#because we don't know his character and he had zero focus so that was literally the only way to get the message across

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Feeling very violent rn so here's a very controversial opinion:

Everything after season one of Young Justice sucked.

Look, I know I'm obsessed with the show but that doesn't mean it's good, it means that I'm too deep into it at this point to get out. There are good moments within the other seasons but in general? They were not good.

I'm sorry. I understand that they wanted to be creative and have a neat narrative and deep lore and all that. And they do! The narrative and lore is extremely deep.

But the plot? The characters??

Season one was an actual functional show that balanced character development, plot and dialogue with world building, lore and messaging.

The other seasons do not do that.

Season two bounced back and forth between like 16 characters. We got some development for some characters but even that was minimal compared to the character development in S1. And this isn't me complaining that the og group wasn't in S2 enough. That's not my issue. I would've loved to focus on a new group and I think that Jaime, Bart, Ed and Gar would've been super cool to focus on. I loved what character development they did have and I craved more.

But the problem? The problem is when you have 16 fucking characters that you are trying to develop and shove into a coherent plot and have actual meaningful scenes. There just wasn't enough focus on S2. Imo, S2 was meh because the characters got left by the wayside. The plot, dialogue, world building, lore and messaging was fine, there just seemed to be a lack of heart/warmth in the show because of the characters. It's hard to get invested.

Then holy shit. S3 introduced more characters. And the plot got more contrived and 'big picture' to the point that it started to abstract. It felt like nothing mattered. There were no stakes, you were just watching things happen. There was 50 fucking things happening an episode and 80% of it was lore/world building. It felt like I was studying for a fictional history exam.

I'm pretty sure the main character in S3 was earth 16. Just the entire universe. Because goddamn. We checked in on almost every living being and EVERYTHING was a plot point. Most of it wasn't even relevant to anything happening in the season. Man it was.... it was bad.

And at that point it just wasn't enjoyable at all to watch. I probably should've stopped watching but at that point the sunk cost fallacy had already kicked in. I knew it could be good. Maybe it could be good again. And people were constantly praising it as cinematic genius so I was like 'okay well maybe I'm missing the point? Maybe you aren't supposed to enjoy shows? Maybe this is fine?'

But season four broke me.

The creators heard that people were frustrated by the lack of character focus and the episodes following 72 characters and the episodes switching between 50 different subplots every episode and their solution? Their solution was to take allllllll the different unconnected plots and, instead of evenly spreading them throughout the season, jam them all into 'arcs'. So you had a bunch of mini seasons consisting of 3-5 episodes dedicated to a cast of ~5-8 characters (some of them new). And each of these episodes had unconnected a plots, b plots and c plots.

THAT IS NOT A SOLUTION

Holy shit that is not a solution.

Not to mention the overarching plot of the season, in which we had no fucking clue what was happening until the final episodes where everything became a speedrun to wrap everything up. We literally had no idea what the main plot was until it was ending.

Good god it was bad. It's bad writing!

I know people liked it and good for them. You should like what you like and you don't have to justify it. But for me it was insanity. I'm sorry I actually don't want a season long subplot where Beast Boy is depressed and sleeps all day. I would be cool with it if it had anything to do with the larger story but, surprisingly, spending five minutes watching Beast Boy sleep every episode didn't make for compelling storytelling.

I'm still not over how we didn't even know who the main villain was until the end of the season. And then all of a sudden he does a villain monologue to tell everyone his evil plan and his motives. Super cool actually. I love it when I have no idea what the stakes are for the majority of a show. It's incredibly good storytelling when you leave the audience in the dark about a major player in the plot for all of the plot. And then doing an info dump evil monologue in the final episodes to rush through the explanation??? Fucking fantastic and not a sign of terrible pacing at all.

I'm just so frustrated. The show isn't about being a show anymore. The show is an entire cinematic universe shoved into 20 something episodes. It's desperate to tell every single story at once, audience, pacing and good writing be damned.

I'm so tired of the constant praising of Greg. His whole 'i don't write endings because life doesn't have endings' and 'i don't write cliffhangers, I just leave things open ended' thing is pretentious bullshit. I'm tired of pretending it's not. A good story has an ending. Stories are not life! Some of the best shows I've ever watched had planned endings. And oh my god. The cliffhanger thing... that's just semantics my guy. Greg you write cliffhangers. You can insist they aren't but I'm going to call a spade a spade.

It's also.... I'm fine with explaining things, in fact I love it because it's an excuse to talk about the stuff I love, and I have a fairly decent knowledge of comic book lore. So, I could not only understand what was happening in the show but I was also super enthusiastic about explaining it to people. But hey Greg? Hey buddy? If 90% of your audience doesn't know what the fuck is going on and needs to be familiar with super specific obscure comic characters from the 70's then you might have a problem.

I think I realized halfway through s4 that the most enjoyment I got from an episode was when an obscure comic character would cameo in it. But then I realized that a) they generally weren't explained at all and b) 50% of the time they weren't just hanging out in the background and they were vital to the plot. So to understand who the fuck they were and what the fuck was happening you had to be familiar with... well all of DC comics actually.

Anyway this rant is getting long and unhinged and I don't think there's a point so I'm going to cut myself off even though I have so much more to say on the topic. I think my general point is just that I didn't enjoy watching the later seasons and it's chill if you did and we should all respect each other's opinions ✌️

[arceus-insanity]

Endeavor Deserves No Sympathy!

I don't understand how anyone can think Endeavor was ever a good dad. It also always comes off as incredibly victim blamie, especially towards Touya, and often Shoto too.

He literally only got married and had kids to use them. He never gave a shit about their well being, never even thought about it until he had the one thing he cared about and was still miserable. I've already gone over the math proving he gave up on achieving his dream himself at 21 at the absolute latest. (https://www.tumblr.com/arceus-insanity/763259515356512256/i-liked-endeavors-character-when-he-was?source=share)

And basic math will once again be used to prove just how little this waste of flesh actually tries.

This time the focus is on how quickly he abandoned Touya and immediately went to emotional abuse via neglect & literally replacing him, and once again risking that more children be born with self-destructive quirks.

For context we only see Endeavor doing anything with his kids that's not him literally walking through and ignoring them in two circumstances. Once when Fuyumi's a newborn and Touya is attempting to crawl (not walk) over to her. And training. Those are the only times he tries to spend with any of them, even after he starts his 'atonement'

Now comparing Touya in the scene of them training and himself as a toddler and all the child imagery this series loves to use instead of actually saving imperfect victims, Touya is at least 3 (probably closer to 4) when he's taken to the doctor and they are informed of his condition

Natsuo is 4 and a half years younger than him.

We know for a fact Natsuo (& Shoto) was conceived after they got the news, not willingly either. Pregnancy takes 40 weeks average, so Touya would still be 3 when Natsuo was conceived. So once again it took this 'man' less than a year to give up and have another child he hoped to use as a tool, and was explicitly making to hurt his existing son. And as I have said plenty of times before, risking that the new kids could be born with the same disorder, I hate how convenient it is that Shoto gets near zero negative quirk side effects.

Want to know what we never see, Endeavor doing something else with Touya and Touya demanding training, it's always him walking past/ away from Touya. Considering all of the shit they've pulled to soften Endeavor's abuse both in the manga and even more so in the anime, they wouldn't skip something like this. It's not hard to tell that Touya's 'obsession with training' is really about spending time with his dad, you know like a human child that literally needs love, proven by numerous studies and research in the real world.

He throws all parenting responsibilities onto Rei, adds more children to that load, and when Touya suffers for it (like everyone else) he does nothing, doesn't even hire a nanny

Another are you kidding me take I've seen is that somehow Touya's quirk issues are worse than Midoriya's and Yuga's. Touya managed to train his quirk to produce blue fire at 13 with zero equipment and less than no help, and only lost control of it, because of the mental abuse Endeavor had inflicted on him leading him to a mental breakdown. And/ or the theory I've only seen once of AFO using his ability to force quirk activation (seen with a passed out chapter 90 during his first confrontation with All Might)

Midoriya was breaking his bones all the way into the Shie Hassaikai arc and was only able to fight because Eri and was breaking support equipment in the following arc as well. Yuga had a support belt all the way back in the entrance exam and was still struggling with that.

Speaking of Yuga let's compare parental effort here, because as much as it backfired Yuga's parents tried a whole lot more. For starters they nearly bankrupted themselves to get him a quirk, so he could feel equal. All For One is a mythic man prior to his arrest, and those who knew of him were shown to be serious long-term villain groups, so they had gone to quite a bit of effort to find that he existed to begin with. They also got him support gear (the navel belt thing) as a kid to help him with said quirk, he literally had it in the entrance exam. Endeavor never looked into that, Endeavor is not only rich too but he's a top hero he would have direct access to support equipment companies that would jump at the opportunity and it never even occurred to him.

Endeavor's name is an irony as endeavour means to try hard to do or achieve something. He never tries hard he gives up incredibly quickly the second there's any road block, but instead of moving on he makes everyone suffer for it. He's a toxic pageant mom who'd rather force their child into a toxic world and a role they don't want than work on himself

And what finally makes him change? Getting exactly what he wanted and still being miserable, and he still expects through his actions his family to cater to him.

Not his son getting a major disability due to his actions, no, he decided to double down, mentally abusing and neglecting the son he supposedly loves, raping his wife who didn't want more kids or participate in this abuse, and again risking that Natsuo & later Shoto might have that same issue. Not when his wife breaks down and permanently scars his precious masterpiece, who proceeds to rightfully blame him, and he just thinks of it as a tantrum despite it lasting a fucking decade. Not when his eldest literally dies as the result of his selfishness. Not literally during any part of this entire process!

Dabi is 23 when Endeavor finally starts to 'try' to be better, that means that for at least 24 years he has only been caring about his fucking precious number one spot in a popularity contest that he couldn't even bother to try to be likeable for, this wasn't one bad decision, this was him constantly choosing to be so insanely selfish that he found ways that shouldn't even be possible for over two decades. And it was all him.

[necroworldbanshee]

After Tumblr put yet another post about the who’s-mdzs-narrator discourse on my dashboard (and a very insulting one at that) I’m starting to wonder… does English storytelling work in a different way from how it works in my language? Or it’s just that nobody here can tell narrator from pov?

This is going to be long.

[Disclaimer: since I'm not from an English-speaking country, I never actually studied storytelling in English, so I might not knows the correct English term for everything.]

In both my first and my second language, we have:

Narrator = the one that narrates the story. It can be internal (a character narrates) or external.

Focus = the point of view from which the story is narrated. It can be internal (one or more characters pov), external (objective narration) or zero (the narrator knows* everthing = omniscient narrator).

*knowing everything =/= telling everything

Sometimes you have an external narrator with an internal focus, but that doesn’t make the character which pov we're seeing the narrator.

Internal focus might also change during the narration. Different sections (chapters, paragraphs, sentences...) of the story might use different povs.

If there’s a single pov for the whole story, that’s called fixed internal focus. If two or more povs alternate, it’s called variable internal focus. If the story has two or more parallel povs, that’s a multiple internal focus.

And you don’t need to take writing/reading classes or be an author to know this. It is literally in my 7 y/o nephew's summer homeworks.

Anyway, in mdzs we have:

Narrator speak in third person = external narrator. Easy.

Narrator knows everything that happened, in every moment and in every place, knows characters' thoughts and feelings = zero focus / omniscient narrator. Still... easy? At least, I think that's easy.

I think what confuses people here is that we get mostly Wei Wuxian's thoughts and feelings, but... that's because this is Wei Wuxian's story, you know? It doesn't mean the narrator doesn't have access to other characters thoughts/feelings. It's just that (most of the time) they're not important for Wei Wuxian's story.

Also, not every omniscient narrator has to tell us everything from the begging. That's actually a quite old-fashioned type of narration.

In any case, it's not like we don't get other characters' povs ever.

For exemple:

Jiang Cheng seethed. He very much hadn’t expected this outing to be so wretched. Originally, he had come to help Jin Ling, who would turn fifteen this year and thus should be embarking on his career, competing with other juniors for experience and reputation. Jiang Cheng had carefully sifted through the options before choosing Dafan Mountain as their hunting grounds, and then covered the area with nets to scare off cultivators from other clans. Because the nets would make navigation very difficult, they would have no option but to leave, thus eliminating the competition and leaving the prey to Jin Ling. Though four hundred spirit-binding nets cost an exorbitant price, it wasn’t much to the Yunmeng Jiang Clan. The actual destruction of the nets was a small issue—the big issue was the loss of face. The fact that Lan Wangji had done such a thing made bitter resentment bleed from his heart and circulate up towards his head—the higher it got, the more resentful he became. He narrowed his eyes, and unconsciously or not, began stroking the ring around his right index finger with his left hand.

[from "Pride II", Fanyiyi's tl]

Here we have Jiang Cheng’s pov. The narrator tells us Jiang Cheng's previous actions, his thoughts and his feelings. This couldn't happen if the narrator was Wei Wuxian.

And then again:

“Sizhui, you’re the most mature of everyone. Take care of them. Do you think you’re up to it?” Lan Sizhui nodded. “Don’t be afraid,” Wei Wuxian said again. “I’m not afraid,” he replied. “Truly?” “Truly.” Lan Sizhui even smiled. “Senior Mo, you and Hanguang Jun are really similar.” “Similar?” Wei Wuxian said with surprise. “How are we similar?” He and Lan Wangji were clearly as different as the heavens and the Earth. But Lan Sizhui just smiled, said nothing, and led the remaining people outside. I don’t know either, he thought silently. But you two just feel similar. It feels as though as long as one of you two seniors is present, I don’t need to be scared of anything.

[from "Flora V", Fanyiyi's tl]

Here we can see both Wei Wuxian's and Lan Sizhui's thoughts. A very big and clear sign of omniscient narrator.

Another thing that people in this fandom don't get the way I expect them to is the difference between an omniscient narrator and an external narrator with variable or multiple internal focus. This might be tricky I guess, but mdzs doesn't have an alternation of povs, nor parallel povs. So, still omniscient narrator.

And, before someone says "but that's just because mdzs switches between fixed internal (from Wei Wuxian’s pov) and zero focus": fixed means fixed. If it changes every other sentence to add informations the character doesn’t know, it’s by definition omniscient! Omniscient narration doesn’t have limitations. It already includes every character pov and much more. You don’t need anything else!

So, mdzs has an external narrator with zero focus (= omniscient narrator) that narrates Wei Wuxian's story and sometimes withholds informations for plot reasons. And I don't think that makes it an unreliable narrator**. That's just standard narration to me.

Now, given my non-existent knowledge about English literature, what I’d like to know is: do these things work differently in English? Or people on Tumblr should just open a book from time to time?

Not that it really matters, since mdzs isn’t an English novel. What we should actually wonder is how Chinese storytelling works.

** Unreliable narration should be about the narrator's credibility, not about how many informations it gives you and if they're presented plainly/in a transparent way or not. About this, I've once read a really good article about how nowadays it's the reader that has become unreliable, in the sense that the reader doesn't even try to understand the story or make deductions anymore.

[niobiumao3]

So, here's what X-Men 97 did that TBB did not, for its main character death. Obviously, huge X-Men 97 and TBB spoilers.

The death happens at a pivotal moment story wise, but is NOT immediately abandoned for other plot.

Remy (Gambit) dies towards the end of an episode which is in and of itself a real jaw-dropper, much like Plan 99. Out of nowhere a safe haven for mutants is being glassed, and Remy sacrifices himself to put a stop to it, because he's a little crazy but also well aware of what he's capable of and knows it might be their only chance to save SOME of these people who are his fellow mutants. The episode ends with his lover, Rogue--who's finally decided she agrees with Remy on things and is going to choose him and the X-Men over an alternative--holding his lifeless body in her arms.

Tech, on the other hand, dies 1/3 into an episode and vanishes from sight. Our POV character here, Omega, is injured and doesn't witness most of the ensuing escape, so when she wakes up, she demands they go back for him, crying, and we see Wrecker cry and Hunter explain he didn't make it.

...and then the episode keeps going. They're betrayed. A villain tosses Tech's broken goggles at Hunter and threatens them. Omega is captured, the remaining members of the Batch barely escape. For almost twenty minutes of runtime AFTER Tech dies, the story keeps going and has NOTHING to do with him dying (save the dig about the goggles). His death gets maybe, at most, 2 entire minutes of focus between Omega and Wrecker's reactions, Hunter's when Hemlock gives him the goggles, and Echo looking at the empty pilot's chair. That's it; for the bulk of the episode Tech's death has next to ZERO involvement in the story. It's not the climax. it's just A Thing Which Happened, and that massively devalues it from a narrative viewpoint. No one stops for more than a single breath to react to it, thus we as the audience don't.

(If anyone is winding up with 'that's because they can't due to the everything', this is why it's NOT GOOD WRITING. If you want the death to matter to your viewers/audience then you need to MAKE the time for it in your story, somehow. This isn't real life, you DO in fact control the horizontal and the vertical when making your plot.)

In X-Men 97, the death is the immediate focus of the next episode and a character's entire arc of the ensuing episodes. In TBB, it's a footnote.

In the following X-Men 97 episode, Remy has a funeral which Rogue doesn't attend, not because she doesn't care but because she's off raging against the machines, trying to find those responsible and kill them. There's a gorgeous eulogy for Remy, some thinking back on who he was and what he meant to them, a friend angry at Rogue for not being with them. It's so good. We cut to Rogue, absolutely furious with grief and looking to take it out on, well, everyone. She winds up putting herself into a coma as a result.

Literally nothing like this happens for Tech. Nothing close. There's a several month timeskip in S3 eps 1-3 which negates any immediate mourning or revelations to people who wouldn't know (Crosshair, Phee, Shep and Lyana), and we see NONE of Wrecker, Hunter, OR Echo's processing. Just what we saw in Plan 99, which again, is almost nothing. For a main character who as of S2 had the third most screen time of any character.

In X-Men 97, Remy keeps coming up as someone to remind them of what they're fighting for, what he would want for them. Tech is a skillset and a pair of goggles.

Remy is the first thing on Rogue's mind when she wakes up from her coma. She's instantly grieving him all over again, and mentions him numerous times throughout the remaining episodes as someone who wouldn't want this for them, or would have hoped for that. He's a guide for her even though he's gone. The rest of the characters reflect on him off and on--not his skills or abilities, but who he was, his nature. Remy's death completely changes Rogue's behaviors, almost 180 degrees, as well.

Tech is mentioned for what he could do, not what he liked or didn't like, how he felt about things, save for once: when Phee reveals he told her all about Crosshair. This is the only time someone talks about him like people talk about Remy in X-Men 97, and it happens twelve episodes after he died.

No one's actual narrative course changes trajectory in the case of Tech's death either. No one is shown making different decisions based on his loss (just the lack of his skills), no one is bringing him up as a rallying call for themselves, nothing. He is excised from the show in terms of his emotional, character impact. The loss is of someone who can decrypt things or knows stuff, not of a beloved sibling.

Remy's presence remains throughout the rest of X-Men 97, despite him dying in episode 5 of 10. Tech vanishes and becomes an occasional reason they have to do something the hard way and a background prop.

If you want to know how to actually write a main character death and have it MATTER and make it good story telling, watch X-Men 97.

[alicent-vi-britannia]

12 characters, 12 story arcs, 1 theme

A few days ago, I tried to synthesize in a single word the narrative arcs of the Code Geass characters (at least, the ones I know they have) with the intention of extracting the theme of each one. I will briefly explain my conclusions. Or, put another way, what each theme means for each character. I'll leave Lelouch for last because he's the main character and his theme is supposed to be that of the series. We go from bottom to top.

Self-fidelity / Milly: "the girl who learned to be in touch with her own desires and chose to be true to herself to bring out her best version." I think the phrase explains it perfectly. Milly found happiness and she became more mature once she decided to stop serving her family's wishes and focus on herself and what she wanted to be and do.

Confidence / Ohgi: "the man who learned to trust himself to become the leader his organization and his country needed." Ohgi's arc is inspiring, if you take off your toxic fandom glasses and take his journey seriously. It is true that he made certain mistakes, but he always thought of the welfare of his people and his comrades. That was his main motivation and what led him to overcome his personal insecurities. I was going to make a comparison, but you guys won't like it and you'll attack me.

Happiness / Euphemia: "the girl who dreamed of a world in which all people were happy." This is the only arc that was cut short and did not come to fruition for reasons that I don't need to detail. Euphemia was a selfless princess without a purpose until she met her brother again and wanted to restore happiness to him, Nunnally and the rest of the Japanese.

Truth / Nunnally: "the girl who had to discover the truth to grow up to become the empress who could rebuild a new Britannia." She is literally blind and cannot see the world as it is, but as it should be (hence her idealism). She also can't see through her brother's and her friend's lies, until her determination and her circumstances push her to do so. It doesn't seem strange to me that the breaking of the seal coincides with the moment in which she learns the truth and decides to face it.

Justice / Nina: "the girl who had to seek justice for the murder of her beloved and her own acts and thus be a better person." Nina's arc is a revenge arc. Obviously. But the anime gives it a negative treatment, as Nina only gets worse with each new chapter. It's not until she understands all the destruction that her revenge can cause (in a literal sense) that she stops and reconsiders. The Zero Requiem gives Nina the opportunity to redeem herself and give justice to her beloved since the culprit pays for her crime. It's at this point that she begins to heal.

Honor / Jeremiah: "the man who managed to win back his honor after offering his loyalty to his enemy." The entire arc of Jeremiah revolved around honor. He believed that he had failed his empress and his prince, made a fool of himself on a live broadcast, was demoted and fell to the bottom. From there, he only lived to seek revenge. But then again, it wasn't the way. He only redeemed himself by putting himself at the service of a lord worthy of his loyalty: his enemy.

Humanity / Rolo: "the murder weapon that regained humanity from him through love." Another phrase that explains itself. Rolo had been used and manipulated his entire life as a tool. But when he created good memories and a sincere bond with Lelouch, he started to make decisions, think and feel like a human being.

Forgiveness / Shirley: "the girl who learned to forgive thanks to love." We find another arc of revenge. Like Nina, Jeremiah, Suzaku, and Lelouch, Shirley lost someone important to her, was overcome with grief and rage, and was tempted by revenge until she discovered that the killer was the man she loved. In the end, her noble feelings prevail and her love gives her the strength she needs to forgive.

Freedom / Kallen: "the girl who embraced her freedom became a hero who fought to liberate her country and the world." This is going to sound strange, but I barely realized that Kallen is who she is because she is free due to a fanfic that featured an anti-Kallen who was in many ways trapped. Kallen is a free spirit and performs as an autonomous individual. She chooses the friends she wants (be it Britannian or Japanese), she loves the man she wants, she champions the cause she wants, she has the value system she wants. However, there can be no freedom without equality, and Kallen and her people live in a society that promotes inequality. The freedom of some (the Britannians) cannot coerce that of others (the Japanese and even half-blood like her). So Kallen works to change the world to a place where everyone has full freedom. That's her motivation to grow up and become the hero her people and the world need.

Love / CC: "the girl who only until she received love from others was able to love herself." CC's arc ties directly to Lelouch's because they both express a nihilistic philosophy. In short, CC wishes to end herself and the world (through the Ragnarök Connection) because she considers her immortal existence to be meaningless and thus unimportant. Worse still, an immortal life implies eternal pain. Something she can't live with. But she wants to be loved, because all human beings cannot live without love. It is in the nature of the human being to give and receive love. Therefore, love will always prevail in the darkest moments. So, when Lelouch offers his affection to CC, she becomes more human and renews her will to live (see how her arc connects to Rolo's arc). Let's say that she transitions from a negative nihilism to an agathonism (that philosophy that it proposes that you have to enjoy life and help to live a pleasant life).

Peace / Suzaku: "the boy who was able to find peace of mind by creating a peaceful world." Without going any further, the lever that moves Suzaku throughout the series is "guilt". Suzaku feels guilty that he killed his father, he feels guilty that the Japanese are oppressed by the Britannians, he feels guilty that he failed Euphemia in his duty as a knight, he feels guilty that he can't protect everyone… Guilt, guilt, guilt. What is the opposite of guilt? We may all think of different things, but I'm leaving for peace because Suzaku didn't make peace with himself until he got the punishment from him and when did that happen? When he made sure to create a new world with Lelouch with the Zero Requiem, in which all his loved ones could live. No wars, no racism, no terrorism, no hate. In peace.

Will / Lelouch: "the boy who twisted the will of others found the value of the will of the human being and began to dream of tomorrow." It's very ironic. Lelouch's Geass is described as the power capable of bending the wills of others to the mercy of his own. As he progresses on his journey and interacts with other characters, he realizes that human beings actively seek happiness and persist despite adversity. They doesn't give up when they falls, but gets up and continues to fight. That is what it is to be human. Arthur Schopenhauer, in fact, said that the will was the essence of the human being. But I think that the approach of Lelouch and Code Geass goes more for nihilism in its most positive aspect. The one who proposes the destruction of everything to establish new values that allow the übermensch to live in freedom. "Emperor Charles searched for the past, you search for the present. But I search for the future. […]. Because no matter how much time passes, people will continue to search for happiness. People who struggle with sadness, those who seek the future. How everyone keeps wishing for happiness. Human nature is the reason I chose Geass and wearing a mask." This is the key to human survival. This is the meaning of life and what this series wants to teach you.

If you start to examine each of the arcs, you will see that they are all connected in one way or another (after all, they are concepts that appeal to the human condition). And, if you reflect carefully, you'll realize that the arcs of our two main heroes (Lelouch and Suzaku) correlate with the extremist views of Charles and Schneizel respectively (this was something I was planning to address in a discussion on CG antagonistic figures).

I hope you have learned something or found something interesting in this post. If you liked it, don't forget to support me with a comment and/or a reaction. I would really appreciate it as that will help the algorithm.

PS: Don't ask me to come up with an exhaustive analysis of the philosophies raised in this series. Although it may not seem like it, I have a hard time handling philosophy (I don't mind going overboard like I did here).

[okkos-ferrum]

Unorganized helluva boss apology tour rant cuz I think I'm going crazy

Disclaimer, cuz I know helluva fans can get defensive: A lot of this is probably my subjective opinion. I'll state my tldr as my actual objective piece of criticism, but otherwise my gripes throughout this could be based on my tastes and expectations. I genuinely don't want to take away anyone's enjoyment of this show nor hate on anyone involved, so if u just want to enjoy helluva, totally skip this :]

I think I'll actually have to give my hot take here and criticize this episode, because everyone has given way too much praise for an episode I think - in the long run - hurts the show

Im not gonna even bother organizing my thoughts I'm just gonna rant, but to start, i think the decision to start the ep right after full moon chronologically wasn't the best move. The full moon episode cliffhanger was an impactful scene and a dramatic way to start the rift between stolas and blitzo. It's where the dam of two-ish seasons finally breaks, where to me, stolas and blitzo have already said everything needed to be said, at least at the emotional maturity they currently are at. Any changes in said conversation about their relationship would require growth from both separately in order to foster a healthy discussion.

So to undercut that tension by IMMIEDTLY having blitzo somehow wiggle his way back into stolas's private property to have both double down on their stance diminishes the weight new moon's finale had. The conversation, while it does add further clarity, feels repetitive and emotionally taxing to watch, because the show has literally zero scenes of either of them reflecting on the previous night. So it's just them starting up the same fight with the same talking points we already know.

Yeah, maybe it is in character for blitzo to demand a conversation after new moon, but it shouldn't have been the path the show took. It should've allowed the story to stew in the feelings brought out in new moon, both in a narrative and meta sense by taking a break from stolatiz.

Cuz honestly I'm a bit drained of it atm. The show sells itself on the premise of blitzo being a "boss" (a hell of a bos-) and him working with imp. But all of s2 has had this obsession with stolatiz ever since the popularity of ozzie's (for good reason that episode was amazing and one of my personal favs still).

Just abt half the eps in s2 carry an emotional weight around the stolitz relationship. (where s1 has stolitz is make out sessions and the occasional threat to their life, s2 takes it up to actual life or death situations and full backstories) . This increased tension and focus draws away from the intial episodic format to become a more serialized (and imo) melodrama abt the status of the stolitz relationship. Rather than concern itself over any of the imp characters and their emotions, helluva has made all of its emotional beats and stakes throughtout the whole season relate to stoltiz in some way (or it's parallel with fizz and Ozzie in ep 7).

To return back to the ep, I also take issue with its writing of verosika. I will admit that this could be subjective, as my partner, who loves verosika and was worried abt her writing going into the ep, enjoyed how the ep integrated her. But idk, I think it is so lame that an ep like full moon, which is marketed to be abt stolitz, is fine wasting its time writing the cherubs for 90% of the episode, while can't bother making verosika a larger character in her own ep.

Like she's a SINGER, but no she's back up for STOLAS'S SONG this ep. And it's not stolas's hasn't had the chance to sing love ballads before, he's got plenty. But no, the host of the party can't even be a duet to stolas, she's gotta be back up. Like it couldve been a way stronger connection between these two if they sang a duet, rather than the show AGAIN prioritizing verbalizing stolas's emotions again.

We get a full flashback to blitzo's relationship with both fizz and stolas, but nothing on his other significant relationship??? Just a line or two of how it went down and that's it??

Side tangent: It gets on my nerves how so many people are realizing now that verosika is not a bad person. Like it's clear from even in her intro ep in s1 ep 3 she's angry rightfully for how blitzo screwed her over. But now that she actually is being nice and forgiving to stolas and blitzo respectively, now she has earned the fandom's respect??? Like the amt of comments of "Oh wow, verosika isn't a villain, she's an anatognist" drives me insane

Like to me, this ep should've stepped away from stolas directly, and focus on blitzo and verosika. Have blitzo go back to ignoring his feelings by jumping back head first into business, now with the asmodeous crystal. Then bump into verosika somehow. However it may happen, verosika and blitzo, either angrily or calmly, reflect on their own past relationship at the end, which might have blitzo making a realization of how he is repeating his past mistakes. Use the episodic format to slowly allow blitzo to mature so the next time he meets stolas, he won't just double down like he did in the beginning of the ep.

I think, personally, the decision to have verosika host the anti blitzo party diminishes her as a character. It chooses to again define her by how blitzo hurt her, rather than touching on the other underdeveloped parts of her character. She has shown to be very petty yes, but to go through all this effort seems too much, since she is a pop star and should have better things to do.

Maybe explore how she, a succubus, who is meant to have primarily sexual relationships, goes abt on her day to day as a celebrity who went to rehab. Or her relationship with maybe knowing barbie. Or the other ways to explore the set ups for her in ep 3. But no, she plays second fiddle to her second focus ep for the stoltiz drama. But yeah sure, let's have full moon be abt the cherubs.

On a final and likely my most pettiest point, this ep made me cringe a lot. I'm sorry, this is very subjective of me, but I need to say it. So much of this ep felt like fanfic. Always hammering in how "he's a prince and you're an imp" kind of deal. Stolas getting overly drunk after taking a swig of one drink to have blitzo handle him being drunk. The million puppy dog eyes by blitzo, like it felt too pitying. The rushed pacing felt like a result of this indulgent kind of writing, where it priotizes creating the cute shipping scenes before thinking about the actual plot and its effect later on. Again, just my taste tho

Alright I think I ranted enough but ...

Tl;dr: Apology tour messes up the pacing and focus of the show by continously centering itself around the stolitz drama rather than allowing time to reflect by themselves

[mayabunny23]

Cringe ass Headcanons about the Don't Starve Together Gang's gender and sexuality

Wilson - Aroace He cares more about science and being a smart ass than he does romance or sex.

Willow - Lesbian She seems like the type of girl that scares men away on purpose... Gremlin woman.

Wolfgang - Aroace He would rather settle down with a friend than a lover. The man also sees most of the people in the group as friends.

Wendy - Aroace She is a kid but even if she was an adult, her grief for her sister is stronger than any love for someone (be is romantic or what not)

WX-78 - Non-binary & Aroace They are canonically non-binary so the obvious is obvious. They don't feel romantic feelings but they can feel many other forms of love... they are not truly emotionless.

Wickerbottom - Asexual Biromantic She wouldn't mind a partner to help her at her library but she might not go with any of the people here... except maybe Wanda.

Woodie - Pansexual More like axe-sexual... Wait wouldn't that make every ship with him a polycule? He loves Lucy but if he was to love someone that wasn't a talking axe, he wouldn't care what gender they are.

Wes - Demiboy & Asexual Wes feels like the type to be referred to with he / them... Be it because of the character he plays or because that's what they refers to themself as.

Maxwell - Bisexual "I miss my wife, Wilson... I miss her a lot... I'll be back." he swings both ways but uh... who wants this pathetic man outside of Charlie?

Wigfrid - Demigirl & Bisexual This queen of theater (Sorry Charlie) uses she / them much the same way Wes does... that and she is just cool like that. Oh and she likes people.

Webber - Demiboy & Aroace His reasoning for being demiboy is because he is literally two beings and the spider is a they / it... also same thing as Wendy, his fixation on bugs and critters is stronger than dumb romantic love. (If he was like an adult)

Winona - Butch [Lesbian] Obvious thing is obvious, she has a girlfriend back on Earth that thinks she's dead. Also like look at her, she is straight up very butch leaning.

Warly - Gay The other side of the spectrum, Warly is probably gay... Totally not because Waokevale and another person influenced me with Warly x Woodie...

Wortox - Aroace Mortal concepts as "love" and "sex" doesn't interest this imp, he is only after chaos and fun.... Also Wortox gives zero DAMNs what pronouns you use on Wortox.

Wormwood - Non-Binary & Aroace The lad doesn't know or really feel that type of stuff [And it's not because he is a "kid", he is an adult.], Wormwood only uses he / him pronouns on himself because they sound nice but he doesn't mind any pronouns really.

Wurt - Aroace Wurt is a kid and she's more focus on creating a merm kingdom and learning to really care.

Walter - Aroace Kid doesn't care about romance but probably had a crush at some point.

Wanda - Asexual Lesbian Wanda doesn't have time to have sex with your mother, she is trying not to turn into dust.

Wonkey - Literally not even a real character.

If you scrolled down this far or read this, thanks! this is probably hell to read for people with like... reading issues (I have some form of it, don't worry)

I might do the DLC characters from Don't Starve next but uh... maybe never, just need to remember they exist.

ALSO!!!!!!! If none of the headcanons suit you then be happy knowing they are HEADcanons and are not real...

ALSO Also... sorry for no art bros, been doodling ocs shit for discord server and no one would be interested in that.

[nyaboshi]

❤️‍🩹,😎,🥰

Ooo

❤️‍🩹 Oh my gosh, that is 100% The World Ends With You. God used that game to shape my understanding of the world, I am so sure of it. That game truly helped me to come out of the shell I had locked myself into! There are so many morals in that game that just.. spoke so my to my 13-year-old self. It's the #1 reason why it will always and forever be my favorite game! I don't know if this counts toward a fandom in particular that helped me, but I'm saying it does.

😎 My favorite part is always the friends I make. I've made so many friends just because I've been part of a fandom, and I think that's beautiful. I met these people because we have one thing in common, but now I'm talking to some of them almost daily and consider them some of my closest friends!

🥰 GRAH RAAAAA APBJEOAOEWJA

THESE TWO!! Neku Sakuraba and Shiki Misaki from The World Ends With You. These two– Oh GOSH these two. They have my heart, for real man. They're just so perfect for one another, and like– They both went through so much character development BECAUSE of each other, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT FORMING RELATIONSHIPS IS SUPPOSED TO DO! And I'm not just talking about romantic relationships! This game is so good because the main focus is about forming relationships with people so that you clash with them and ricochet to become a better person because of the relationships you formed and GRAAHHHHH

Anyways– Neku and Shiki are a perfect example of this particular moral of the game because they build off of each other's personality traits and become SUCH better people! At the start of the game, Neku is – for lack of a better, family-friendly descriptor – a complete and total douchebag. He's super self centered and outright rude with how he treats other people. Wants nothing to do with them and just wants to shut them all out. But underneath it all, he's actually just a boy who's very much hurting from trauma (they imply that in the past he very abruptly lost his best friend and he hasn't gotten over it) and is using his walls as a defense mechanism. On the other hand, Shiki is super cheery and peppy (at first) and tends to bend over backwards for people. But when you get past all of that, she's an incredibly insecure girl who has almost zero confidence in herself. Put them together and what do you get? They hate each other. :D Or, to put it more accurately, their surface personalities hate each other. But once they start to get to know each other a little more, they realize, "Oh hey. They're actually not that bad..." Neku helps Shiki with her confidence via administering some tough love, and Shiki acts as the catalyst that pushes Neku to break down his walls and actually interact and bond with people for a change!

This post by @altorav (my favorite artist to scroll through for NeShiki brainrot, btw) pretty much sums it up. XD Although Neku and Shiki aren't technically canon, they are so heavily implied, man... They have so much chemistry, and there's literally a scene in the game where a guy mistakes them for lovers and they both FREAK. I love them so much.

A close second OTP would be Makoto Naegi and Kyoko Kirigiri from Danganronpa.

But I'll save you from another long ramble about these two, because I have a lot to say about them as well. XD Just know that they are the epitome of Black Cat GF and Golden Retriever BF. :3 And they are also another couple that isn't directly stated to be canon, but is heavily implied AND IT PAINS ME TO NO END, GRAAAAHHHHHH

Thanks for the ask, May! <3

[sp-ud]

Decided against tweeting this cuz i felt like i couldn't explain myself well enough on Twitter so I'm rambling abt it here cuz like

Okay. I'm not one of those people who thinks Adam was like, entirely rewritten/retconned or anything. I think the progression of his character mostly makes sense.

And the things I think went wrong I don't think were rewritten cuz "grrr bumbleby" or anything like that, I think it just... was another product of how so much relating to the Everything surrounding fanus/white fang was handled.

Also it's been ages since I actually watched vol 6 so this is admittedly just from memory

And I feel like the scar is an example of this because like. It feels like a weird thing to reveal that he somehow got the schnee dust company logo burned into his face, while simultaneously showing that his own selfish desires take priority over leading the white fang.

And then like, how this is never relevant again even tho they're literally in atlas later on just is so odd. It screams that this scar was just for shock value and to give some kind of vague blanket reason for why he is willing to literally commit massive acts of terrorism for the sake of the white fang movement.

Its giving wanting to write a villain who is irredeemable but still has understandable reasons for why he did what he did, but with zero thought into the proper execution of it.

And "zero thought into how to properly execute" also really sums up my feelings on how the Everything relating to fanus/white fang was handled.

I do get why it stopped being super relevant after vol 6, we kinda had Literal World Ending things to focus on, but it just was such a focus for the volumes before it that for it to become a detail literally only seen in backgrounds felt weird.

Anyways if anyone has any thoughts they want to add or anything feel free. I know this is kinda a disjointed ramble so

[abrisaber]

I think the reason why Helluva Boss's newest episodes are so awful is because the writers have no idea how to make conflicts.

Every time an antagonist comes back they always exist to only illicit conflict and nothing else.

Crimson represents a life that Moxxie wanted to leave behind. The ending of the episode he debuted in shows that he's quite literally after Moxxie's life. But then he comes back, not in relation to Moxxie, Moxxie's not even in the episode, but instead to bring Striker into the picture. And of course what purpose does Striker serve other than to spew "eat the rich" propaganda that serves no real purpose since we quite literally never see any real examples of prejudice in Hell against Imps aside from Stolas being a creep and a child calling Blitzo an "Imp slur" I guess.

Dhorks and the Cherubs both represent how there are bigger parties involved that are after IMP and how shit is going to hit the fan for them, and with the introduction of Heaven in Hazbin Hotel, a show that CONFIRMED to take place in the same place that Imp has their fucking office, things could get really bad really fast. But yet again their only purpose was to install comic relief conflict into the plot of an episode that absolutely did not need a B-Plot. There will be no connecting ties between Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel despite the fact that it would be more logical if it did, or if, at the very least, they came up with an actual reason for why the shows don't matter to each other that isn't just "copyright." Heaven wants to suppress Demonkind but when Demonkind does something that goes directly against what Heaven is trying to do, i.e drive more human souls into hell with their antics on Earth (a place they were claiming to try to protect), they just don't fucking care. Not even a little bit.

And Stolas, oh boy Stolas. Blitzo needs to realize his actions have consequences right? But oh no it appears Vivziepop has written herself into another fucking circle by having Stolas also be a piece of shit, and everyone in Blitzo's life be a piece of shit, so now there's no one to call Blitzo out anymore!! What's the solution? Just have Stolas be the victim. You know how he manipulated Blitzo into the deal, love bombed him constantly despite Blitzo visibly showing zero interest, and then acted embarrassed when he was actually called out for being a cheating scumbag? Yeah none of that matters. Blitzo hurt his feeeewings because he didn't reciprocate Stolas's borderline harassment and didn't drop his entire life just be play his knight and shining armor. Blitzo having a bunch of bitter exes who hate his guts and want him dead despite the fact that we don't know what he did to them aside from a few comments about Blitzo's absolutely minuscule actions towards a bunch of randos is entirely justifiable because he's mean! Even though literally fucking everybody is mean.

Nothing in this show matters. Not the world building, not the conflicts, nothing. Every single episode exists in it's own individual conflict bubble despite the fact that it claims it's serialized. It claims to have multiple main characters but only two of them have ever gotten any actual noteworthy "development" and the rest are left out to dry in favor of the supporting cast. This show has potential to have so much more interesting and better established stories but it's creators have NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT THEY'RE DOING!!! They don't know how to create conflict, they don't know how to write believable character relationships, they don't know how to develop characters, they don't know how to divide story focus between characters accordingly, they don't know who the main characters are and who the side characters are, and they have absolutely not a motherfucking goddamn SLIVER of a clue WHAT KIND OF SHOW THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE. They. Do. Not. Know.

This rant makes absolutely no sense but I had to get this shit out of my head or I might've exploded and died.

[ginger-grimm]

MY THOUGHTS ON THE 4TH AND FINAL SEASON OF TUA: SPOILERS AHEAD

Sharing just cause I need to get it off my chest. I haven't shared opinions on TV shows in a while because most new stuff is just so uninteresting but I've watched this show since s1 first came out, almost. Opinions will be all over the place, don't feel like ordering them per episode.

Season was too short, everyone is well aware of it, but the storyline was so cluttered that it just didn't hit the same

Character motivation and characterization of everyone was all over the place in general. Why are we wasting a whole episode on a coupling no one was going to like? Why is the family split up for the majority of this final season?

I hate pretty much everyone's ending. Luther should have been given Viktor's storyline with Reggie to have his dilemma come full circle. I enjoyed him having a bit more comedic relief as opposed to his annoying attitude in the earlier seasons but there is so much he could have done besides being comedic fodder with Diego. Like, hello, he had a wife that went missing and I guess he never actually looked for her? Or he did and he gave up and got over it just like that? I wouldn't know since she was mentioned twice and only in a wistful tone as if she died. Put him with Reggie to resolve his daddy issues finally. Literally anything else. Diego spent the season in an unappy marriage with a shitty job, essentially chasing his glory days once again and he died with zero closure with his wife and the mother of his children. Allison's husband left her and she fell back into old patterns with her daughter and never really made up with her family and none of her issues are resolved. Klaus spent the season with a pointless villain who took up way too much screentime. Five took his brother's wife and was entirely out of character this season. Why is he nice guying after Lila when there is an apocalypse around the corner? Ben died having done literally nothing this season. None of his self conciousness was resolved, there was no real depth given to him and his storyline with Jennifer came and went. Viktor spent the entirety of the season with Reggie for some reason when really he should have been reconsiling with his family and mending his relationship with them. Lila died on the outs with her husband and in a weird "relationship" with her brother-in-law and also being entirely out-of-character. It's truly a disservice to everyone in the maincast.

I didn't mind the ending in general, I figured they would have to sacrifice themselves to fix everything they fucked up once and for all. I only question how Claire, Grace, Coco, and Carlos are alive even if they were "saved" by the trainstation. Their parents never existed and therefore they shouldn't either.

Wish they would have explored the trainstation more. It's a cool device but where did it come from and why now?

Gene and Jean were such wasted villains. Again, blaming it on the season being too short and too much focus on unnecessary storylines but the concept was there, they just squandered it.

What was the point of Reggie and Abigail? What is Abigail's real motivation? Is she evil or just ambivilent towards it all? I guess I enjoy that she wanted to fix her mistake but why wouldn't they give these two at least a flashback to show where they came from and how they got here?

The vibes this season in genral were off and I can't totally explain why despite the season being rushed and too short.

I honestly tuned out during the whole Five and Lila thing because, yeah, it was gross and it sucked and it ruined three great characters. I'm honestly moreso just questioning Lila as a mother. I get she was unhappy with Diego, I figured this would happen once they got married and became parents, but she genuinely seemed to love her kids. So when she gets lost in a subway for seven years she should be fighting like hell to get back to her kids instead of fucking her brother-in-law, right? Right?!

My favorite part was honestly the relationship that Klaus had with Claire. It just feels to me like everyone else was so far removed from her for some reason despite most of them being close enough to show up to Grace's birthday party?

The stakes were there but they essentially poofed away by the end of episode five.

I liked the ending to be honest, it was pretty serene and again, I think it makes sense for them to die to save the world, since they are the reason the world keeps ending. It was also nice to see the continuation of characters we saw appear throughout the series (minus Ray and the Sparrows).

Also enjoyed getting to see a young Umbrella Academy one last time.

All in all the season was not good, but I enjoyed getting to see the cast and characters again, even if they weren't entirely themselves. Also the ending wasn't horrible, so that's sometimes. I think it could have been made infinitely better if they had taken more time and if they had maybe tried to get up to ten episodes to mellow everything out and properly end everyone's storylines in a more satisfying way.

[melonteee]

Gotta be real, One Piece has a really big flaw in that there's no real threat to losing... characters never die, even after making a big hoopla about 'if that hits you you'll die!' or what have you. The only deaths to stick were Whitebeard and Ace, but they're the exception that proves the rule at this point. There's no threat or tension to characters losing a battle. This is particularly bad in the Skypia arc, where every time a character was struck down by Eneru, it was treated like death... only for everyone to be 100% okay, zero lasting damage. Or Luffy vs Bellamy in Dressrossa - 'the next hit will kill you' - nope he's totally fine afterwards. While I totally appreciate Oda avoiding needless, gratuitous death, he's swerved way to hard in the other direction and now losses have zero tension. No one ever dies or suffers grievous injuries that can change the story. Something like Zoro losing his eye would actually help this, a loss that leaves actual lasting damage... but nope, it happens totally off screen and is never mentioned or impacts the story. When every loss is treated like a death, but isn't, how are we supposed to 1) know when characters are *actually* killed and not just (handwave) hiding and 2) care about possible loss? It feels like being asked which hand Oda holds an apple in, but he can just change the hand if we guess right and tell us we were wrong. And if every battle wound can just be rested off, why should we care about bad wounds? After big battles, they immediately party when it would be far more impactful to show characters weak and recovering but peaceful in their success or something - again, Skypia is a big offender in this and Wano is bad about it as well.

Sorry, I hope this makes sense. I've just been watching One Piece and I can't bring myself to care during battles. There's no risk! It's one thing to avoid unnecessary character death, it's another to have loss have zero lasting consequences. Even the few that do happen, like Luffy's shortened lifespan or, again, Zoro's eye, just don't really effect the story. We were never going to hang around to see Luffy grow old regardless...

I have no idea what you're talking about because if Luffy loses the world is fucked. Were you not on the edge of your seat for his fight with Crocodile? Or his fight with Enel, trying to ring that golden bell? I guess if you focus on the characters themselves and their injuries, yeah it wouldn't matter, but these fights aren't ever just about who gets the biggest wounds. The tension in each fight and battle relies on everything else happening around them, they rely on what the characters are saying to each other and the events that have taken place for these fights to be happening. I also couldn't care less about how many wounds one gets, I couldn't care if Luffy loses and arm or Zoro loses a leg - the emotional and world impact of these fights is what we're looking at.

Law lost an arm against Doffy, did he sew it back on? Yes, but we're not meant to give a shit about that. What we're meant to care about is how much Doflamingo had scarred him, both mentally AND physically, and how he was finally free with Luffy defeating him. Bellamy didn't die because Luffy didn't want to kill Bellamy - that was VERY purposeful - because Luffy's main target was Doflamingo, and Doffy even laughed at how Luffy 'wasted time' not wanting to kill a 'friend.'

One Piece's fights are not something I look at on a physical level, and I don't think that's what they're meant to be. These fights are the cultivations of every single story point we have seen reaching a climax. These fights rely on the mental state of these characters MUCH more than the physical, with a good example being how Zoro was so fucked up after Kuma beat him, that he rushed in head first in Sabaody due to not wanting to be weak.

Luffy's fight with Doflamingo not only had the entirety of the Dressrosa country on the line, but Law had literally been mentally beaten to hell and back due to Doffy's abusing of him. The conversation Law and Doffy had the whole time was fucking terrifying with how Doffy was manipulating him.

Ace's death wasn't even meant to be a 'threat' of the moment, but the most important part was the follow up of how Luffy was mentally distraught from it. I guess if you see it on a simple fighting level, yeah I can see where you're coming from, but death is not the end all be all of consequences and stakes - especially in One Piece's world. I feel SO MUCH tension with every fight in One Piece due to seeing what all these people have been through, due to knowing what will happen if Luffy DOESN'T win, and whether Luffy comes out of it fully healed or not honestly doesn't matter to me. There are huge wounds in all these fights, they're just not physical ones, and Wano especially is a great example of just how everyone was grieving until Kaido's downfall.

This is why I always say, you need to focus on the dialogue more than ANYTHING during fights, because there is TONS of tension there. At least, tension I felt, and risks I could see, but maybe it's just me idk. I don't tend to care about battle shonen to begin with, so obviously One Piece is doing something right in its battles to make me care lmao

[frosted-plasma]

what’s your thoughts on the Futurama revival

Anon I'm so sorry you're going to be victim to the longest post you will ever see. I hate it I hate it I hate it

HUGE /neg rant incoming (this show is my special interest and has been for YEARS. This will all be rambling)

THEY FUCKING COMPLETELY DISREGARDED "MEANWHILE." It directly contradicts it. "I offered to reset time to the moment before time stopped!" Okay, but you didn't though. The entire tragedy of the ending was that they'd be doomed to relive their lives from the moment they met (s1 e1) on loop. "Want to go around again?" Okay so that line doesn't make sense anymore!!! I had theories upon theories before the season came out and I was beyond disappointed. This show has shown it can do deep thought-out themes, I was fully hoping for them to show them reliving the past again, maybe its their 1,000th time reliving it, maybe Fry or Leela notices for once that something is familiar about it. Hell maybe there's a 1 in a million chance that they DON'T break the button! Free will and all, maybe things aren't 100% the same each run and they get lucky once. This also could have been used to recap old seasons for people who didn't rewatch them

They don't know how much time has passed?? I understand that was an excuse to make it the year 3023, but why would you do that? What's the point??

Things such as the Scary Door reboot don't make sense, not to mention the overuse of "haha it's a reboot!! Get it?? It's a reboot!! We got cancelled!!!" jokes but I'll get to that later. Timeline things just don't make sense anymore because of the time freeze. It's an awful awful awful writing choice. They unfroze time right where it paused, canonically, they show them unfreezing exactly there, it makes zero sense. How is there new technology and new TV shows when no time has passed. I'm ignoring that it's "10 years later" because it isn't, you can't just say that without showing it, it literally isn't

Even the smaller jokes feel very dragged out? Like Bender laughing at Fry setting a goal in episode one. He laughs and Leela smacks him, his head spins around and it's funny, then his body does an extra spin for no reason other than to emphasize that it's a joke? I guess? And then not even a minute later she slaps his hand again and it dramatically flies back and hits Zoidberg. Do you get what I'm saying? It's just too much focus on every single bit

I do like the updated intro! The added details to the city in the background is super super cool!! I love the thought they put into it (Bender hanging out of the ship on the magnet is a bit much considering all of the other references they included, but I'll let it slide. Just doesn't feel necessary to me in the intro)

The animation is rigged now:/ it's bound to happen nowadays, it just feels sad to look at for me (in general, not just with this show) the characters (ESPECIALLY Fry) feel very off model sometimes:(

Fry's hardly in the first episode. Odd writing choice considering he's the main character

Oh my GOD. The Hulu/reboot references. It's EXHAUSTING to watch. The amount of 2023 references they crammed into this season is physically painful, they drag them out for SO LONG

(in the first ep) the non-binary robots joke was funny and the scenes with Calculon and the Robot Devil were the only scenes that felt like old Futurama! Their voice acting was great and it was funny! The rest of the voice acting feels very lackluster and most of the other jokes just didn't get me

Calculon and the Robot Devil were the funniest characters, that's how dumbed down they made Bender, he's not my favorite that season

The plots are just. Bad. I hate to say it I really do. Shut up with the reboot jokes, the covid19 jokes, the only decent one was the bit mining episode because it actually used the idea as a real jumping off point and that episode still wasn't revolutionary. The other half of the episodes are pure callbacks. The one with Amy and Kifs kids was cute because it had a reason to exist! It wasn't a very funny episode but it was cute!! The other ones like the worm parasites in nibblers litter box (OR GOD FORBID THE ONE WHERE THE TIME MACHINE SHOWS UP OUT OF NOWHERE AGAIN WITH NO DRIVER??) make me MAD with how lazy of an excuse they are to cram in a reference without matching the rest of the lore

I'm fully assuming the reboot came from a place of love from the writers and the VAs but personally I didn't think the new season was very funny nor did it add anything new to the series, and it felt very very bland and dumbed down and I didn't even pay attention to the last few episodes because of it (that is saying something coming from me)

I rewatched the first episode for this so this is mainly talking about that one. Tell me if you want me to talk about the others I have so many thoughts this is me summarizing like all hell I hate the plots so much and this is my all time favorite show I'm still going to watch the next season and I still have high hopes for it

[nebulousjoy]

Also also, it super bothers me that the Paldea Squad (Arven, Penny, and Nemona) have ZERO relevance in ScarVio's DLC stories. Especially Arven when it came to the Indigo Disk finale, considering how Terapagos more or less is responsible for his parent's eventual demise. He literally never gets closure in that area.

Instead, the dev team introduced two NPCs we had no prior connection to whatsoever and had one undergo a forced villain arc that was the main focus of both stories because...?? Honestly I don't know why. Kieran's whole execution is still so weird to me.

(I don't hate Kieran or Carmine, but I do think they were given way too big of a spotlight for what their characters accomplished...or lack thereof.)

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

Miami Vice S1E11: Give a Little, Take a Little

Gina and Trudy take focus and Sonny goes to jail for an informant.

Both of the main plots in this episode (Sonny goes to jail because he refuses to give up an anonymous source whose life is in danger & Gina is forced into an unwanted sexual situation with a criminal in order to maintain her cover) are used again in later episodes-- and I'm really not sure if they're better covered here or in those later outings

The opening crawl with GAYETY, yes, good, give us all the gayety

There's at least one Miami Vice episode where the footage of the seedy businesses is actually borrowed from unused Starsky & Hutch footage, meaning it's from 70's LA instead of 80's Miami, and I thought it was this one but can't find any references, so I guess it isn't?

This is great Trudy/Gina episode-- they try on lingerie together, Trudy seems upset and jealous when Gina is late to lunch, they hold hands and get a patented Miami Vice Freeze Frame about it, they hug and are generally very protective of one another. A+ Gayety, ladies.

Sonny "I am Very Mentally Healthy" Crockett swings an axe around at a warehouse worker who is tangentially involved with a drug ring, and then takes him outside and touches him a bunch and asks him if he's gay because he's the type that "guys in prison would really like"

Sonny

Sonny what the fuck is wrong with you

Sonny please stop threatening people with sexual assault in prison and ALSO AXES

I feel like Rico must be watching all this like "oh god he's gone crazy and is going to murder this guy and me"

They go to visit an attorney named Richard and Sonny literally plays the Penis Game with his name. Every time he says Dick it's louder and angrier because Sonny is 12

This is a good low-key early "the rich can use the justice system as a tool to get what they want and you, Vice Squad, as tools of the justice system yourself, cannot prevent that" episode

Tubbs' face when the judge says she thinks Sonny did a good job with his report is so cute. He's like "Yeah! You did! That's my boy who wrote a good report!"

There's a scene where Switek is practicing his (terrible) standup for the rest of the squad, and for no specific reason, Gina and Zito are just holding hands? It's so fucking adorable, like. These people are such good friends! They love each other so much! And all of them are too fucked up to know how to say it!

Sonny: Hey boss, thanks for pulling a bunch of shady favors to get me out of jail! / Castillo: I absolutely did not do that and never will / Sonny: .___. ...oh

Both Trudy and Gina just shoot guys more or less in cold blood here, which will later become Gina's favorite activity and Trudy's second favorite activity. Diversity Win! The cops that are serving as street executioners are women of color.

There is zero interaction between Sonny and Gina in this episode until the very end, where they stare at each other in silence for like a solid minute and a half. I think this is supposed to indicate that Sonny somehow feels guilty other Gina's trauma and that Gina is feeling... shame? Maybe? Because they're in love or something? It's deeply awkward and ineffective, and we can't say the writing and directing staff don't know how to show two characters who care about each other dealing with the fallout of trauma because a) that's like half the show and b) they already had that scene with Gina and Trudy in this same episode and it was much better?

Jail Sonny is like. DJ is just doing Fortune in Men's Eyes again, isn't he. Is that what's wrong with Sonny re: his constant bringing up of prison assault? Past life regression to Smitty?

[walks-the-ages]

Honestly the more I think it, the more I actively dislike across the spider verse.

Way too long and then has zero conclusion

.

Plot all over the place, feels like two of three films cramed into one

.

Too many characters being introduced without time spent on them properly to develop them

.

Why is the opening going out of it's way to induce seizures or migraines or headaches. Literally what other explanation is there for that opening in 2023 other than trying to weed out the epileptics (and literally anyone with any kind of photosensitivity)in your audience in the opening credits???

Like. Yeah, the movie is pretty. But it needs more than to be pretty to actually be a good movie.

The first Spider verse movie worked so well because it was focused on Miles and close to home, down to earth and personal.

Now the second movie comes along and we've got our attention split between Gwen, Miles, and all the rest of the gang and it's just feels really impersonal .

Why focus on Gwen so much when half her things are time skips, and it would have been so much more interesting to see what's going on with her from Mile's limited perspective and keeping the focus on our established main character?

Also I don't know about you guys but this movie should have been half the length that it was. There's no need to stretch it out to two and a half hours and then literally leave off on a completely unsatisfying cliffhanger?

I literally had some kids come through my line at work the other day who described it as "the ending was bad." Despite having been super hyped to see it

Kids under 10 are able to see just how badly this movie ended even when they can't articulate the 'why'.

I was excited to see this movie.

I ended up bored half way through.

I was browsing Tumblr for the last quarter of the film.

Our step dad who was super excited to see it ended up walking out because he was bored and would rather do paperwork than sit through a long drawn out movie where despite all the flashy (literally) animation nothing is really happening.

Also no, Gwen Stacy is never actually said to be canonically trans. She has a"blink and you'll miss it" "protect trans kids" flag in her room and her dad has a "blink and you'll miss it" trans pride pin on his cop uniform.

For all we know her fucking dad could be a trans cop. I literally had to look up a screenshot of "Gwen Stacy dad trans pride flag" to see where the fuck the flag supposedly was because despite looking for it I didn't see it anywhere in the movie and only saw her room poster because I was looking for it.

Hidden Easter eggs is not fucking proper representation in 2023.

Spider verse is a movie about infinite universes worth of Spider People. Is it really so fucking impossible for them to include a explicitly trans Spider Hero as a main character? Is it? Is it?

It's 2023.

I'm tired of franchises and movies putting in queer Easter eggs and letting queer fandom do the advertising/hype work for them rather than have actual explicit representation, there's literally no excuse for it.

Stop worshipping films for queer baiting and ""allegories"" when they're more than capable of giving explicit representation to queer folk.