#but like a huge part of the tragedy of the whole thing is the amount of time jason missed

[navree]

there's a lot of reasons why that titans show wanting to do batfam specific arcs, especially death in the family/under the red hood, flopped so hard each time, but one of the biggest is that they basically brought jason back after, like, a fucking month and it basically negates the entire thing

[pastafossa]

Pasta! Pasta! Pasta! I think you mentioned that you were currently reading through Daredevil comics. Is there any you recommend as a must read?

I DID! I've gone through a decent amount of runs now, working my way through the Big Rec'd arcs, and it is wild to see all these bits and pieces that I recognize as contributing to the show that really got my love for Matt started, there's some really good shit here.

I'd say Frank Miller's classic The Man Without Fear, and Born Again runs are the biggest Must Read! Having read through some of the arcs that came out before Miller's runs, I get now why people say Miller changed the game with Daredevil. These runs are foundational to all of our modern depictions of Matt, and a huge part of Daredevil's history and development. Miller's arcs aren't necessarily my favorites in terms of pure enjoyment, but they're top of the list because you just get so much of who modern Matt and Daredevil is, distilled down into its purest form.

The Brian Michael Bendis + Alex Maleev run is so gut-wrenching (and somewhat heartbreaking, but what else is new with Matt) in a stunning way, and fleshes out the world around Matt so gd well. The tonal darkness Netflix pulled a lot of its vibe from is on full display, and I loved the importance of characters like Ben Urich. I can see how this run inspired writers that came after, this was another foundational run for Matt. (I'd continue with Brubaker's run immediately after this since it continues the story!)

I know Matt's whole thing is depression, but I feel like Mark Waid's run was a really solid amalgamation of Matt's lighter tone earlier on and the more serious vibe he gets later. This is both a fun read and a solid one, allowing us to kind of see a bit more of what Matt's like when his life's not spiraling from tragedy to tragedy even if he's still taking things seriously when necessary. And damn was this a breath of fresh air. It's on my Must Read list because what's the point of following Matt if we never get to see him happy? This might be my personal enjoyment favorite.

Kevin Smith's Guardian Devil run, not necessarily because I think it's the best but because we really dig into Matt's catholicism here in a way that ends up influencing a lot of what comes later. Must Read for this take alone, since Matt's faith has become a big part of who he is as a character, even if parts of this run are a bit rough (there is sometimes waaay too much text on the page, which from what I understand Smith has acknowledged).

That's what I've got so far! I still have a TON on my list I want to get to (Soule's the next one I'm eyeing) before fully diving into Chip Zdarsky's current run (which I am very excited about), but these are the Big Reads that I think give an excellent sense of who Matt is as we understand him, his history, and how he's developed over the decades. ❤️

[recapitulation]

elevator pitch mysterious lotus casebook to me 🤑🤑🤑

BELIEVE IT OR NOT I TRIED TO KEEP THIS SHORT. this is no longer an elevator pitch. or maybe i am trapping you in this elevator with me until i finish.

ok. let me give you just a little bit about each of the three main characters bc thats what would make ME interested.

li xiangyi/li lianhua:

li xiangyi rises to the top of the jianghu/martial arts world at 18, but is poisoned and nearly dies during a fight with di feisheng. he's given about 10 years to live. (story starts 10 years later.)

he decided to step out of the jianghu altogether and live life as li lianhua, a "miracle doctor" whose reputation is 100% bullshit.

the only thing he wants is to find the missing corpse of his dead shixiong and bury him properly before he dies himself.

king of lying to your face repeatedly with no shame.

^^ will absolutely lie to you this time.

fang duobing:

fang duobing gets manipulated and backstabbed by li lianhua and immediately starts following him around

after about the third time li lianhua dumps him on the side of the road in an attempt to ditch him, fang duobing starts calling him zhiji

has a huge celebrity crush on li xiangyi, and walks around telling people he's li xiangyi's disciple because of a small interaction the two of them had about 10 years ago.

fang duobing spends the whole beginning half of the show telling li lianhua TO HIS FACE how great and awesome and cool li xiangyi is

^^ btw this is how fang duobing looks at li lianhua WHILE li lianhua is actively poisoning him. <3

di feisheng:

wants to fight li xiangyi again more than anything. like. anything.

agressively tries to heal li lianhua time and time again but li lianhua does NOT want to become li xiangyi again.

is he li xiangyi's old enemy? friend? are they working towards the same goal? do they want to kill each other? well... <3

^^ face of a guy about to throw li lianhua in a pit of snakes for the sake of his health

other reasons why i like it:

I am a fan of inescapable tragedy

I love how the ghost of li xiangyi haunts every part of the story despite li lianhua doing his very best to kill his past self

Truly delicious amounts of dramatic irony

Every time you think the most embarrassing thing possible happens to fang duobing something worse happens to him

So many interesting character interactions deepened by layers of hidden identity

Ending made me cry like a baby and I don't cry easily <3

[xx-vergil-xx]

Can I ask what pushed you to end Hounds the way you did? It's a fantastic ending, but I'm curious. I expected the Fates to revive Dream, or allow him to inhabit a new form (such as one made by Daniel, so that Dream becomes a dreamthing), etc. But instead, his death is made to have never happened. Which makes it partly feels like Hob's whole road trip journey was for nothing since he lost all those memories and connections with Matthew, the Corinthian, Delirium, Despair, Desire, Death, etc. (thank god he kept the farmhouse). But it's almost like he traded all those memories and connections for Dream. Unless I missed something while reading (I was crying very hard).

Again, fantastic ending, and I'm also glad it's a happy ending. But I'm curious as to why you didn't go in the other direction

howdy! thanks very much for the ask — an excellent query, one which i’m happy to answer

(verg of the future: this answer ended up long! there’s a short form at the top here and at the end <3)

in brief: he did make that trade you described! but not strictly for dream — it was the price of swapping genres!

an explanation:

what i had in mind while planning and writing was less the idea of erasure of prior narrative action and more a subversion of the expected genre, in particular the genre tropes that follow dream in the original arc of the comics, where his story is very classically tragic (with the understood weaving of hob into that tragedy, this being a dream/hob telling and all)

for reference, i also drew a lot of inspiration for hob’s road trip odyssey from the aeneid, an epic that is, yes, about the founding of rome but also (at least to my reading) a fundamental tragedy — the cost of founding rome is aeneas’ home, many of his friends, much of his core family, and the very end of the story is not some victorious depiction of the glory of rome to be (which we do get earlier in the book, with the ekphrasis on his shield) but aeneas, overcome with fury and loss, killing a man who begs his mercy. i’ve always felt that the aeneid, while certainly stepped in the expected amount of roman nationalism, is centrally about a single man and his singular suffering as an instrument of higher destiny.

i wanted to model hob’s arc around the aeneid (minus, y’know, some of the chunks that are strictly battle sequences <3) both because intertextuality is a huge part of how i wanted to handle hounds (story about stories, made of other stories, etc), but also because hob and aeneas are fundamentally parallel characters — nomads with exceptional ordinances, permanently displaced by the passing whims of higher powers, men who are made to reckon with both extraordinary wonder and extraordinary tragedy regularly while still, at their core, just being human. that’s what makes aeneas so compelling — he’s just a man. and so is our beloved hob — that’s his whole thing, his whole narrative function and his whole central ideal, humanity

so then, approaching hounds with both the thought of the sandman’s original tragic contours (see: the whole lead-in to daniel. christ above is the way that goes devastating to read) and the man vs fate core of the aeneid, i was considering a lot of things about how to mess around with both notions without gutting them entirely. i tend to dislike tragedies that become un-tragic without some sort of Serious Payment For It (not to say i don’t like happy stories because i very much do! but i get ticked off when high stakes get deflated too quickly) and i didn’t want to undermine the very real fact that the Fates are typically not versed in notions of empathy and/or leniency, and that dream and hob and those around them did experience and endure devastation and loss, and that death is a fact typically immune to argument.

the world of sandman is not one with easy answers, and to my mind there’s no such thing as a bargain with the Fates where you break even. for hob to get what he wanted, something had to be given, something dear and vital and real. there’s more to what hob actually gives the Fates than he verbally stipulates, which i tried to address largely via the corinthian and his perception of the situation, especially those last conversations with dream in the “swamp”. i have a lot of options about the corinthian in his function as “dark mirror” having a blistering clarity of understanding much of the time, which is why i foisted the onus of those complexities onto his dialogue, rather than hob, who (and i say this with love) is a creature of bias and often blinded to greater repercussions of his actions insofar as they extend beyond his immediate objectives/enjoyments, or dream, who can see the bigger picture but i think often really keeps himself from doing so when it comes to anything at all that’s personal (king of stories has a blindspot for his own). what hob gives the Fates actually costs him almost nothing, in the long run, if we operate with the idea that he cannot remember, nor is there any lasting effect from, his 600-ish heavily-relived years. there’s narrative and symbolic weight, of course — he gives them love as an oath and as nostalgia (sidebar: his driving force is an almost pre-nostalgia, a continual love of the moment as the moment is passing, but anyway) (cuff links), he gives them in a captured moment the lovely discomfort and simultaneous brilliance of being alive (the hook, the finger prick the blood), and he gives them a rich and complicated experience of humanity (those 600 years). but practically, what is actually taken from him that he doesn’t just get back?

only those few months — and in them, a web of real and known connections, all of which matter, and all of which change his understanding of and relationship to things like grief, and loneliness, and fear, and forgiveness. those are important changes, real changes, that would affect how he operates in the world going forward. that development is gone. he returns instead to the (of course, fought-for and hard-won) stasis of what was, which becomes what will always be. in making the Fates and their judgement more complex, he has actually made his own life less complex. now, i’m not going to sit here and argue that “suffering has inherent value” or some shit like that because i think that’s bullshit! pain is just pain. but he does lose experiences which would have shaped him in new ways, and, i think, good ways. even important ways

and he may well be shaped towards similar courses with dream (especially re: learning that lesson about loneliness — i think hob suffers from the curse of always, ultimately, being alone (immortality etc there’s so much discourse about this), and the road trip was in part about him learning that though it is the simplest path it is neither the sole nor the best path), but he certainly doesn’t learn them the same way, with the same faces, with the same acuity and clarity and intensity.

the thing with the Fates (to me anyway) is that you don’t ever just win. maybe you can get what you want, but it’s not easy (it make take a thousand repetitions of your lifetime until friction and the touch of your hands wears the sisyphean boulder down to a pebble — like the parable of the bird scraping its beak on the mountain), and it’s sure not free.

so yes, those months are lost. that’s a big part of the price. and we don’t know, at the end, how much of that thing he really gave ultimately comes back — his new relationship depths with deanna or cori or the other endless, those things aren’t seen. the main arc is resolved — hob and dream — but there are still pieces missing. he loses a piece of his human experience, he gets tossed back around through the wringer of his life (which is often distinctly not pleasant), and he is, as he ever was, a character with a path whose impetus and dictation rest heavily on external forces. even in attempting to channel his life elsewhere, he still has to bargain, and is still subject to the choices of the fates, and in some ways the story remains irrevocably a tragedy, in that one way or another it has loss in a central place. in the latter half of hounds hob really became my attempted version of an aeneas type — a man with a quest and a fated directive, a deeply human and flawed individual, who can alter the path and even irrevocably change the genre of his own narrative, but only at cost.

of course let’s be clear! some of all the actual rendering of this ended up as it did partly because i am not always a clean writer, and for that i apologize! but i did genuinely want that sense of gaps — of faces and voices given over to the gravitational well of the principal narrative arc of hob/dream versus the Fates. i think those things are gone. the narrative is forcibly re-centered around hob and dream, and in doing this — in shifting the story genre — other ties and bonds are not just cut, but unwoven entirely. when you change the kind of story you’re telling, the change is done at the expense of something else. kind of like how there’s a fixed amount of matter in the universe? you can’t create or destroy matter — to make something new you have to take from another place. (sidebar: wow i’m realizing something about my fundamental storytelling beliefs right now! laws of physics! anon your ask has really got my cylinders firing, and most sincerely thank you <3)

still, they might come back. though i didn’t write it as fully as i could have (i will freely admit there was a great deal of burnout at play towards the end there), i had a lot of thoughts re: repetition and density, namely that if you stack a thousand repetitions of a lifetime against each other it’s the equivalent of writing a word over and over and over on a page. when you erase it, the channels remain. language flows most naturally in the direction once etched for it. maybe hob learns those same lessons and knows the same people in the same way — maybe he and the corinthian find that odd patch of common ground, maybe he takes a long drive with delirium through rural maryland. maybe there are echoes. maybe even if it is gone what was still shapes the topography. maybe a kindness or a word exchanged still ring out when you can’t see them or remember them. while the milestones of our lives rippled the most visibly, i think we’re shaped a thousandfold ways by accumulations of small things we can’t distinctly remember. only a feeling of a thing, or the negative space it leaves.

well. tl;dr — i didn’t want to let hob get away without actually giving anything up, nor without his choice to bargain affecting others besides himself in equally irrevocable ways (sidebar: at his core is a selfishness that is both charming and ignoble — he wants to do a good thing for dream but also he makes a call that changes a plenitude of lives other than his own, and i don’t think he really asks, he just does — grey areas are his whole gig to me), because nobody makes a deal with the Fates for free, and changing genre has a price tag. it was my effort to make the tone of the whole beast more authentically sandman-esque, since sandman does a lot of that sort of water-muddying, especially when using understood narrative models/archetypes/etc etc

i am. sorry this was as long as it is! jesus! but i’m sending it off all the same. anyways, anon, thanks very much not only for your lovely kind words and the high honor of your tears (no pulitzer could mean more to me than knowing a thing i wrote really moved someone, seriously thank you) but also for giving me a blank check to go buck wild and ramble about my own damn writing and Things I Just Think <3 i hope you have a lovely day/morning/noon/night, and thanks a bunch for dropping by <3 <3 <3

[velvet-apricots]

What is it about Gideon that you like so much?

So first of all to summarize everything below-

Okay now onto the mindless ranting and rambling.

So to be frank, the entire reason i first got into Gideon was a tiktok showing a few members of the hold and if the poster thought they were hot and I saw his armor and I was like "oh fuck he looks like the witch-king that's kinda hot. Oh man he has a hot voice too."

And then I went into a bit of a spiral and suddenly I bought the whole ass game just because I developed a hyperfixation on Gideon Ofnir. This is not an exaggeration.

Anyway, I love the tragedy of him. A man dedicated to the goal set before him, but in the end he seemingly gives up. I love how he has been there probably since the beginning, and he has seen the Roundtable hold's slow decline, and witnessed countless Tarnished fail and turn on one another.

What kind of man was he before that? Was he kinder? Was he hopeful? How do these losses affect him? Does he loose sleep thinking about those that are gone? Does he loose sleep over the things he's done to ensure the success of the tarnished? What did he learn that made him finally give it all up and turn on the player?

Most people just see a scheming fool, but I see something much more than that. Yes, he's an asshole, he's a bad father, yeah yeah I know all that, but he's one of the only surviving tarnished that is implied to have a great rune and still see grace, as the Two-Fingers expect great things from him.

I just wish more people could see past the first impressions and look deeper and THINK about him. Really think. AAAGH.

Onto the ranting part (and venting)-

I am so sick how people mindlessly hate on him. Most only hate him because he doesn't kiss your ass and instead tells you he expects you to earn your place. God forbid a man who is sick of people sucking up resources wants you to prove you can do what needs to be done. Others hate him because of the bad things he did, which okay thats fair! but Marika has killed more people and abandoned more children than Gideon ever did and she still has a huge amount of die hard defenders (I am one of them). Why is Gideon so universally hated? I just don't get it. =(

Also, totally petty of me, but I refuse to play the Convergence mod because they removed his boss battle and replaced it with some worthless dude that has no importance to the story at all., like WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? He's important! He's the leader of the Tarnished! He was your guide! His betrayal is narratively important and you just erase it because he's another npc battle? fuck that i'm not playing your mod then!

Anyway, yeah thats my tedtalk/petty ranting for the day. =)

[blorb-el]

superman: lost finale

tldr: huge L for people who want to see clark reintegrate into his life with people who love and accept him even when he doesn't feel he's 'being' correctly due to his enormous amounts of horrible trauma (me). but also huge W for people who want to look at clark ultimately addressing his trauma by doing something so batshit insane he would never ever inflict on another person but his self standards are so toxic babygirl you are SO fucked up (also me)

short plot recap: at the end of this issue, clark and hope go back in spacetime to the beginning of where he was dumped out of the space trawler's ship, and send past!clark back to earth. then the clark we've been following goes on to help the evacuation for ten years, and then become the time loop clark we saw in issue 7, warning his past self not to try to escape, while the past!clark he and hope sent back goes on to live with lois and be the in-continuity clark we're familiar with.

various disorganized notes upon this:

clois book and clois divorce book at the same time

the book is metacommentary on how editorial will never allow clark to actually have lasting effects from trauma because that's not marketable/palatable to people both inside the dcu and outside

nerds bein like 'ohhh that's not how time travel works' news flash: time travel is not real its a storytelling device. if it serves the author then it's how it works

i. loved lois in this. all throughout. i know some people think she's ooc but she's so angry and compassionate and her concern and drive is what intersects with clark's self sacrificial brain in the end to make his FUCKED UP choice it is just. tickles the brain in a capital T Tragedy way. fatal strengths/fatal flaws chefs kiss

immediately headcanoning Gatekeeper/timeloop clark to eventually become the superman-null of Strange Visitor even though i think he was visually based on Maggin's Ghost of Superman Future from Superman 416 (which, if you like time loops, you should read, and if you dont like time loops you should read anyway because it fucks). let me have this. or, i know that Gatekeeper says he's had this conversation over and over, but i would would also accept if he figures out how to break it eventually and then becomes an iterant space paladin

the hope-is-pregnant jumpscare was. fine whatever 😔 a concession to serialized storytelling demanding cliffhangers. shoutout to parthenogenesis was nice but That Aint How It Works......like That's The Point Of Asexual Reproduction You Don't Need Another Person's DNA.......

this issue was fun to read alongside the current arc of WF since mark waid is also pointing out clark's flaw of impossibly impossibly high standards for himself in the way that main universe clark is so furious and disgusted with kingdom come clark; main universe bruce has never seen him that angry before bc clark's hatred/fury/fear of his own failures is obviously usually internalized

lex's part in this book was so damn good. that egotistical genius delusional psychosexually obsessed loony. especially the bit about the paintings. stop imagining yourself in a naked wrestling match with your enemy. time to listen to les troyens i guess

throughout the whole book the art has just been. incredible. coloring lines inking the whole thing. the stylistic change in 7 was interesting, not my favorite art, but it worked bc they were in a black hole at the time. i got some of the lee weeks variant covers and they're so incredibly good.... but the mainline covers were also wonderful.

slaps roof of superman. this fellow sure can get lost

anyway. if you made it to the end low effort mspaint sillies

[emiliosandozsequence]

what scifi media do you like?

OH ANON I HAVE SO MANY. i'm so glad you asked 💕💕💕 (tagging @gorydean too so she sees 💕💕💕)

gotta start first and foremost with the sparrow series by mary doria russell as my blog is basically just a shrine to it at this point. amazing book and definitely recommend it if you love found family, first contact, trauma, tragedy, and the abandonment of the faithful by g-d. huge massive trigger warning tho. everyone says the second book isn't as good as the first, but i completely disagree. i think they're bitg equally as good as each other; the second book just takes awhile to get to the most insanity inducing parts whereas the first one starts out strong with that and keeps going until the end of the story.

i would have more books to recommend, but i've only just started REALLY getting back into reading after several years of not reading as much due to a variety of reasons (mostly trauma and chronic and mental illness). that being said, i have an insane amount of films to give you to watch instead of books.

gotta recommend my all time fav film (or one of the two anyway), the fountain. most people...don't like this movie because they think it's hard to understand and doesn't make sense towards the end (i had to watch it several times to get it), but please please please watch it. it's a beautiful film both visually and plotwise as long as you give it a chance 💕

sound of my voice is softer in terms of scifi, but still definitely scifi. it's another film that lets you decide what to believe. it's also another film people tend not to like for whatever reason, but i think it's extremely well done and the ending is so 💕💕💕💕💕💕

cloud atlas. very much a story in the same vein as the fountain taking place over different timelines. another beautifully done story about how everything and everyone is connected throughout space and time. ofc my fav timelines are the ones with robert frobisher and sonmi-451. i do also recommend the book, but i liked the film better because of a few of the changes they made.

sunshine is one of my fav films ever and i've loved it since i was in high school and first saw it. it reminds me a lot of three body problem in the sense that antagonist (idk if i would exactly call him a villain even tbh) is using g-d as a reason for the things he's doing. there's a few deleted scenes i wish they'd kept in because it really emphasizes this, but even so, this film is gorgeous in so many ways.

i origins. if u can't tell already i'm a huge brit marling fan and i think this is one of her best stories. again: you get to choose what to believe and you really have to watch the whole film for the pay off, but it is so very much worth it. i think i've actually only ever watched this film once, tho idk why bc it's genuinely one of my favs.

looper is another film that idk why more people weren't into it. the setting is dystopian. i was trying to think of a way to explain it in a few short sentences like i have the rest of the films here, but it's one of those films also that i think going into it knowing nothing is better. the kid who plays the rainmaker is so fucking good too. he's not even 10, but he played that role perfectly.

elysium. EVERYONE KNOWS DISTRICT 9 BUT NO ONE KNOWS ELYSIUM. i stand by my opinion that this film would be infinitely better if diego luna were the main character instead of matt damon, but even so i really love this film. the score is gorgeous. also lmao we for real might be living in this universe soon if elon fixes up that space hotel he wants to do fucking rip

ender's game. the author is a homophobic and transphobic dickwad who actively gives his money to anti-lgbt organizations, so watch this for free if you can (and buy the books second hand), but i actually really enjoyed what they did with this film. a lot of people thought it was too rushed, but also like....ender's game is a very Dense book, so i understand why they did it the way they did it. also the score is amazing.

signs. another film involving g-d and religion seen through the lens of scifi and first contact. this film gets shit on a ton for reasons i do not know, but it's actually really well done. it scared the ever living shit out of me the first few times i saw it tho bc i did Not grow up watching horror.

knowing. another film involving g-d and religion seen through the lens of scifi and first contact (can you tell i have a type of film/media i like???). this film also scared the ever living shit out of me when i first saw it to the point i had to sleep with the lights on, but in all actuality it isn't scary at all (i was just 14 and had never seen a thriller before lol). i really love disaster films tbh, but this is one of my all time favs (next to greenland).

another earth i did not like when i first saw it. i thought the whole thing was kind of pointless and didn't make very much sense, but the more i've thought about it since then, the more i've understood it. funnily enough, i never watched it a second time, but it's brit marling, so i probably will eventually. again: definitely recommend.

lucy. listen i know this has scarlett johansson in it and none of us like her, but this film is good despite her. i thought it was going to be dumb as hell when i first saw it, but i actually ended up liking it so much that it's heavily inspired the next novel i'm planning on writing (a scifi space opera about a girl becoming g-d).

origami. okay this one is difficult to find and you WILL have to buy it if you want to watch it (trust me: i have searched FAR and wide for this film in any other place and vimeo is the ONLY place i found it; it's only $5 to rent on there tho), but it's so worth it. it's worth it. it's one of my fav films and i watched it purely because of francois arnaud and i'm glad i did. this literally is his best work imo.

ink is my all time hands down favorite film. idk if you would even call it scifi, but i love it so much i just wanted to talk about it. it very obviously had zero budget, but they used what little money they had VERY wisely and the result was this beautiful film. the story makes me sob every single time. actually it's quite similar to origami, so if you like one, you'll probably like the other.

tron: legacy is another film that people shit on and idk why. it has The Best religious imagery. like how are you going to top one of the programs falling to their knees in prayer as flynn passes by????? the whole thing seems to be a jesus/judas metaphor anyway and i'm crazy for that shit. gotta mention the score as always because daft punk knocked it out of the park (people shit on the score too and i really don't get why).

thelma. i watched this one a whim with a friend and i cannot recommend it enough. i feel like it was kind of popular on here when it first came out bc it's a sapphic film, but it's also just very good in general. i've seen people get super upset about it also bc their interpretation makes it lesbophobic (which is crazy to me but whatever.

melancholia. i did Not like this movie for the longest time, but then i watched it recently and finally Got it. i guess you really do have to be a certain level of depressed to understand this film, so if you're insanely suicidal and can barely function like me, then i recommend it. you will probably get some catharsis out of it like i did. it is a very Strange film tho.

the creator came out at the end of last year and it was so good. definitely my fav film to come out in the last few years and involves g-d, religion, and AI. the score also in this is great (everybody say thank you hans zimmer. again.). the ending makes me sob so much.

more that i love a lot, but not as much (apparently there's a character limit, so i can't explain why these are my favs too, but it's for similar reasons as above).

the matrix trilogy

the fifth element

snowpiercer

blade runner 2049

as for tv shows, i don't have as many, but i do have a few that i would highly recommend if you like any of the films above:

halo. again: everyone shits on this show, but the absolute TRAGEDY of it is the fanboys hate it bc they suck and are bigots and everyone else who would like it (LIKE MY MUTUALS) refuses to give it a chance because of its overall reputation, so i'm BEGGING YOU GUYS TO GIVE IT A CHANCE.

foundation. genuinely fucking good. so much of what the creators of this show have done to change the story has been for the better. i read the books and they were okay, but the show is so so good. idk when season 3 will be coming out, but hopefully soon (same for halo, which i actually like better than this show).

the oa. i will forever mourn what we could've had with this show. i can't even talk about it without getting choked up. this getting canceled really truly fucked me up.

castle rock season 1. technically a horror series, but this season is more scifi than horror, i think. everything really comes to a head in episode 9 iirc and that episode still makes me crazy when i think about it. i definitely need to do a rewatch.

firefly/serenity. you've probably heard this one recommended before, but there's a reason for that. it's really so good, but g-d and jesus hate me because it too was canceled before it could even finish ONE SEASON. thankfully there's a film that kind of ties everything together, but WE COULD'VE HAD SO MUCH MORE.

i tried to put in some movies that aren't talked about as much on here!! i also have several letterboxd lists dedicated purely to scifi, which you can find below.

holy holy holy (scifi (and other films) involving religious imagery or straight up just about theology

the sparrow cinematic universe (films that are either discussed in the sparrow or remind me of it or that i could see the main characters watching)

but it was my body. it was my blood. and it was my love. (films that i either genuinely believe could be based off of the sparrow or just remind me of it in some way)

per aspera ad astra (scifi films i have seen or heard of. this literally is every single scifi film i remember ever in existence so it's quite long)

also mainstream scifi that i recommend/am obsessed with

interstellar

dune series (wer'e talking about the books here; not whatever the fuck denis villenueve pulled with the films lmao)

district 9

annihilation/southern reach trilogy

ex machina

prometheus

pacific rim

arrival

event horizon

mad max: fury road

nope

mobile suit gundam series (mostly hathaway and g-witch tho)

star wars (mostly the prequel and sequel trilogies)

nausicaa of the valley of the wind

castle in the sky

inception

tenet

high life

aldnoah zero

hanna

real steel

86: eighty-six

this is so much longer than i meant it to be omg. anyway people do not call me the scifi queen for no reason.

[sybaritick]

people often discuss the way that businesses (and more recently AI) single-mindedly optimize profit in a way that individuals usually don't. A Fortune 500 company will almost invariably pursue profit above all else, but most individuals don't pursue profit above all else. and it has me thinking about how part of the reason for this is that individual interactions rely a lot on social rewards and punishments that don't affect or motivate large organizations (like businesses) in the same way.

As an example of what I mean, in a small community, the tragedy of the commons can sometimes be avoided because everyone knows not to overuse a common resource: there is a social contract. Even if there is no explicit, written punishment for over-extraction, there is a social punishment: everyone is taught that there is an appropriate amount of water to take, or an appropriate number of cattle to graze, or an appropriate number of mushrooms to harvest, and this is often something people internalize from a young age. Social punishments (even if they are as "mild" as people knowing and disliking you for your behavior) have a huge effect. There are all sorts of things people avoid just because there is a social taboo against them. Even if someone who broke these social rules doesn't get caught at it, they might feel a lot of guilt for their behavior-- and that is a major motivator not to break the rules! And this effect isn't inherently "good" or "bad": a community could shun a couple for being gay or they could shun a child abuser.

in smaller, more interconnected communities, this effect is stronger. so a small or very tight-knit community will punish behavior it sees as bad for the group even if it would be optimal for the individual more effectively than a group of people who are not very interdependent.

but while boycotts and things of the sort exist, a business or a computer program can't "experience social punishment" the way a person does. they don't have shame or feel embarrassed or fear being disliked, and a person might fear and avoid those things even if it doesn't affect their material conditions. like absolutely a person being shunned will affect their material conditions, but i would argue that the average person's fear of mild social shame-- eg, of "looking rude" in front of strangers-- is far stronger than the material punishment would justify. It feels bad when people dislike you!

but an organization or an AI does not experience these things. whether this is good or bad, as ever, depends. on one hand the social-punishment motivations are, on an individual level, often irrational if your goal is to maximize profit. on the other hand they do clearly serve a purpose for organizing society as a whole. so who's to say?

[tagedeszorns]

Pre-Heresy Ahzek Ahriman.

For a long time I didn't really have the Thousand Sons in my focus of interest. On the one hand, because they remain quite pale in the Heresy books for the most part and I still have difficulties in assessing the power level of such focused psykers. Which makes them pretty much wild cards. I can't imagine that someone who can bend reality to create unquenchable fire or cook bodies in armour or completely destroy minds can be stopped by any "normal" warrior, no matter how good they are (I'll spare the joke about finding little mind to destroy with Lucius, though. Sorry, dearest Blorbo!). But the fact that it does happen (and quite possibly without the constant presence of Nul-Maidens) doesn't make the limitations of these abilities any more tangible to me, only more frustrating. The artificial limitations just feel to me like something that comes from the rules of the game rather than, say, the logic of the setting. So it's complicated, with me and the sorcerers.

And secondly, there are the most vocal fans of this Legion and especially its Primarch, which put me off a bit. Some of them are so vehement in their "Magnus never did anything wrong!" and in their very particular idea of the Legion that I didn't feel I could really dive in and make my own picture of the Thousand Sons.

On top of that, I don't really like the other poster boy of 40k Thousand Sons (yes, yes, I know, not anymore), Iskender Khayon. He's okay, but that's it for me. He's a pretty standard Dembski Bowden character and probably why he's only interesting to me as a vehicle for the Black Legion story. So again, no point of connection for the Fifteenth and its tragedy for me.

But now I'm lucky enough to be able to play with two very good Thousand Sons fans on my Fabius RP blog. Both have shown me independently that there is a lot of potential.

Which is why I looked for a reading order on the net and started following the 40k story of the Thousand Sons sorcerer I'm most interested in: the old Terran Ahzek Ahriman.

And, all I can say is: snagged by the monkeybrain from the first line! Chapeau, John French! I haven't read such a gripping 40k story since the Fabius novels. Books that you read late into the night "just one more chapter".

I'm still in the first of the three novels but already very, very enraptured.

Chaos is just my thing because Chaos Marines get to do a lot more than Loyalists. They're allowed to doubt, to falter, to dither and to fail. They are allowed to be small-minded and to be wrong in a big way. They can be mean. Petty. Bitchy. Very, very whiny. In other words: human. Exciting. Comprehensible.

I can imagine that writers with the right mindset (again, I'm crying hard after Josh Reynolds) find writing Chaos Marines a huge amount of fun and a release.

And as a reader, I notice that and enjoy it very much.

Of course, I also like books with Imperials. But it does seem to me that the Chaos books are more tailored to me and my tastes. More drama, more emotion, more pathos, more irony and sarcasm.

So here I am: having fun with Ahzek Ahriman.

Once again I follow the path of an outcast from his legion who feels the whole world is against him (he's right) and who, on the one hand, is plagued by doubts, on the other firmly convinced that he is doing the right thing and is on the right side.

Somehow I have it with the arrogant, self-righteous stubborn guys that nobody likes. No idea why.

It can't be me.

[neversetyoufree]

Shipping is fun and all but why do the whole fandom makes it like VNC was about rotting for Vanitas to be with either Jeanne or Noe and sexuality ? It's not what the story is about, it's about Noe and Vanitas's story together and how Noé will end up killing Vanitas. Is it because it's also treating of their relationship that the fandom focuses so much on romance which is a very sub themed (after all in shounen romance is always a subplot, more or less underdevelopped)

I mean, when it comes to Vnc, I'm not so sure that the romance is underdeveloped, anon. I 100% get not caring about romantic shipping, and that's fair, but sex and romance are big parts of this story. I don't think it's unreasonable to be invested in them when they're very present in the manga itself.

You're right that shonen series in general tend to be very light on romance. However, a majority of shonen also don't have their characters very regularly engaging in a metaphor for sex.

It's pretty undeniable that the blood drinking in VnC is meant as a sexual metaphor. Sometimes this is played for horror (like Astolpho's backstory), and sometimes this is played for horny (like the VaniJeanne scenes), but it's almost always there. It doesn't mean that every instance of blood drinking is meant to symbolize literal sex, but both in-universe and in terms of symbolism, drinking someone's blood in VnC is an erotic act. And there's a lot of blood drinking.

With that said, given that these characters are constantly running around drinking and/or craving each other's blood, of course people are going to talk about romance a lot. "Which character wants which other character's blood?" is a huge driving factor for the character dynamics in this story. And there's a lot of straight-up discussion of romance as well!

You cannot talk about or analyze Noé and Dominique's relationship without talking about her massive crush on him. You cannot analyze Vanitas and Jeanne's relationship without talking about their mutual attraction and all the blood drinking scenes. You cannot fully analyze Noé and Vanitas's relationship without talking about how much Noé wants Vanitas's blood.

It may not be the norm for shonen, but Vnc is, objectively speaking, a series that puts a fair amount of emphasis on romance. It's not the main plot, but neither is it a clumsily handled background element like in Naruto or something. This is a series driven by the relationships between its characters first and foremost, and several of those relationships are canonically romantic and/or horny.

(Also, as a bonus fun fact, there's an interview with Mochizuki where she directly talks about how she wanted Vnc to focus more on both action and romance than her previous works).

And as for the Vanoé angle specifically, you're right. Vnc is the story of Noé and Vanitas's relationship. It's the story of how they meet, what they do together, and how/why Noé will eventually kill Vanitas with his own hands. And the thing about that relationship is that it is frankly fucking FULL of queer subtext. Like half the writing on this blog, for example, is about Noé and Vanitas's relationship, and not all of it is gay. Sometimes I talk about the death and tragedy angle, sometimes I speculate about the concrete plot details of what's to come, and sometimes I talk about how absurdly queer-coded Noé's whole "your blood smells amazing" routine is. It's not the only thing going on between them, not by a long shot, but it's there! And I think it's quite reasonable to discuss it.

So like, everyone engages in fandom differently, anon. It's fine to not give a damn about the romantic angle. I personally am almost incapable of caring about ships that aren't heavily implied in their canon sources, which makes me a bit of the odd one out in some fandom spaces.

However, speaking for myself again, this is a meta blog. More often than not, when I talk about romance on here, it's through the angle of examining what's there in canon. I find the relationships between the characters to be the most compelling part of Vnc, so that's what I write about. Sometimes that means writing about how Noé's constantly trying and failing to save his loved ones generally, sometimes that means writing about the history between Vanitas and Misha, and sometimes that means writing about how fucking in love with Vanitas I think Noé is.

I can't speak for others, but I personally don't think I'm reading anything into this series that isn't there. It's fine if it's not an angle you care about personally! I fully support you in blacklisting ship tags if the discussion of romance gets on your nerves. I cannot fucking stand "ship wars," so like. I get it. But "shonen usually doesn't care about romance" does not mean "all the people talking about romance in Vnc are doing it for no good reason."

[silknoise]

x. dossier. / x. wanted plots. x. pinterest. / x. thread tracker.

hi there friendos!!! i am thrilled to be joining you since i've been wanting something simple on tumblr for awhile now!! also so happy to be bringing my underappreciated queen umji to the party! the muse she's the face for is one of my faves to write; lee seonah, aka ramona lee is a new york born saxophonist with a cool demeanor and a love for cucumber melon. more info is listed below the cut, so if you're interested in any of her plots or would like me to swing by your ims to say hello or to plot something, you're invited to leave a like on this post!

trigger warnings: m*rder, robbery, implied g*n v*olence, grief

BACKSTORY

as briefly mentioned above, seonah was born in staten island, new york on august 7th, 1998.

her parents, originally from daegu, built a life stateside in the early '90s, so they were already pretty blended into the american routine by the time they had seonah.

in new york, seonah often went by her english name ramona, often shortened to mona. the name was derived from an old jazz singer and pianist her mother loved.

one of the main reasons seonah's parents even moved from south korea was so that her mother could try her luck at the new york jazz scene. she was a gifted pianist with quick hands who had always ensured seonah's life was filled with music.

those very sessions with fellow musicians she worked with were the catalyst for seonah's obsession with the saxophone. a musician seonah would always call uncle franklin would come and play the sax at their south shore townhome, while the small child watched and danced along.

he was actually the one to gift seonah her very own saxophone at age ten, by which her younger sister seoyeol had been born and was clinging to seonah's legs while she struggled to play the instrument.

the characteristics of her music were very much shaped by the staten island jazz scene, and the city's famous festival was a tradition for the whole family.

from her father did seonah inherit a love of gardening, building terrariums and making sure a healthy amount of green was present in all her decorating. she and her father would spend hours carefully placing moss, stones, grass and water in small glass containers until they resembled miniature nature scenes.

she spent a good amount of time in her dad's store as well, helping him stock and clean up throughout her childhood. the value of hard work was an early lesson for seonah and it would likely stick with her permanently.

that store, however, would come to be the site of a horrible tragedy that would uproot many lives.

TRIGGER WARNING AHEAD

her mother and father were working the late shift at the store one night when a masked gunman entered, demanding cash. her parents were both killed during the exchange, leaving seonah and her sister to grieve them at far too young an age.

as the two had no other blood relatives in the area, their parents' friends franklin and his wife delisle were named in a will to take the children in and raise them as their own.

it was an extremely tough transition, but the pair, along with another of their parents' closest friends adam made sure the sisters never went without love and encouragement. they refused to let the children's view of the world become twisted due to what they had gone through, and they were a huge part of why the two made it through that period of their lives.

END TRIGGER WARNING

now being raised by franklin, seonah was kept occupied by saxophone lessons, camping trips, walks through the city — any and everything she loved simply to keep her mind off the tragedy her family had faced.

despite her new guardians' best efforts to make her childhood fulfilling, seonah couldn't help but feel somewhat aimless after the passing of both her parents, and even a bit disconnected from them. she developed a fairly unbothered demeanor that some would even mistake for just not caring, though that was the furthest thing from the truth.

as she finished out her primary schooling and prepared to apply to the manhattan school of music, she floated the idea of possibly traveling to her parents' home city of daegu after graduating college to franklin and delisle. they met the idea with approval, thinking it was an excellent chance to reconnect with a past she'd never really gotten to discover.

after training up her musical talents to her instructors' satisfaction, it was finally time to say farewell to her family. she couldn't have said thank you to franklin, delisle and adam more times if she'd tried. seonah looked upon her now teenaged sister with slight guilt, feeling as though she were abandoning her for her own selfish reasons. seoyeol simply threw her arms around seonah and promised her she'd seek out universities in daegu so they could see each other soon.

and that was it, she was off to daegu with a graduation present of a one way flight and some won to run on until she found work. thankfully, that didn't take too long, as she found a pretty fancy restaurant looking for jazz musicians of her caliber.

seonah made a vow to herself that she would only speak in korean and only use her korean name until she felt that familiar connection to her parents once more.

she soon found a home in the confines of sueunju sharehouse, and though it's filled with strangers, it reminds her of the blended household she lived in back in staten island and even makes her oft expressionless visage falter into a smile. though she is still very much getting used to living in daegu two years on, her life is in a place of contentment for the time being. she continues to chase memories that have long since passed her by, barely conscious of all the new ones she is making in the process.

PERSONALITY

some would call her an ice queen, but she's more like a snow angel. like she's definitely composed, doesn't like to argue and sometimes comes off as though she's silently plotting your demise in a corner, but there is a warmth to seonah that is unmistakable. she can be so cold to the touch but also reach directly into your heart and make you melt. she is a mess of contradicting thoughts and feelings and words, but she could be ur mess of contradicting thoughts and feelings and words, u know???

only really loses her cool when it comes to music she's excited about, if her heart's a little bit broken or if she's lost something near and dear to her (her saxophone goes missing, one of her terrariums get broken, etc) and it's sad, but also kind of funny cmvnbvncb!

she's very inquisitive, especially about the daily routine in daegu. she desperately wants to know more about the lives her parents lived before they moved to america, and being that she's only been in south korea for two years, she isn't as in touch with things as she feels like she should be. stop her if she's asking too many questions — she just gets into a flow of seeking information and doesn't realize it sometimes!

a girl of many hobbies: gardening, camping, building terrariums, hitting up the thrift store, smoking on roofs, seeing performances at masquerade, noraebang, etc. and she loves doing these things with friends! partake in any of these activities with her, and you'll earn a special place in her heart and the slightest aura of a smile just for you.

sometimes she just??? disappears. sometimes her social energy simply runs out and she needs some time to recharge it. she's not trying to ghost, she promises! she just needs a couple days of mirror glaring and deep rumination before she's ready to have company again.

a wanted plot of mine (!!!!!!) but i also hc her as recently single with a lot of regretful and reluctant pining for her ex lol. she's in her slightly reckless era in an attempt to forget them, so pls forgive her for any messy moments ����

[brainisonfire]

I really hope this won't come across as a way to compare different kinds of illnesses and struggles cause it's not, it's just stuff I thought about while listening to the great impersonator that I needed to share. at the end of the day, I'm just a mentally ill bitch lol

i still need time to process this record well enough to be able to fully put into words the amount of things that im feeling, but this whole thing about this album is bringing back things. so im sorry if this is going to be sort of a trauma dump.

in february one of my best friends lost her mother to cancer, and even tho it's not my trauma and my loss to claim it hit harder than i expected (and yes, i do feel like shit for expecting it to hit less). my friend and i grew up basically as one, we've been together since we were three years old, we spent so many afternoons in her room playing with her mum. i knew that woman too well to act like it didn't hurt me as well, but im not going to pretend it's my loss to grieve. she had a family i need to stay closer than ever now.

all of this was to say that when she died something in my brain snapped. i had the kind of reaction that makes you go 'life is short. i can't keep wasting mine. anything could happen at any minute. i dont want to go with these many things left unsaid'. which felt insane, and also kind of bad if i have to be honest, because years ago when my father died i didn't have the clarity of mind to act the same way and i wish i did.

it lasted a few months and then i fell back into my usual mental patterns and old habits, which I'm definitely not proud of, but i really do believe that even tho i keep telling myself that i went back to therapy because i needed an ocd diagnosis and someone to help me manage it (which is something that was and still is definitely very real), i actually needed to know i was working in a direction where i could, someday, be at least well enough to be there for my friends when they need me. because i fear that, right now, I'm not. and it's not fair to them to always have to second guess if they can call me or not when they need a shoulder to lean on, especially when tragedies like that happen. i want to be able to give them my undivided attention, not to have to fight against my brain to be able to barely have the energy to listen to them.

it was weird to listen to this album and realise that I can (in my own personal way, i dont want it to sound like i know the exact same pain h experienced cause i didn't go through the same things she did) relate to both of the points of view. my chronic illness is not nearly as debilitating as what she had to go through, but in my tiny way I've been both the 'heavy heart' that's 'too much to hold' and the one that wanted to try to be there for someone else and couldn't because of my own issues. and I swear im trying so hard to not repeat the same mistakes. im far from perfect, but I'm trying to show up more for the people that i love.

I'm not the kind of person that needs to do something big with their life or to give meaning to it etc, but i do need to know that it's worth it, that the bad parts are balanced by something positive. and, right now, i still dont know how to hope for things, cause a future is still not a concept i feel comfortable in yet. if i have to be completely honest i never pictured myself getting this far, but now that I'm here i might as well try to *actually* be here, at least for the people i care about. I can't do that if i dont start seriously working on things i avoided for ten years, and grief plays a huge part in this because spoiler: no matter how much time it passes, it still hurts.

i wish 13yo me didn't shut down completely and was able to process things instead, but apparently it's a job for 23yo me. i still need to fully accept that it is ok to miss my dad now even if i didn't let myself feel it for years, but i'm getting there. i have a million questions for him and I'll never get the answers. i still have to learn how to deal with it. this record hit like a ton of bricks.

so once again, after saving my ass with both badlands and manic at the most perfect time, h art came in at the right moment. i feel like something in me changed after listening to this album, exactly in the same way i felt in february. i felt my perspective shift again, for the better. I hope it'll last.

i might not be able to stitch my brain back together as fast as I'd like to, this shit will take time. i still have to fully convince myself that i can use the word 'will' instead of 'could' because i still dont really believe I'll make it lol, but one step at a time. I'm tired as fuck, but I'm trying.

i'm just so glad that i can do it while listening to the great impersonator. i needed this record so bad, it's unbelievable how someone who doesn't even know me is always able to give me exactly what i need when i need it. I'll forever be grateful for what she did and keeps doing for me through her music. this album means so much more than I'll ever be able to express

[applecherry108]

Hmmm…. Okay. One last post. My final verdict of Netflix atla is:

7/10, it’s not bad. It’s best viewed as supplementary to the original, not your first introduction to the series.

Did it make some questionable choices? Yes. Was it a one-to-one adaptation? Obviously not. But ffs, it’s not the end of the world. After going off the rails about Yue last night, I’m giving y’all a readmore this time bc I actually know it’ll be long.

I’m going to try to split this up into categories, so here we go.

The pros

Casting. Excellent casting. 10/10 no* notes. Everyone sounded the part, which, when adapting an iconic animated series imo, is the most important aspect. Think of the tmnt. Different cast each time, but the vibe of each turtle’s performance/voice remains consistent.

Costuming & set pieces. Again, fantastic visuals with just the right amount of realism.

Consolidation choices. I’ll say it. I thought they did an excellent job of condescending 20 22-minute episodes into 8 ~55-minute episodes. I thought centering so many different plots in Omashu was insanely clever and worked really well.

Azula. I liked the choice to have the audience meet Azula early. Letting us get a sneak peak into Ozai’s manipulation of her, as well as the overt reference to the Mother of Faces makes me think we might get Azula’s redemption shown on screen.

Children. Those Are Children. Those are children witnessing the horrors of war, which can be easily forgotten watching animated characters, but holy fuck those are CHILDREN.

Death. We’re straight up killing people on scream. Burning them alive even.

Iroh. I specifically want to shoutout Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. Mako made the role of Iroh legendary, a performance that’s difficult to follow and harder to capture correctly, but I think Lee absolutely crushed it. He wasn’t trying to perfectly imitate Mako, but that was the correct choice imo. He made it his own and successfully captured the essence of the character.

The mids/“that doesn’t make sense”

Bumi. Why’d they make him so cynical? Like, he was the opposite of how he should be. It’s not supposed to be up to Aang to teach Bumi that hopes still exists, it’s Bumi’s job to teach him that! Like that is the whole point of him being the one (1) person still alive that Aang knew.

Secret tunnel. An interesting enough solution to get Katara and Sokka to Aang, but at the same time…did that not move the tunnels into Omashu? Like it’s not a way in, it’s now a way into the heart of the dungeons? And sure, having it be a sibling bonding moment for Sokka and Katara was nice, but also…fuck you? The crystals ARE the answers. Iirc the badger moles didn’t sense emotions, they vibed to the music. I know I’m a kataang fan but even I cringed at the lights out kiss. But lights out should’ve still been the answer.

Did…did Aang never placate the forest spirit? Sure he planted the acorn but that didn’t like…do, the same thing this time. Speaking of spirits, they didn’t make Aang all that spiritual. He mentions having spiritual training with the monks plenty of times but he’s not actually like, attuned to them

Homeboy did not learn an OUNCE of water bending. Didn’t even try. I know he’s not on a time crunch (yet) but jfc practice with Katara at least??

Everything about Yue. I already went off on this, and it’s not really that bad, but it’s definitely mid. From her wonky wig, to her nonexistent ethereal moon eyes, to all the small changes that take the wind out of her tragedy—I’m a huge Yue fan. And while these changes are nicer for her, they’re a detriment to the overall narrative.

Wan Shi Tong. Having him just sorta…be there, and making it so only Aang can understand him is one hell of a choice, and does not fill me with faith that they’ll include the library in season 2, which is like…so pivotal on so many front, it’s truly the lynch pin of everything in book 2.

Ty Lee and Mai. They should not have been there. It’s one thing to show Azula getting manipulated by her dad, but legit why are the girlies here? Is it super funny to see these literal children and know they’re just a middle school mean girl clique? Absolutely. But the narrative purpose of Ty Lee and Mai is that they’re NOT there to support Azula.

The fucking… War tactics? Make no sense. You can’t “distract” from Omashu by laying siege to the North. These things are not connected or even associated. They are not allies. Forces were not diverted. Your logic isn’t logicing.

The cons (I’m super mad about)

None of the characters are angry enough. They nerfed Katara’s rage at being denied being taught by Paku. They striped Aang’s righteous spiritual fury (and placed it all on the ocean spirit? Hello??), and ohhh my godddd how did they take out most if not all of Zuko’s anger?? Where’s the brashness? The hotheadedness? The getting so worked up he stops thinking? He’s too fucking mellow. Did I enjoy him getting to be soft with Iroh? Yes. But god, at what cost? I know we as the fandom like to flanderize him as a soft autistic king, but that’s at least post book 3! Book 1 Zuko is a mess and a tragedy!

Speaking of Zuko, holy fuck they fucked up the Agni Kai so bad. I know I went off about this in a previous post but it bears so much repeating. He’s supposed to grovel for his father’s forgiveness, not be given and take the opportunity to fight back. So much of Iroh’s guilt is meant to come from not stepping in to stop his brother, not making a halfhearted attempt. OZAI IS NOT MEANT TO SHOW EVEN AN IOTA OF REMORSE. NEXT POINT—

OZAI. Let me just say, perfect casting. I love Daniel Dad Kim and I think he was the perfect choice, but it’s not his fault how Ozai was written/directed. WHY DOES HE LOOK REMORSEFUL SO MUCH? WHY DOES HE ACT LIKE HE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT ZUKO? WHY ON GODS GREEN EARTH DID THEY TRY TO HUMANIZE THE NARCISSISTIC MACHIAVELLIAN GOD COMPLEX VILLAIN! Part of what makes his downfall so perfect is that he’s shown mercy! That Aang DOESNT kill him! That he’s so thoroughly and remorselessly evil that literally everyone is saying “he needs to fucking die” and Aang spares him. He does not get to go out in a blaze of glory, he goes slowly, with a whimper! And all the poetic justice of that decision gets sucked out of you allow him even an INCH to show regret. A character willing to burn his son’s face off for being disrespectful is not a character that would regret that decision.

The gaang are barely coworkers. The heart of this show is the bonds between the core cast, and I never once felt like Aang and Katara/Sokka truly meant the world to each other. They say it. A lot of but they don’t show it. That chemistry is not there. It’s like watching goddamn Voltron and getting to the final season and thinking “this found family doesn’t even like each other.” The show spends so much time reinforcing the peripheral bonds of Aang and Zuko, and Katara and Sokka, that it drops the entire ball of Aang/Sokka/Katara.

*gestures vaguely to making everything about the moon spirit so fucking convoluted*It didn’t have to be a series of conveniences. You’re allowed to just fire punch a fish to death.

That’s all I can think of for now. I know there’s some HUGE cons but the worst of them are spread out. This is by far not the worst adaptation Netflix has ever put out. It’s certainly not OPLA (*chef’s kiss*), but it’s not Death Note either. It’s fine, really. It’s a pretty good watch. I do hope they finish out the series so we can finally, FINALLY have a live action Toph, but also because I’m so curious how the changes will compound. How differently these choice will go, and what new plots we could get from that. I could even see how we could get to fucking zukka from here, and while I absolutely do not think they’ll do that, it’s a fascinating possibility that’d be totally plausible from where we are. I want them to divert even further if they continue. I want this version to justify its existence in some significant way, even if it’s just “actually let’s redeem Azula during the conflict.”

But not Ozai. Fuck that. If they redeem Ozai, we riot.

[hoghtastic]

Hey so I’m sorry but this literally has nothing to do with Johanne or Alex at all. But since I like they way you guys communicate and are able to look at different perspectives (really respect that) I was hoping I could get some different opinions to broaden my understanding of this situation. I have a question about this girl that has gone kinda viral (at least on my side of TikTok) for “showing off her wealth” on there. Her name is Lara Cosima she’s like a noble or something? . But the main problem people are having is the fact that her family is wealthy (like OLD money wealthy) because of the fact that they helped invest in the invasion of Poland I think. They had a huge roll in it and profited off of it immensely (obviously because they are still rich from it today). Now that she’s older though, she inherited a lot of the money. There are two different sides to the conversation being had about it. There are people who are attacking her for basically being born into the family and using the money and showing it off on TikTok and instagram. (She dropped some “GRWM” posts that rubbed a ton of people the wrong way) The only information that has been given about her is that piece of her family history. So we’re really unaware if she’s done anything to donate or help organizations in anyway, who help people who are still suffering from that tragedy (that didn’t happen that long ago, so she has to know right?) But I guess it’s safe to say it’s highly doubted that she has? There is another side of the conversation though where they don’t understand the hate because it’s not like she herself was there and made the decisions to to such things that her ancestors did. Like she shouldn’t be at fault for what they did and she shouldn’t have to give up the opportunities and the privilege she has because of what happened way before she was born. She doesn’t really have a choice. I see where both sides are coming from to a point. If I were her, personally I don’t think I would given up my whole life just because I have some huge dark history in my family. It doesn’t have anything to do with me, I didn’t make those choices. But on the other hand, on the outside looking in, she is still benefiting, profiting and living off of the money that was made by her family due to the fact that they played a big part in the genocide of literally millions of innocent people. And those peoples families are most likely still suffering from that tragedy. It just seems like it’s very black and white to everyone, but I’m kinda stuck in the grey area a bit?

Hello! First of all, thank you for reaching out and I'm glad you enjoy the blog. 😊 Despite your ask being really off topic (and that's why I'm tagging it as so), I thought I'd share my thoughts on this anyway, as maybe some other blog readers also follow this person.

I'd like to start by stating that I'm not on TikTok, nor have I ever heard of this person before, so I'm basing my opinion solely on what you've written here. From my point of view, I agree with you and I can absolutely understand both sides of the narrative. I agree one can't choose the family they're born into, so she shouldn't be blamed for her ancestors' sins, which gave her a life of privilege. However, now that she's older, she's in charge of how she handles her family's dark history and consequential wealthiness. Regardless of where it came from, I believe it's in extremely bad taste to show off someone's wealth on social media just for the sake of it. Like, are they trying to make "poor people" feel jealous or bad about their own lives? Is their only personality "being rich"? Are they sharing any talent? What do they have to offer or share with their followers that actually improves their lives? Are they actually using their resources and platforms to advocate for something important? So my first question is why are such people "famous" in the first place. But since this person seems to have a considerate amount of followers (and even if she didn't), I believe showing a bit of empathy and social conscience would be the least. I can't imagine knowing that it was the loss of countless lives of innocent people that are still paying for my trips and luxury items, and not feel bad about it, even if it wasn't directly my fault. So the most noble thing to do would be to at least try to even out things a little, and maybe try to help and donate to the victims (and respective families) of such tragedy, for example. Or at least raise awareness and help another social cause of her choosing. Something that actually matters so much more than showing off her latest fashions or luxury trips on TikTok (which she could still have without flaunting around). 🤷‍♀️

[jacksmysterylabyrinth]

I have even more confounded feelings about Chapter 5, now, and it’s hard to know how... to put it... so I’m gonna ramble about it and see where that goes

I felt Makoto’s struggle that bit more on the second run, and it feels as though that the bulk of feelings ‘cracking through at the eleventh hour’ is the point since that’s his... breakdown. Vivia foreshadowed this theme and imagery extensively in his chapter, right down to the ‘cracking of a mirror’. This is peak ‘wits end’ mood with his mask - both figurative and literal - fully broken

...and the battle itself even felt more satisfying than I remembered it. And gods the music. The music in this confrontation is so bloody good. There’s even a sadness to the first part of the music which makes it even better.

Everything leading up to the Labyrinth was fine, or at least it felt it, as far as being ‘dragged along’ goes, while just being a tad bit heavy on the exposition. It’s some time during the battle with Makoto but moreso approaching the end, that the pacing gets... reeeally off. It becomes more a matter of how much they can convey rather than how to convey it, and it’s just text, text, text.

At times like that it’s harder to even process what’s there in the moment. Because of that, Makoto’s intrinsic connection to Number One aka the Yuma we know, and their shared struggles- the pinnacle of this whole thing, feels... so... empty, unless you’re really focusing on that. It’s lost in the ether of ‘puzzle time’ and ‘exposition dumps’ even in the emotions they share. Objectively you know that it’s there, but you have to focus to keep it in your sights, especially when you might have other things on your mind- like the UG influence that later gets brushed under the rug despite having CAUSED all this mess to begin with!?!

And speaking of caused- I needed to see this mess unravel from Makoto’s early days, because going to the extent of kidnapping death row inmates was a huge extreme from making a belt of rain clouds to protect people. I doubt that he would have jumped to mass murder right from the get go, he was under a whole lot of pressure from being left alone with a massive conspiracy he was literally created from, and seeing as we know now it’s very possible to make humane stuff that’s nutritious for homunculi in the current day, we need a better grasp of the position Makoto was in where this wasn’t possible and he wasn’t getting any help from anyone. Something that isn’t so easily summed up by... scattered white noise in a Reasoning Death Match, ffs. 

This is especially important if Makoto is supposed to be ‘a Number One who took an especially wrong turn’, doubly when the reason Yuma turned to Shinigami’s death-bringing power in the first place was because he had his back against the wall and couldn’t handle things alone, the way he was...

The whole ‘fabric of Makoto’s existence unravelled in one Mystery Labyrinth puzzle’ also makes it feel as though his experiences are being confined solely to what’s said. No flashback, no video or anything of the sort, just... text. Not having anything physical does make an amount of sense due to, well, his escape and position as CEO part of the conspiracy. But... even so, forcing things into text bits and text bits alone for him, isn’t an excuse when even for the freaking Nail Man storyline you’d have stuff in pictures despite there not being physical evidence of the urban legend in particular. 

Makoto. is a fucking. UG. Homunculus. Homunculi are a big deal in this universe and the emergence of the perfect one feels like a footnote with how that fact blends with every other piece of text in this Labyrinth and even more so when Yuma has his dive and everything turns to focus only on him regaining his mental strength and defeating Makoto. The UG conspiracy loses a large amount of its weight, which is a tragedy when it’s made and destroyed Makoto.

This is just as, if not more egregious than the Epilogue where you learn that the MDs supposedly ‘killed’ were alive all along, and events involving them goes into the wall of text mess which just feels plain exhausting and forced, to the point that it lessens the feeling it’s trying to convey, especially when they just outright say almost verbatim that they were ‘taken to the side for the main cast to take the stage’. That’s a bit too on the nose for how it’s overly-centering Yuma’s personal journey here (and this is coming from someone who enjoyed his meandering journey where he’s going off on his own meeting people he won’t know for very long, and trying at being a detective- with those stories themselves not exactly blending into ‘mastermind’s path laid out’ which it made a habit of doing in Danganronpa series).

In other words, it’s not so much the content but the way it’s put across that kind of makes it... unsatisfying? Like, it’s not a bitter taste and I have some good feelings about the overall, good enough that I ran through the game again and felt very happy about doing so. But I think some of the things particularly with Makoto’s reveal just didn’t have the impact on me that I would have liked because of how the story didn’t seem to know what to prioritise about it first, even when it otherwise knew what it was saying. 

Which... is kind of the problem with over-ambitious projects, I guess

[dio-icarticaae]

36 & 38 for the fic ask game!

How do you come up with fic title? Which one’s your favorite?

This never happened" fix-it fics or "this happened but" fix-it fics?

(putting this one first because I got rambly with 36)

38: This never happened" fix-it fics or "this happened but" fix-it fics?

It depends. I kind of lean towards "this happened but" in most cases, especially if it's well written. weaseling out of it rather than smashing canon. but if the writing is stupid then I am 100% ignoring said event.

36: How do you come up with fic title? Which one’s your favorite?

90% of the time it's a song lyric from either a playlist I have for that ship or character, or a song I have for a particular trope, or whatever I was listening to at the time. Sometimes the title comes before I even write the fic! Sometimes it's a pun/title I came up with that I thought would fit but that's rare. And sometimes the fic titles are a bit of a joke that I don't put a lot of thought into, just whatever fits, but sometimes they're big thought out things that have a huge amount of meaning for the fic.

My favorite of those is familiar faces around me, laughter fills the air. Why? (and sorry, this is going to be a LONG answer because I have a LOT of thoughts and feelings that went into it but I'm fairly sure no one has noticed it so. the whole ramble goes here!)

So the title comes from this song by Bruce Springsteen:

Sounds like a happy song about getting together with friends for a party, right? maybe a little bit melancholy. ha.

The lyrics are a bit of a different thing. "tell me, how do you live broken hearted" - "from that black hole on the horizon, I hear your voice calling me". The song is about grief, and coming together with your community afterwards to get through it and still being haunted by your loved one's loss. Which is very fitting for a fic about cooking and community and surviving (yes, it's a mostly happy, fluff fic of 7 times Kanan cooks for the Ghost Crew + 1 time they cook for him, but there's a lot else going on in it too)

And then pair that with the song right after it on the album.

ouch, right? Very much a sad song about loss, and all the pieces of someone left in your life after you lose someone. And to me, at least, that's the looming shadow over the whole fic - just like how "You're Missing" is the next song on the album, the fic ends in the early part of S4 while the Ghost Crew is still on Yavin. We all know what comes next in canon. So it's a brief bit of happiness and togetherness - especially the last chapter, which is the only time the whole crew appears, i.e. "familiar faces around me, laughter fills the air" - before the plunge. I left the ending open so readers can decide whether what happens next is canon or a fix-it. I'm not entirely sure myself, but the impending tragedy was very much on my mind when writing it.