter the reason, it is again, STILL a massive oversight not to acknowledge that his actions and agendas as the Red Hood stem from years of being trained as a teenage assassin while in a highly vulnerable and thus suggestible state and with a clear lack of other options or support systems to counter anything they taught him.

Like I said, I’m pro Red Hood, I love Jason, I agreed with him back when he was arguing with Bruce about Felipe Garzonas. Jason’s never targeted anyone but the worst of the worst and he’s always displayed an ability to see reason and back down, he’s not some mindless killing machine. I lean way more towards his philosophies than I do Bruce’s, even if I don’t always agree entirely, and part of my point here is like...this isn’t about judging Jason for his actions or like, ugh, I really like Jason but I think he’d be even better if he was less murder-y, you know, more like Dick.

But like...the rest of my point is that I just honestly don’t see Jason’s actions and professed ideologies as one hundred percent HIS natural perspective, not influenced to an unhealthy degree by others in a position to take advantage of him at more vulnerable times in his life and sway him more to their positions. And THAT’S my problem with how little people reflect on the role the League played in who he became, AND with the insertion of a maternal and nominally supportive bond with Talia that’s written as being superior and more to Jason’s benefit than anything he shared with Bruce.

LOL even when I don’t mean to, like I definitely didn’t when I started this post, I always seem to keep coming back to how alike Dick and Jason and their stories are and how well and how often they parallel each other, because its the exact same issue I have with Dick. They’re just a very easy way to point out certain things about the other.

Like, I’ve talked before about how I think Dick’s aversion to killing, not when others kill but when HE himself is presented with killing as an option - its really just him being terrified of disappointing Bruce and being abandoned by him if he does so, no matter that he’s an adult now. Because I DO agree and always have, that at the very least, Bruce was at times emotionally abusive with Dick and Jason at least, with a strong case to be made for Damian as well. (Tim’s harder to gauge given that most of his time under Bruce’s direct care was at a time when Bruce was overcompensating for all the things he missed with Jason and blamed himself for, and ever since Jason’s return, Tim’s written as being so independent and removed from Bruce’s influence that its more like Bruce rarely has the OPPORTUNITY to fuck things up with Tim to the degree he has with his other sons.)

Sorry. Digression. Point being, like, I do fully agree with the interpretation that Bruce’s rigid moral code and how forceful and insistent he was on imprinting it on Dick, Jason and Damian has at times been emotionally abusive, and I think the effect of that is most clearly demonstrated with Dick, due to the simple fact that Dick has spent more time under Bruce’s care and tutelage than all the others combined. 

So my problem with Dick’s aversion to killing and how its so often hyped up in canon and in fanfics as him being so like Bruce in this regard, or just a Boy Scout, or ‘too good’ or ‘too pure’ to ever kill, at least not without it ‘breaking him’....that’s got nothing to do with me wanting Dick to suddenly go all trigger happy and kill his enemies with no problem. It’s just because.....I don’t think its Dick’s moral code at work there. I think its Bruce’s, and the way Dick’s written sticking to it without any self-analysis of where it came from and WHY he clings to it so rigidly, I view as evidence of conditioning due to how he was raised. With Dick so focused on other areas where he pushed back against Bruce he’s never really realized that how thoroughly Bruce influenced him in this regard flew completely under his radar.

It’s not that I want Dick to kill more, its that I want his choice to kill or not to be based on HIS choices, HIS morality, and not just a kneejerk response to conditioning he’s never recognized as such because who doesn’t have blinders on in regards to parts of our childhoods, you know?

And then circling back to Jason, I went on that tangent to emphasize its the exact same thing there, just in reverse. It’s not even that I DON’T want Jason to kill his enemies, to have the same philosophy or ideology or methods as Bruce or Dick or Tim. It’s that I want his choice to kill or not to be based on HIS morality, as the result of conclusions he came to after having the time and space and distance to separate himself from his various teachers and surroundings and decide for himself just what it is he believes, what choices and instincts are his naturally, organically, and which ones are leftover from his training by the League, drilled in by his instructors - just as he’s taught himself to recognize when his old training and lessons from Bruce are kicking in.

Anyway.

tl;dr - Bruce sucks and is a terrible parent but lolololol unless you’re going well off the beaten path from canon and faaaaaar away from where the League of Assassins can get their hooks in Jason to any degree, like...Talia is not better. Let Jason be Jason, not just a child soldier raised by your general of choice and aimed in the general direction of philosophies you agree with more than their opposite.

[icharchivist]

Would you call hxh not your typical shonen? Or "checking the boxes" off what's normally included in shonen nowadays.

Heya!

Oh well, hxh isn’t a typical shounen, that’s for sure. Hunter x Hunter in particular, though, uses the tropes of Shounen to subvert them. So as a result, it does “checks the boxes”, but it does it in a way to show how terrible those tropes would actually be in a coherent setting.

We cannot call it a typical shounen when it completely takes the shounen’s formula to a whole new level and meaning, in a way that distance it from its shounen narrative. People who are used to read Shounen would definitly be surprised by the twist and turns hxh take, since it will take the Shounen road, but show you it’s filfthy and painful.

Up till the Heaven Arena Arc are the most Shounen-y arcs of the manga, probably because of what Togashi said “first listen to your editors, until you start to sell and you can do whatever you want”. Once he got enough creative freedom to take the story outside of Shounen boxes, he embraced it.

Some elements of the few first arcs already though can bring some interesting insights. The whole writing of Killua is a complete different intake that many shounen, who will include a Rival Character to overcome - often a character objectively better than the hero, of the same age with whom the hero can relate to, them addressing this power difference, before eventually becoming Rivals. 

The entiere Hunter Exams build up with that Trope, especially in the manga imo - and it builds up especially when he grows frustrated Gon is prefered over him in the finals of the exam. Killua’s insecurities and frustration are so on the nose that it seems like it’ll follow the traditional Shounen Rival patern, but instead, it’s all a set up for Killua wanting to befriend him, something Killua stands by the full manga. 

Killua was written originally to mislead us into a rival character, but instead the manga took this trope and bent it - showing how, for a character like Killua to be unadequate about his own skills around Gon, like a Shounen Rival would, it would require Killua to have his own set of suffering that instead, would push him forward to the Hero instead that Against Him.

It’s an exemple of Togashi using a trope of the medium, exploring why this trope is this way, and subverting it showing that, for such a character to exist, the results could bring to total different conclusions and different character.

It’s extremely present in his world building as well. The manga is gore.  I don’t think people realize how even the early arcs were extra gore. The violence of the manga can be extremely pushed and realistic, often therefore putting the reader in a situation in which they will be uncomfortable. I don’t think it comes out this much in the anime until the CA arc tbh. Even with some of the violent moments like Gon losing his arms in Greed Island, it’s… weirdly enough also a trope in shounen. What isn’t as much, is the amount of body horror you can see in the manga. Uvogin versus the Shadowbeasts is an awful, awful fight to witness, in which we get graphic details of how Uvo’s abuse of those bodies was cruel. There is no way for the reader to detach themselves completely from it. 

Most Shounen try to keep its violence PG. Even FMA which includes people’s brain being blown out limits mostly itself to extreme burns and lots of blood, but hxh doesn’t hesitate to show you organs or other set of body horror. It’s something that will change the perspective of the reader on the story imo, because the fights are not just fun entertainment, and it’s not just a moral issue there, it’s because it will show you graphic deaths and not shy away of how horrible it can be.

What it leads to is also the Cost of Violence. Power ups in the story are not viewed as good things most of the time, unless it comes with an intense training. Kurapika’s whole way to fight is deemed Unhealthy by both Wing and Bisky, and the last arc proved also that it is unhealthy. 

But the best exemple of that of course is Gon-san, which is a basic take on the Super Saiyant Trope in classing Shounen - A Massive Power Up appearing into a conveignant time for a big and epic fight. Usually, this kind of powerup is something that comes out of Love, of befriending their inner self or of the love and support of their friends, it happens against an enemy that is qualified over Powered, and usually, once the power up done, the user is able to control it, usually without an enormous backlash except maybe exhaustion. 

Gon-san is…. None of that. It is a Massive Power Up, appearing at a conveignant time….. for a pitiful fight, and I say it in the best ways possible. Because there was no “real fight”. Gon just massacred Pitou. There was no physical fight before the fight itself, and Pitou’s only impactful attack was the one which took Gon’s arm when Pitou was dead. The Gon-san fight was horrible to witness because it wasn’t an Epic fight, especially when you compare them to Meruem and Netero who had a lot more Epic Showdown, as it was happening at the same time. 

It didn’t came out of Love, not exactly, but out of anger, and revenge, something that is usually rarely associated to the Main Hero, especially not a hero who had been established as the Cheerful Type. It came from grief and revenge. And the backlash was the most important part of the fight. The fact it all went wrong was important. In the end, the whole Power Up was Horrifying to witness, at the opposite of the feeling of compealness usualy Power Up gives.

And Gon lost everything after it, his life and his power, which is against all possible tropes. It’s amazing.

And there’s a lot more to be said about the full story - the way the fights are won, or the focus more on how the character morally feel about it, and a tons more. The story invites you to see the tropes in common Shounen and challenge them, to see how they could get twisted, how in a certain way, they can be far more horrifying and that in most cases, we don’t see it coming because we’re used about those tropes being watered down, and harmless. 

Not to mention, the Goal of the Hero that set up the full story in motion……. Wasn’t the endgoal of the manga. While usually it is. But not only Gon’s goal wasn’t the end goal, that the story moves on, but… it wasn’t fullifying. We spent 350 chapters with a main character with a goal that motivated his whole plot, and he reached it and… it didn’t make him happy. And the story moves on. This is unlike every shounen’s trope, despite starting the same. It take sthe trope of “Character motivated by Goal for the end of it” and takes it to “well, in the end, maybe it wasn’t the best hting ever.”. That’s so interesting! It completely subvert the trope of a set goal being the fullifiment of a character’s life and instead asks the question of, what to do once your lifegoal ended up being not quite what you expected? It’s so rare in shounen and yet it’s so important! 

That’s why hxh stands out to me. It’s not a typical shounen, but it takes a Shounen formula to subvert it even more. And to me, it’s doing it amazingly. 

Take care!!

[aotopmha]

If you haven't yet, I really encourage to check the DBS manga. The art is very clean, the fights are really fun to watch. But one of it's biggest strengths imo is how the autor takes the time to explain and expand on things as opposed to the anime who dispose of more time to do it, but doesn't. And despite that, there's never any significant break in the pacing and every chapter is enjoyable. The only cons I could give it is that the BoG arc is rushed and the RoF arc is completely skipped.

Also, one thing the manga does a lot better than the anime is staying coherent to itself. The power levels of the characters are also a lot more accurate and are always explained. And if you think the manga is a simple retranscription of the anime, you’re wrong. It’s actually a retranscription of Toriyama’s original script he gives to Toei and Toyotarô. This script only gives the directives for the story and Toei and Toyotarô have to fill in blanks like they each want. So you will be surprised !   

—–

Thank you for sending this! I am actually keeping up with the manga! I can now write my wall of text on why I think the manga is the worse version of the story.

I think the last few chapters have moments that encapsulate my problem perfectly: Toyotarou is not a creator, he is a fan.

He is a very good example of a fan who is talented in some ways, but 100% a *fan* in others.

Manga:

(Chapter 27)

Anime:

(Episode 77)

The difference here is that the anime is considerably more in line with Goku’s character.

This is just a very good example: Goku is awkward, but he is not completely heartless or clueless. When he learns Bulma has a baby in the anime, he actually offers the food he bought to Bulma. He *named* Gohan and was dead while Goten was born, so the anime only has him saying he was dead when Goten was born.

In the manga, it really feels like the moment is there to make Vegeta look better, rather than to compare him to Vegeta. It’s dumping on his character in a very fan-like way. This is what I mean by the fact that Toyotarou is more fan than a creator - a creator is concerned with developing all of the story’s characters and has enough perspective to treat all characters the same way. DB itself is known for dumping on it’s side cast, but not quite in this way. You can still tell that Toriyama is a creator.

This is just one example, but the manga really is not good at actually writing the characters. There are a few good lines and moments here and there, but I don’t feel like any of the characters are really “fully-fledged” characters. As much as some of the asspulls and plot solutions at the end of the Trunks arc frustrate me in the anime, I never came to Dragon Ball for the plotting. The plotting has been iffy at points even in the original Dragon Ball portion of the story, which probably has the strongest writing out of all of the portions.

I think Goku Black and Zamasu suffer from this the most. They are very generic in the manga. I think Zamasu could’ve been a lot better in terms of execution in the anime, too, but even then, he has principles and a perspective. Goku Black was interesting because he wasn’t entirely Zamasu. Reveal or no reveal, he was part Goku and part Zamasu and that’s what made him interesting. None of this is present in the manga.

Another example would be Toppo. At this point in the manga, he feels like a more legitimate threat, but there is none of this stuff:

(Episode 81)

Toppo and Bergamo calling out Goku’s behaviour during the Zen Exhibition match is interesting. It’s actually made a thing, but currently the manga seems to ignore all of that. Toppo’s justice schtick is actually pretty fun at points, but none of that is there in the manga as of the current chapter.

Super got a lot of crap for being the “Goku and Vegeta Show” in the first three arcs, but 29 chapters in, the manga is literally all it is, with a little Trunks, Bulma and some of the side characters on the side. I appreciate the manga for trying to give personality to the Gods Of Destruction, but they’re not what should be focused on in a story that hasn’t really done anything with it’s actual main cast. 

Gohan, Krillin and Piccolo have almost literally nothing. I hope they finally have something done with them during the lead-up to the ToP or at least during the ToP. In comparison, all the “filler” in the anime serves to actually develop the characters and show their relationships.

The Pan episode, the baseball episode, the Arale episode, the Gohan-centric episode during the FT arc, the Kid Trunks moment - none of them, or something equivalent to them, is there in the manga. Even the character-specific moments like Goku getting angry when he’s told by Goku Black that he killed his family in another timeline or Vegeta beating up Goku Black aren’t there, which are some of the highlights of that arc.

I’m keeping it to pre-episode 77 stuff because the manga just passed that in the past few chapters, but right now the Hit two-parter, Gohan two-parter, Krillin two-parter or anything equivalent of them don’t exist. All good characterization I very muich appreciate.  

I’d praise the plotting for being better, but the manga has strange stuff like the Zamasu clones and Goku learning Hakai, too. The Hakai thing particularly bothers me because we haven’t seen him take interest in being a God Of Destruction, he hasn’t even seen how Beerus uses the technique in the manga and it doesn’t fit his character, either.

If you compare that to stuff like Trunks’ Spirit Sword or Super Saiyan Rage, they at least make emotional sense. They are introduced at a high point in the story, as a reward to a protagonist for his struggles. Trunks fought Goku Black many times during the story, recieving presumably several Zenkai boosts. As much as the very clumsy execution of episode 67 annoys me, Trunks didn’t actually win, either. (The same goes for the manga, here, actually, Trunks’ healing powers actually make a little more sense, even.)

I don’t like Goku forgetting the Senzu Beans and Mafuba seal in the anime, either, but it has good enough character moments in return that I can somewhat look past it.

Tl; dr The manga feels like a plot summary. You have all that plot stuff like the time travel and some of the power-ups explained better and it has better pacing in some sense (though no build-up to anything hurts it at points, too - it feels like things just “happen” too often), but the manga leaves me completely indifferent outside of it’s art. It’s just not very good at writing the characters, which I care about the most.