#but who has his own whole interesting arc having to do with technology and mental health that gets me right in the heart

[antisocialxconstruct]

PLEASE WRITE AN ESSAY ABOUT SRHK IT SOUNDS GREAT

gfdsg OKAY WELL... it's a topic I've got stashed away for a possible video for the Hypothetical YT Channel but I can give sort of an overview 👀 These games are kinda old by now but spoilers for individual character arcs (not the central plots) in both Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong, for anyone who's concerned about that.

Basically in my opinion one of the most poorly aged and problematic elements of Shadowrun lore is the concept of "essence." From a game mechanics standpoint it makes perfect sense, the more cyberware you have and the more specialized you are for decking/rigging or combat, the less magic you can do. It's just a way to balance things so no single character can do too much of everything. What I don't like is how this is canonized by tying essence to a concept of someone's ~soul~ and humanity, so what you end up with is pretty much cut-and-dry "the more your body is changed the less human you are." The fact that it's also associated with psychosis and the risk of becoming violent is uuhh... a Bad Look. It's just ableism and saneism any which way you slice it, and it's especially frustrating because it would have been so easy to make it just... Not That.

But! I feel like someone (or multiple someones) on the Harebrained Schemes writing team must have had a personal vendetta against essence because there are at least three characters between Dragonfall and SRHK that feel like they were explicitly and specifically written to challenge that idea and then explore it further.

The first one is one of the main teammates, Glory, in Dragonfall. When you first meet her she's presented as exactly the stereotype you might expect of a "burnout" who sacrificed all their essence and ability to do magic for mods. She's cold and distant, doesn't seem emotionally invested in anything, and more or less comes off like little more than a killing machine. But then this crazy thing happens... you can talk to her, check in with her after runs, ask her about herself, and pretty quickly she starts to light up. She emotes more, expresses stronger opinions about things, and eventually opens up to you about her (pretty devastating) past. In my opinion it seems fairly evident after a while that the thing making her come off distant and unattached wasn't her cyberware, it was good ol' fashioned unresolved trauma. She came from multiple environments where her emotions, both positive and negative, were punished or weaponized to hurt her or others around her, while she was made to feel like she was already less than human because of her magical affinity. So when she eventually got away and made the decision to cut herself off from her own power, she attached her emotions to that process, and convinced herself she had cut them out as well, that she didn't need to be human anymore. But she still feels, and she feels strongly, once she realizes she's being given a space where she can do that safely and without punishment.

Then in Hong Kong we have two characters who interestingly contrast each other but I think touch on the same idea: Ambrose, the local street doc, and Racter, another teammate. Glory elected to have her mods installed, but both Ambrose and Racter received theirs out of necessity. They're mobility aids. Ambrose is a lot more visibly so than Racter, but they are both disabled. Right from the start Ambrose seems to go directly against the stereotype: after a disastrous accident he's more machine than man at this point, and at one point even describes his own remaining essence as "a shred," and yet he's boisterous, personable, and shows remarkable respect and compassion for all his patients. While deeper talks with him reveal that he carries a lot of trauma from that experience, it seems as if he's had time to work through it, find his own coping mechanisms, and build a community around himself that keeps him connected to his sense of self. On the other hand, Racter also eventually discloses that he has extensive cyberware as the result of an accident, but believes he avoided the psychological impact of losing his essence because of his clinical diagnosis of psychopathy. Throughout his life he has never experienced affective empathy, he doesn't really connect with people on an emotional level, and he has no strong attachment to the concept of his own "humanity"--essentially, he had none of the things most people fear losing during the modding process, and so he lost nothing and stayed himself.

All of these character concepts taken together seem to present an interesting angle on the concept of essence: the loss of humanity is psychosomatic. For whatever reason, people believe that extensive cyberware impairs your ability to feel and to connect with others, and so they withdraw, lock down their emotions, and stop trying to connect with others. But it's not an inherent consequence of the mods themselves. This is speculation on my part, but it seems to me you could argue that this is a cultural artifact. If the world that eventually becomes the Shadowrun universe is at least as ableist as ours (and why wouldn't it be), I have no doubt that as cybernetic enhancements and prosthetics became more widespread, they would be met with prejudice. It's easy to fear someone who paid a lot of money to have knives or a gun put inside their arm, and isn't is suspicious? Who would want to be a finely tuned killing machine, anyway? Someone crazy, right? Someone less than human. And it's not hard to imagine people extending that fear to anyone with mods, because hey, you never know how extensive they are or what all they can do! If enough people who need or want cyberware hear that kind of rhetoric, for enough generations, of course they would start to believe it, internalize it, and replicate it, and the popular conception that essence loss is also loss of humanity would become common knowledge.

[be-gay-do-heists]

hello yall :) the holy month of elul started last night, which is typically a time for contemplation, so since it is impossible for me to stop thinking about leverage, i decided to write an essay. hope anyone interested in reading it enjoys, and that it makes at least a little sense!! spoilers for leverage redemption

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Leverage, Judaism, and “Doing the Work”: An Essay for Elul

When it comes to Elul and the approaching High Holidays, Leverage might seem like an odd topic to meditate on.

The TNT crime drama that ran from 2008-2012, and which released a new season this summer following its renewal, centers on a group of found-family thieves who help the victims of corporations and oligarchs (sometimes based on real-world examples), using wacky heists and cons to bring down the rich and powerful. In one episode, the team’s clients want to reclaim their father’s prized Glimt piece that had been stolen in the Shoah and never returned, but aside from this and the throwaway lines and jokes standard for most mainstream television, there’s not a ton textually Jewish about Leverage. However, despite this, I have found that the show has strong resonance among Jewish fans, and lots of potential for analysis along Jewish themes. This tends to focus on one character in particular: the group’s brilliant, pop culture-savvy, and personable hacker, Alec Hardison, played by the phenomenally talented Aldis Hodge.

I can’t remember when or where I first encountered a reading of Hardison as Jewish, but not only is this a somewhat popular interpretation, it doesn’t feel like that much of a leap. In the show itself, Hardison has a couple of the aforementioned throwaway lines that potentially point to him being Jewish, even if they’re only in service of that moment’s grift. It’s hard to point to what exactly makes reading Hardison as Jewish feel so natural. My first guess is the easy way Hardison fits into the traditional paradigms of Jewish masculinity explored by scholars such as Daniel Boyarin (2). Most of the time, the hacker is not portrayed as athletic or physical; he is usually the foil to the team’s more physically-adept characters like fighter Eliot, or thief Parker. Indeed, Hardison’s strength is mental, expressed not only through his computer wizardry but his passions for science, technology, music, popular media, as well as his studious research into whatever scenario the group might come up against. In spite of his self-identification as a “geek,” Hardison is nevertheless confident, emotionally sensitive, and secure in his masculinity. I would argue he is representative of the traditional Jewish masculine ideal, originating in the rabbinic period and solidified in medieval Europe, of the dedicated and thoughtful scholar (3). Another reason for popular readings of Hardison as Jewish may be the desire for more representation of Jews of color. Although mainstream American Jewish institutions are beginning to recognize the incredible diversity of Jews in the United States (4), and popular figures such as Tiffany Haddish are amplifying the experiences of non-white Jews, it is still difficult to find Jews of color represented in popular media. For those eager to see this kind of representation, then, interpreting Hardison, a black man who places himself tangential to Jewishness, in this way is a tempting avenue.

Regardless, all of the above remains fan interpretation, and there was little in the text of the show that seriously tied Judaism into Hardison’s identity. At least, until we got this beautiful speech from Hardison in the very first episode of the renewed show, directed at the character of Harry Wilson, a former corporate lawyer looking to atone for the injustice he was partner to throughout his career:

“In the Jewish faith, repentance, redemption, is a process. You can’t make restitution and then promise to change. You have to change first. Do the work, Harry. Then and only then can you begin to ask for forgiveness. [...] So this… this isn’t the win. It’s the start, Harry.”

I was floored to hear this speech, and thrilled that it explained the reboot’s title, Leverage: Redemption. Although not mentioned by its Hebrew name, teshuvah forms the whole basis for the new season. Teshuvah is the concept of repentance or atonement for the sins one has committed. Stemming from the root shuv/shuva, it carries the literal sense of “return.” In a spiritual context, this usually means a return to G-d, of finding one’s way back to holiness and by extension good favor in the eyes of the Divine. But equally important is restoring one’s relationships with fellow humans by repairing any hurt one has caused over the past year. This is of special significance in the holy month of Elul, leading into Rosh haShanah, the Yamim Noraim, and Yom Kippur, but one can undertake a journey of redemption at any point in time. That teshuvah is a journey is a vital message for Harry to hear; one job, one reparative act isn’t enough to overturn years of being on the wrong side of justice, to his chagrin. As the season progresses, we get to watch his path of teshuvah unfold, with all its frustrations and consequences. Harry grows into his role as a fixer, not only someone who can find jobs and marks for the team, but fixes what he has broken or harmed.

So why was Hardison the one to make this speech?

I do maintain that it does provide a stronger textual basis for reading Hardison as Jewish by implication (though the brief on-screen explanation for why he knows about teshuvah, that his foster-parent Nana raised a multi-faith household, is important in its own merit, and meshes well with his character traits of empathy and understanding for diverse experiences). However, beyond this, Hardison isn’t exactly an archetypical model for teshuvah. In the original series, he was the youngest character of the main ensemble, a hacking prodigy in the start of his adult career, with few mistakes or slights against others under his belt. In one flashback we see that his possibly first crime was stealing from the Bank of Iceland to pay off his Nana’s medical bills, and that his other early hacking exploits were in the service of fulfilling personal desires, with only those who could afford to pay the bill as targets. Indeed, in the middle of his speech, Hardison points to Eliot, the character with the most violent and gritty past who views his work with the Leverage team as atonement, for a prime example of ongoing teshuvah. So while no one is perfect and everyone has a reason for doing teshuvah, this question of why Hardison is the one to give this series-defining speech inspired me to look at his character choices and behavior, and see how they resonate with a different but interrelated Jewish principle, that of tikkun olam. 

Tikkun olam is literally translated as “repairing the world,” and can take many different forms, such as protecting the rights of vulnerable people in society, or giving tzedakah (5). In modern times, tikkun olam is often the rallying cry for Jewish social activists, particularly among environmentalists for whom literally restoring the health of the natural world is the key goal. Teshuvah and tikkun olam are intertwined (the former is the latter performed at an interpersonal level) and both hold a sense of fixing or repairing, but tikkun olam really revolves around a person feeling called to address an injustice that they may have not had a personal hand in creating. Hardison’s sense of a universal scale of justice which he has the power to help right on a global level and his newfound drive to do humanitarian work, picked up sometime after the end of the original series, make tikkun olam a central value for his character. This is why we get this nice bit of dialogue from Eliot to Hardison in the second episode of the reboot, when the latter’s outside efforts to organize international aid start distracting him from his work with the team: “Is [humanitarian work] a side gig? In our line of work, you’re one of the best. But in that line of work… you’re the only one, man.” The character who most exemplifies teshuvah reminds Hardison of his amazing ability to effect change for the better on a huge stage, to do some effective tikkun olam. It’s this acknowledgement of where Hardison can do the most good that prompts the character’s absence for the remainder of the episodes released thus far, turning his side gig into his main gig.

With this in mind, it will be interesting to see where Hardison’s arc for this season goes. Separated from the rest of the team, the hacker still has remarkable power to change the world, because it is, after all, the “age of the geek.” However, he is still one person. For all that both teshuvah and tikkun olam are individual responsibilities and require individual decision-making and effort, the latter especially relies on collective work to actually make things happen. Hardison leaving is better than trying to do humanitarian work and Leverage at the same time, but there’s only so long he can be the “only one” in the field before burning out. I’m reminded of one of the most famous (for good reason) maxims in Judaism:

It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to neglect it. (6)

Elul is traditionally a time for introspection and heeding the calls to repentance. After a year where it’s never been easier to feel powerless and drained by everything going on around us, I think it’s worth taking the time to examine what kind of work we are capable of in our own lives. Maybe it’s fixing the very recent and tangible hurts we’ve left behind, like Harry. Maybe it’s the little changes for the better that we make every day, motivated by our sense of responsibility, like Eliot. And maybe it’s the grueling challenge of major social change, like Hardison. And if any of this work gets too much, who can we fall back on for support and healing? Determining what needs repair, working on our own scale and where our efforts are most helpful, and thereby contributing to justice in realistic ways means that we can start the new year fresh, having contemplated in holiday fashion how we can be better agents in the world.

Shana tovah u’metukah and ketivah tovah to all (7), and may the work we do in the coming year be for good!

------

(1) Disclaimer: everybody’s fandom experiences are different, and this is just what I’ve picked up on in my short time watching and enjoying this show with others.

(2) See, for example, the introduction and first chapter of Boyarin’s book Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (I especially recommend at least this portion if you are interested in queer theory and Judaic studies). There he explores the development of Jewish masculinity in direct opposition to Christian masculine standards.

(3) I might even go so far as to place Hardison well within the Jewish masculine ideal of Edelkayt, gentle and studious nobility (although I would hesitate to call him timid, another trait associated with Edelkayt). Boyarin explains that this scholarly, non-athletic model of man did not carry negative associations in the historical Jewish mindset, but was rather the height of attractiveness (Boyarin, 2, 51).

(4) Jews of color make up 20% of American Jews, according to statistics from Be’chol Lashon, and this number is projected to increase as American demographics continue to change: https://globaljews.org/about/mission/. 

(5) Tzedakah is commonly known as righteous charity. According to traditional authority Maimonides, it should be given anonymously and without embarrassment to the person in need, generous, and designed to help the recipient become self-sufficient.

(6) Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot, 2:16

(7) “A good and sweet year” and “a good inscription [in the Book of Life]”

[grandinventor]

Honestly the hypocrisy regarding Sokolov and Jindosh has always made me go ???? Because “Jindosh assisted the coup, he’s made terrible inventions.” K…what exactly did Sokolov do that was so different?? He EXPERIMENTED on people.

Right! Like yes, Jindosh is bad and Sokolov is old enough to start having regrets and trying to correct himself (but he is ~20 years older than Jindosh) but he was also...bad. (I have to put it under the cut it got Long)

For the record Sokolov: - experimented on people (for the Plague sure, but that's what we know of and he wasn't exactly nice about it, he had them locked behind a wall of light) - did some kind of vague disgusting rituals to summon the Outsider - Delilah did not like the implied sexual relationship she had with him when she was 20 or so years younger and had no way to climb from her bad life but being his "apprentice". - drove Roseburrow to suicide after he turned his benign inventions that brought prosperity to the Empire into military grade weapons that were used to oppress the people. - those include the guns and weapons, walls of light, arc pylons, arc mines and tallboys. - invented an electric chair used to torture the workers at Rothwild Slaughterhouse so they won't form a union (and said electric chair is lethal too). - invented a machine to electrify the whales and keep them alive for long so their whale oil can be harvested (this whole whale thing is very much implied to be Bad for the overall world state in the first game). - is a master at whale vivisection, you know cutting them open alive. - did assist Hiram and sided with him until we literally had to threaten and bribe him to help us did everyone forget this? - did invent a lot of the useful whale oil systems that did help the Isles go into the new era of technology but the majority of those can be attributed to Roseburrow himself. - found the cure for the Plague with Piero.

And speaking of Natural Philosophers, there is also Piero who has a far smaller list of shit but he: - was generally a creep and was creeping and peeping on Callista who is like 20 years younger than him (not that her being older would make it better). - has this very interesting and not at all concerning and fucked up audiograph:

- found the cure for the Plague with Sokolov - made Corvo's mask and the Heart for what's worth.

On the other hand Jindosh has a very similar list because he:

- tried to do or did some experiment on his peers that almost landed him in jail. - uses prisoners the Duke gives him to test his Clockwork Soldiers. - has used his electroshock machine on some baker (can't defend you here king). - has let people die in his house, by his house but in his defense he does tell you at the door that you shouldn't go in or you will die, which goes for most houses of nobles and important people anyway. - has dissected those that have died or were nearly dead in his house. - killed a cat when he was a kid so he can dissect it (people are so touchy on this one, all Natural Philosophers dissect animals, it's not the serial killer material y'all thought it is but you tried). - did not invent any weapons but the Clockwork Soldiers, however improved Sokolov's military designs to give Karnaca and Serkonos their own walls of light, arc pylons, audiographs and other devices so they won't have to import from Gristol. - invented a lot of harmless and GOOD stuff like the silvergraph (he was gonna make movies! and just having photography available to everyone is such an improvement to society), the carriage system in Karnaca and also he uses hydraulic systems as in hydropower to power his house instead of whale oil which is pretty nice given the shortage and the cruel methods of producing it. Also I think his company makes a lot of heating/cooling and ventilation systems too. - has made a replica of the Heart at the Academy. - made a machine that drank sea water and made sounds that drove people to tears (in high chaos it's a toy made of cat bones that worked on whale oil but it drove a girl to madness). - was expelled from the Academy for undisclosed reasons that are described as "a little accident" in "The Return of Daud."

And also to add, dissection is like a perfectly normal thing at the Academy, at least in the first game. I don't know why dissection and animal dissection was made such a big deal in the world of Dishonored, like yeah its morbid for us, but we don't operate on the same in-world morality.

So like in conclusion from all I listed, Jindosh was just as bad as Sokolov, or rather Sokolov was just as bad as Jindosh. Piero is also a shithead but he decided to die so he isn't my problem now, but both are just...bad scientist men trope. They both suck. The only difference is that Dishonored 2 decided to go with the spin that old Sokolov realized he was bad and tried to run away from it and make up for his sins while Jindosh is the dangerous, mentally ill coded """psychopath""" who loves killing and will never change or become good just so Sokolov can get the moral high ground. And after making sure they drive the point home that Jindosh is mentally ill crazy and mad inventor with no empathy who will kill for fun, they then had us lobotomize him. And then despite the people working on his level asking for a 3rd option where we don't harm him, creative direction said no and they realized his non-lethal was just a bunch of shock value crap, so they made his "canonical" fate to die. And like...all of this could be avoided if they didn't use Jindosh as a leverage to try and retcon or sugarcoat Sokolov's crimes and acknowledged both suck but they are fun characters.

I am sorry this got long, I am very passionate on the subject because Jindosh's non-lethal is one of the few things in fiction that upset me and this is coming from someone who love Jindosh AND also likes Sokolov a lot as a character despite all of his flaws. So it's not just me hating on Sokolov, I wish this arc was written better between them because the potential was there. Jindosh had so much potential as a character and they just threw all that good voice acting and amazing level design for nothing.

[podcastsaremyjam]

Podcast Recs!

Sometimes it can be difficult to find new fiction podcasts through the jungle of nonfiction ones. I LOVE finding new podcasts through other people’s recommendation’s, so I figured I’d take advantage of tumblr’s “pin a post” feature to pin a list of my favorite podcasts to the top of my page! Be sure to check out the tags on this post too—I try to be pretty consistent with tagging on this account. I’ll keep updating as I find new podcasts!

Fantasy

The Adventure Zone

If you’re into D&D, you’ve probably at least heard of this one, but it’s definitely worth the hype! TAZ was created by the McElroy brothers who, along with their dad Clint, play D&D together. The whole thing is INCREDIBLY hilarious, but each story really gets more complex and interesting as it goes along. The first “season,” TAZ: Balance is my favorite—classic D&D setting following Magnus, Taako, and Merle as they adventure and a larger mystery slowly unfolds. #adventure #dnd #found family

Unseen

A collection of stories set in the same magical universe by the team who created Wolf359. Each episode has been really interesting, and the worldbuilding is really great! #magic #lgbtq+ rep #mental health

The Two Princes

Rupert and Amir are princes of two kindgoms at war who decide to take destiny into their own hands by pursuing the cause of the curse plaguing their kingdoms. To do so, they will have to create an uneasy truce as they forge deeper into the enchanted forest. This podcast is so lovely. The characters growth is just *chef’s kiss* I just found out that seasons 2 & 3 were released exclusively on Spotify, so guess who’s “to listen” list just got longer? #princes #lgbtq+ rep #prophecy #enemies to lovers

Sci-Fi

Girl in Space

Our narrator (who’s name has not been revealed as of the end of season 1) is a young scientist who’s parents have died, leaving her as the sole living inhabitant of the research station Cavatica. Space seems so vast when you only have yourself to talk to...until it isn’t. One of my all time favs—there is so much depth in the story and characters! #space #research #mental health #grief #space station

Directive

Y’all, this one made me cry the first time I listened to it! The story (in season 1) follows Frank as he works as a caretaker watching over the cryogeniclly stored bodies of people on their way to a space colony. It’s such a poginant exploration of the social bonds we take for granted. #space #mental health

Wolf 359

Told through the audio logs of Communications Officer Doug Eiffel , Wolf 359 follows the crew of the Hephaestus as they monitor the star Wolf 359. If I could only recommend 5 podcasts to someone, this one would definitely make the cut. Each of the characters is so well flashed out as the podcast progresses, and the conversations it has about mental illness are handled so well! #space #mental health #space station

Moonbase Theta Out

Ugh, this podcast is so good! The first season follows the researchers and workers on Moonbase Theta as they prepare for base shutdown. However, with political issues threatening the safety of family planetside and those in charge being suspiciously unwilling to provide information on certain topics, our narrator pushes for answers before he goes into cryogenic stasis. Note—the narrator of season one and his husband are sappy and adorable. I love them so muchhhh. #space #politics #lgbtq+ rep #space station

The Orphans

If you love sci-fi, this is the podcast for you! The Orphans tells the story of a universe full of future technologies and humanity continuing to push forward into unknowns. Each season tells a different story arc set in the same universe, interconnecting and building on past seasons. #technology #space #survival

Burst

An adorable anti-capitalist comedy set in space! #space #aliens #lgbtq+ rep #space station

EOS 10

OMG This podcast always makes me laugh so hard! It follows two doctors, a nurse, and a hypochondriac alien patient as they navigate medical appoinments and daily life on the station EOS 10. Shenagains ensue. #space #medical #lgbtq+ rep #aliens #space station

The Strange Case of the Starship Iris

Hooooo boy! Bring on the found family adventures in space we all deserve! Something here about the Each character is just beautifully written, layered in complexities that start to peel away as we get to know them. #aliens #space #found family #lgbtq+ rep

The Bright Sessions

Therapy session recordings of Dr. Bright’s patients. Only, her patients aren’t there for help with anxiety or depression. They’re there because they’re “atypicals,” people with incredible abilities. I love each of the characters in this podcast, and learning more and more as the plot unfolds!

Horror/Supernatural

The Magnus Archives

I don’t normally listen to horror, but I started listening in the middle of the pandemic and HOO BOY. It did not disappoint! The story follows Jonathan Sims working in the archives at the Magnus Institute, an institute dedicated to gathering information about strange and unusual occurances. Each episode is Jon recording himself reading statements people have given in order to better organize the Archives. Starts off a little slow in terms of Jon’s interaction with other characters, but that aspect starts picking up halfway through season 1. #horror #supernatural #lgbtq+ rep

King Falls AM

Though not as terrifying as the other shows in this section, King Falls AM can definitely be unsettling. The show follows Sammy Stevens and Ben Arnold as they host a late night radio show in the not-so-sleepy town of King Falls. Though newcomer Sammy is skeptical of the town’s reputation for supernatural events, there is definitely more to the town and its inhabitants than meets the eye. #supernatural #mental health #lgbtq+ rep

Welcome to Nightvale

My first ever podcast! You’ve probably already decided if Nightvale is your cup of tea if you’re on my blog, but basically WtNV is a radio show covering events that happen in a town where glowing clouds rain dead animals, a country of tiny people exosts under a bowling lane, and librarians will must not escape the library. Vaguely creepy and definitely weird! #supernatural #lgbtq+ rep

Other

Levar Burton Reads

If you love short stories, definitely check this one out! As the title suggests, the immensely talented Levar Burton selects a different short story for each episode and reads it. His selections span lots of genres, and he’s read stories from some of my favorite authors like Neil Gaiman and Nnedi Okorafor!

Me & AU

This podcast is sooooo cute! It follows Kate as she hyperfocuses on a new show called Selkirk and becomes friends with a fellow Selkirk fan named Ella.

Under Pressure

Follows a doctor of literature aboard a deep sea research station three miles underwater.

36 Questions

A musical three part mini-series about the relationship fallout between a husband and wife after the husband discovers that his wife isn’t who she says she is.

[appleb18]

I Wanted Believe in Steven (A Critical Steven Universe Post)

Steven Universe, a popular show that has won the hearts of so many people. It had good songs, talks about mental health and relationships, a lovable cast of characters and it’s revolutionary for representing LGBT. As the show finally wraps up with Steven Universe: Future being the series finale, I want to say this… I used to believe in Steven Universe. I truly got into it when it first came out and then I started to appreciate it more as the show progressed even with the flaws. However, as time moved on, the show’s flaws have outweighed the strengths, making my enjoyment decline and become critical and nitpicky towards it. So I believe it’s time to point out the many problems with the show.

The Glory Days of Steven Universe 

Before I begin ranting about the show, I want to talk about when I actually liked Steven Universe back in seasons 1-3. It was when everyone actually enjoyed the show before it went downhill. 

- So before Steven became really annoying, I actually liked him when he was developing in season 1. He was very immature at first but he gradually grew. He became a member of the Crystal Gems and finally summoned his shield. 

- Peridot’s redemption was handled very well and I enjoyed her character throughout the whole show.

- The show once balanced filler and plot. 

- I enjoyed the Crystal Gems chemistry back in seasons 1 - 3. They acted like a family with Garnet being the wise guardian, Pearl being overprotective, Amethyst laidback and Steven maturing.

- The songs are great.

- The messages are relatable such as “Love Letter.” Garnet tells Jamie that love-at-first-sight doesn’t work. It takes time and a lot of work. You must know the person first before you begin to love someone.  

Those are the reasons why I enjoyed the show back in the day. Now it’s time to talk about how the Crewniverse messed up everything. 

Inconsistencies. Are. Everywhere 

Steven Universe is well known for having no consistency and that’s one of the major problems with the show. While I can forgive season 1 animation because let’s face it, not every show has good animation like Phineas and Ferb. Though having characters go off-model consistently gets really irritating to watch. It’s irritating because most of them are professional storyboard artists and yet they’re doing a very sloppy job.

The reason behind unprofessional animation is Rebecca Sugar wanted her crew to have artistic freedom and have their own stylistic choice. They can draw whatever they want as long as the viewers can recognize the characters. There are many problems with this. 

While it’s nice to see the artist's own style it doesn’t work with a cartoon that’s story-driven. You’ll probably argue that some shows like Adventure Time and American Dragon go off-model. However, it’s just redesigned and they stick with it till the very end of their respective series. 

Also, shows like Ren and Stimpy and Flapjack go off-model because for comedic effect.

So stylistic choice doesn’t mean artists can draw whatever they want. It means that a character has their own style. 

Terrance and Philip from South Park 

Elmore characters from The Amazing World of Gumball 

Each of them has a unique character design. It’s not the Korean animator's fault for it, they’re given what the Crewniverse drew, trace it and just animate it and they can’t fix their errors. What makes it upsetting is that animation pilots and shorts made by a single person or independent team with very little funding have more consistent and appealing animation than Steven Universe. 

I ain’t an animator, but I know when animation goes off-model. Sadly, it’s not just inconsistent art that the show suffers from, but inconsistent writing and discontinuity as well.

Such as in “Are You My Dad?” Aquamarine and Topaz knocked out Steven and then she abandoned him while they took Lars, Sadie, Onion, Jamie, and Connie. Then in “I Am My Mom” they lure him and The Crystal Gems out for information to find Greg. So if you wanted to get information to find him, why didn’t they just grab him when he was knocked out? 

Also, why did Aquamarine agree to Steven’s terms? Her wand is the most broken weapon in the show. She could’ve grabbed everyone including The Crystal Gems.

Garnet couldn’t tell Steven about her future vision because it wanted him to go more? If she just told him about Greg's capture, he would have understood. Also, she gave him future visions in “Jailbreak,” “Snow day” and “Future Boy Zoltron.” Why didn’t she do that for that kind of situation? 

The Crystal Gems, who have special abilities, summon weapons and powers that fought Gems and Corrupted Gems and yet they were beaten by a freaking Steven Catus, Really? 

We saw Lapis control the freaking ocean in “Mirror Gem”, “Ocean Gem” and “Why So Blue”, so why didn’t she use that to remove the injector?

After 6,000 years of waiting for Pink Diamond, Spinel got news about her Diamond and that she gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven. It changed her appearance from happy go lucky to edgy. Now she wants vengeance. So I’m wondering how was she able to get an injector and a scythe, then go to Earth in under a few hours? 

In “Giant Woman,” Pearl explains that two gems have to decide to fuse together and they have to sync with each other to do it. In “Change Your Mind,” Steven fuses with the Crystal Gems midair while they are in their gem state.

How the hell did Connie get affected by Blue Diamond’s pathokinesis when Lapis Lazuli arrived in “Reunited”? 

She was fine when BD did it the first time.

Mean Lapis and Bluebird are still on the loose. I know most shows leave things unanswered but you can’t leave two villains out there. They can still do harm to others 

I really wish the Crewniverse showed more professionalism because there are so many errors in the show and some of them are so simple to fix, yet they don’t and that’s what I call lazy. 

The Cast of Characters Don’t Do Much

I used to like the cast of characters, even the humans I enjoyed watching. When season 4 - Future came in, they got ruined. Most of them don’t do much in the show. I feel like they got sidelined because the Crewniverse had no idea what to do with them. 

Let’s first talk about The citizens of Beach City and how they are the most boring characters in the show. At first, they weren’t so bad because they did have a role to play in the story like when The Cool Kids talked to Steven about his mother when he found out that she was a war criminal and he blamed himself for his mother not being around anymore. They also helped him not get scolded by The Crystal Gems when they found Peridot’s escape pod. 

There’s even some slice-of-life episodes that I did enjoy watching such as

“Sadie’s Song” 

 And “Historical Fiction”

But now they don’t react to any Gem situation anymore. They just stand around and serve no purpose to the plot. Look at “Future”, throughout the whole epilogue mini-series, the humans didn’t do a dang thing in the series. For example, The Cool Kids, Lars, Sadie, and Shep don’t talk to Steven about his mental health when he was about to crush them with his force field. It just makes it feel that they don’t care about him or oblivious about that experience

Then they didn’t do squat when Steven became a monster and I know they're just humans but their friends and the show focus on them a lot, so they have to use them. It made me wonder why they even focus on them in season 4 and season 5 if they're not going to serve their purpose in the story. 

Now let's talk about the more interesting characters and how the Crewniverse wasted them. Many Gems and few human characters (Lars, Greg, Connie) get them characters to grow, face struggles and have moments that can make a character likable. After all that, the Crewniverse had no idea what to do so they just left them. 

Peridot’s redemption was well written. from season 1 - season 3. From a villain that has unknown technology and feels more alien than the Crystal Gems to a member of the Crystal Gem. As much as I love her development and she’s my favorite, however, she doesn’t do much in the show. Most shows that give a lot of development to a character are part of the main cast but in Steven Universe's case, she gets put in the barn with Lapis Lazuli and does nothing. She’s never involved in major story arcs such as she didn’t come along to help Steven to get his dad back in Zoo Arc and didn’t help with beach city citizens getting kidnapped in Wanted Arc. 

Even in the Pink Diamond Arc, she has no part to play. All she was in that arc was a punchline and a hyperactive character with no defining moments. While it’s nice she has a new outfit, it doesn’t change anything. 

Peridot had the potential to be a really great character but she got wasted because they had no idea what to do with her.

Pearl and Garnet never got their own character arc. When they fused with Steven to become Rainbow Quartz 2.0 and Sunstone it was rushed. I know they didn’t have time to do their arcs but if they cut townie episodes and focused on their bond it would’ve felt more impactful for him to fuse with them. Season 4 could’ve been Garnet and Season 5 could’ve been Pearl. Just look at Amethyst where she finds mutual respect and love for Steven and that’s really great to see. With them, we don’t have a moment like that.

A good example of using characters is Regular Show. They used their characters pretty well, giving each of them a good amount of screen time. 

Benson’s drum solo 

Getting to know more about Skips history

Muscle Man setting his ashes free at Great Trucker Graveyard 

High Five Ghost reunited with his love interest 

Pop’s proving that he’s part of the guys for Guys Night 

Rigby graduates high school

Mordecai painting for Benson

And what I like the most about is they all have a moment together as best friends. Such as in “Parkie Rewards,” although Benson doesn’t win an award, the gang made their very own award and paper trophy. Benson made a speech about how he appreciated his staff workers. 

I really wish Steven Universe had something like that and I really wanted to see more of Lapis, Garnet, Amethyst, and Bismuth but sadly the writers aren’t giving them much to do anymore. 

A Shift of Pacing 

Steven Universe really wants to tell a story like most cartoon shows are doing such as Over the Garden Wall, Adventure Time, Owl House and many more. They keep adding episodic episodes in the middle of unresolved conflict and have the concluding rushed. An example of this is the Cluster arc. 

Peridot tells The Crystal Gems that the Cluster will emerge at any time… AT ANY TIME! So the gang planned to create a gem drill to destroy it to save the Earth. So instead of working on the drill, they kept delaying it like 

Garnet told her story to Steven of how Ruby and Sapphire met 

Celebrating Steven’s birthday 

Peridot processing on becoming a “Crystal Gem”

I know Peridot was working on the drill and I like Peridot’s redemption but it’s a life or death situation. You can’t do other things when the Cluster can emerge at any time. The way they resolved the arc was really rushed. The Crystal Gems finally locate the whereabouts of Malachite and so Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl go to Watermelon Island and fuse to Alexandrite to defeat her. Then the Cluster emerges and it’s up to Steven and Peridot to deal with it. Instead of destroying the Cluster, he talks to it and it stops itself from emerging by bubbling itself. The way the writers conclude the arc was so anticlimactic and rushed. It ended two major plots, Malachite and Cluster in two episodes and Steven just talking to it was ridiculous. The Cluster arc should’ve at least had two episodes and Malachite should’ve come after the event because she was briefly mentioned in three episodes. 

Adventure Time has a mini-series that primarily focuses on plots. It resolves conflicts and it doesn’t waste any time such as Islands, Stakes, and Elements. 

People tend to blame the network for the inconsistent schedule and hiatus. While it may be true, however, it’s not really a big issue with the show. Gravity Falls isn’t consistent with its schedule but it has better pacing than Steven Universe. From Nov. 26, 2014 - Feb 16, 2015, the ep “Northwest Mansion Noir” was released, another month of waiting for “Not What He Seems.” Then we have to wait for four months, July 13th, 2015, for “The Tale of Two Stans.” Then there’s Steven Universe where we have to wait for six months for the next episode and it is just Towney episodes and it doesn’t even matter to the plot. So I pretty much don’t understand why people are complaining about the Steven Universe hiatus when Gravity Falls, a well-written show, has a hiatus as well. 

They could’ve had a well-written story if only they weren't so focused on the human side of Steven and cut most of the filler out. 

Action Doesn’t Have Consequences 

In most shows, movies, and video games, characters will make rash decisions that have other characters disagree and even have a bit of a falling out.  

Look at Gravity Falls “Land Before Swine.” Stanley doesn’t like Mabel’s pet pig, Waddles, and he left him outside when there was a Pterodactyl in town. Stan left Waddles unattended and caused him to get captured.

Soos messed up a lot in the episode. Without thinking, he barged in as Dipper developed the film which ruined a good picture of the dinosaur.

He tries to be optimistic when Mabel finds out Stanley left him out however it ineffective when he ravels the yarn back up and thus cut the clear path and accidentally break the lamb

To prove their worth is by Stanley fights the pterodactyl to save Waddles 

And Soos and Dipper make up when he apologizes and he admits he made mistakes.  Dipper and Mabel then took Soos advice to follow his lead and walk in a straight line as for dinosaurs' eyes are so far apart and that it can’t see in front of itself and the plan went well. 

So with Steven Universe, most characters in the show have done pretty terrible things and the show never atoned for their actions. 

In “Island Adventure”, Sadie trapped Lars and Steven on an island by hid the Gem portal with leaves so she can hit on him.  Although she saved his life by poofing the gem monster with a pointy stick, it doesn’t help the fact that she trapped them for a month! It is also idiotic that the show treats Lars as he’s the bad guy where in reality, Sadie is! 

Amethyst, although I do like her character development in the show, however, she did pretty a messed up thing and they never resolved it. In “Maximum Capacity”, Greg finds out that he’s missing the fireworks and Amethyst shapeshifts from Steven to Greg to cheer him up. She changes back and gets mad at him for not spending time with her. So she shapeshifts to Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond which causes Greg to look away and it’s the second time she has done it, and then Steven comes in to stop and question both of them. Amethyst feels guilty and left. So in order to make things up, she came up with an idea to clean that the Crystal Gems can clean out Greg storage. So this is really messed up. She shapeshifted as his wife and not only it scarred Greg but Steven as well and yet the writers never decided on how they can properly make it up. That’s so horrible. 

Lapis Lazuli took the Earth's water, almost killed Connie, broke Peridot's tape recorder and called it garbage, and she took the barn. When she finally comes back to help the Crystal Gems to fight against the Diamonds. Her response to everyone was “hey”. She never apologized for anything she has done. I know she has PTSD but it doesn’t excuse her actions. 

The only character that actually feels guilty and has to make amends of her wrongdoing is Pearl. She deceived Garnet by keeping rebuilding Gem communicator so she can fuse with her to form Sardonyx to make herself feel better. Steven and Amethyst find out and spill the beans which gets Garnet mad and Pearl feels guilty. In the last episode of the Sardonyx arc, they get trapped by Peridot. When they were about to get crushed, they two finally talk and Pearl apologizes to her and calls herself “just a pearl” and Garnet tells her you are your own gem and that makes her feel better and fused to Sardonyx once again. 

Now it’s time to talk about the second major gripe with the show that everyone has and it’s the Diamonds being redeemed. The Diamonds are tyrannical fascist dictators that caused genocide many species, colonized many worlds, corrupt gems, shatter gems that don’t obey, have an army, gems that are off-color are put to the underground, and force fused shattered gems into a Cluster. After what they have done, you think they need to pay, right? Unfortunately, since Rebecca Sugar said ``there are no villains' ' and the show is about empathy, the Diamonds, especially White Diamond, get a clean slate. So it’s fine to have a villain be sympathetic and have a sad backstory, it makes them more human but having them redeemed is something you should never ever do, especially what they’ve done. They have very little screen time to show their development and have doubts about their empire. 

Then they made them worse when in Steven Universe: “The Movie” and “Future” 

In Steven Universe: “The Movie”, The Diamonds become clingy aunties to Steven and tell them don’t do evil things anymore like calling other species “equal lifeforms”, disband their arms and not shatter gems.

In Steven Universe: “Future”, The Diamonds abilities have a completely opposite effect towards Gems such as 

Yellow Diamond’s ability to change from poofing gems to fixing 

Blue Diamond’s ability to change from sad blue orbs to happy blue clouds 

White Diamond's ability changed from manipulation to control her for a brief moment. 

Having them become good and having emotions won’t cut it. They can’t atone for what they’ve done for the past millions of being fascist dictators and just saying “I’m a good Diamond now” can’t wipe away their past actions. It doesn’t work like that! 

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, A SHOW FOR LITTLE GIRLS, have a better-written villain redemption than Steven Universe and I ain’t kidding. Discord was the main antagonist for “Return of Harmony”. All he wanted to do is cause chaos. He was defeated by the mane six at the end of the second part of the episode.

In season 3, “Keep Calm and Flutter On”, Discord was reformed by Fluttershy because Princess Celestia believes he can be a good ally and knows that she can do it. 

Throughout season 4, everyone still doesn’t trust him even though he’s friends with Fluttershy.

In the season 4 finale, he sided with Tirek and he betrayed them because he thought he’ll be rewarded for it. 

Then he was betrayed by him. After Tirek and Twilight fought, she gave up her magic to save her friends, including Discord. It made him realize that friendship is more precious than anything of what he’ll give him and that’s when he’s been fully accepted as a friend to the mane six. 

I also want to talk about Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond. While many fans in the community and the Crewniverse always point that she’s terrible and I agree she is. Such as leaving Spinel for 3,000 years, cracked her first Pink Pearl, abandoned her Diamond duties to be free, started a Gem war that cost many Gems to shatter to pursue her own goal, bubbled Bismuth, gems got corrupted, and left Steven with the burden. It is indeed bad but when compared to the Diamonds, she’s more of a saint than them. At least she does develop, doesn’t shatter gems and save the Earth from the Diamonds. 

With story pacing being all over, villains and even characters aren’t paying for their actions and a cast of characters aren’t doing much, what’s the most problematic of the show? Well, it’s a combination of all my problems into one and that is…

Steven “Center Of” Universe

The major problem with the show, the one that brings down the show a lot and it’s Steven Omnipresence. First off, I don’t mind when a show has a protagonist point-of-view like Ben 10, Phineas and Ferb, Over the Garden Wall, etc. As long as it's written well and keeps the story moving, it’s fine but with Steven Universe, it has tons of problems. Steven's point-of-view is the cause of all its flaws and I can’t stress it enough about it. 

So let’s first talk about the obvious one and how it’s only Steven's perspective. The problem with this is we only see things if Steven is there to witness it. The show introduces a fascinating world of Gems and yet the show doesn’t dive into that because Steven doesn’t care about and all he does is hang around Beach City. Steven will never explore unless he chooses to and some major plot points are offscreen which you should never do, especially it’s a story-driven show. An example of this is “Wanted Arc’” and yes I’m using it the third time as my example because it really is a terrible arc. When Steven comes back home, he had some information about Homeworld, discovered that there’s a mystery about Pink Diamond shattering, Off Colours, Steven can bring back people from the dead and Lars in space. With all that, what does Steven do? Nothing. Throughout his adventure in space, he never mentions it to the Crystal Gems and instead of that being the main focus, it’s townies and Connie. While Steven is doing Beach City fluff, Lars is actually progressing the plot by him developing and escaping Homeworld with the Off Colours. I truly wonder why the Crewniverse believes that Beach City is more important than Gems? 

They got interesting lore and I truly want them to explore it more but they had to waste all that and have the most major plot points be offscreen for Steven's perspective. 

The second problem with Steven p.o.v is his contestant presence. The show will always be about him, no other characters get the spotlight or do anything unless he’s there. There’s rarely a scene that doesn’t have Steven and it’s frustrating when there’s a well-rounded cast of characters that I want to see more than him. We’ll never see them interact with other characters nor explore different parts of the world. Other shows have done it such as 

Amazing World of Gumball - “The World”

Adventure Time - “Varmints” 

Avatar: The Last Airbender - “Zuko Alone” 

Rick and Morty - “Tales From the Citadel”

Imagine how great it will be if explore more of the cast like  

Uncorrupt Gem characters and Curley Lapis going by their day in Little Homeschool. 

Lars becoming a space pirate 

Lapis and Peridot becoming friends 

Pearl meeting up with Mystery Girl

Volleyball recovering from her trauma

Ruby and Sapphire being their own individuals 

They got a lovable cast of characters that I want the show to further explore and yet the Crewniverse don’t do anything with them and that’s such a missed opportunity.  

Then the third most egregious problem with Steven p.o.v is he’s the communicator. The show tries to message that talking things will work but no one really talks to each other unless it’s Steven. Characters barely make their opinion or a chance to speak for themselves while Steven's opinion will and shall always be in the right and we barely see characters talking to one another. Examples of these are…

When Steven bubbles Bismuth, Pearl and Garnet don't say a thing and just let him. They don't question why he did or lash him out for it. They just went along with it. Steven decided to unbubble her in “Made of Honor “ for a wedding without talking to anyone else about it and again, they still haven’t asked questions and they just went along with it. 

In “Reunited”, instead of Crystal Gems look at each other to find their strength like Garnet telling Pearl she’s her own Pearl, Pearl telling Amethyst she’s isn’t an accident, and they tell Garnet that she’s a great leader, Steven has to remind them what they are supposed to be. 

Blue and Yellow had issues with the Gem Empire but too afraid to say to White Diamond. Until Steven arrived and that’s when they tried talking to her.

The Diamonds become good because Steven tells them being a fascist dictator is bad and they agree. They disbanded the Gem Empire and changed their abilities to help Gems under two years. 

Steven made Pearl talk to Amethyst. 

The message the show tries to tell that people should communicate is completely flawed because rather than have other characters improve their lives by talking to one another, they made Steven the messiah that every character looks up to. Steven will change your mind and you have no choice in the matter. 

Conclusion

With the end of Steven Universe, I  want to say that this show could’ve been better. Steven Universe was created by Rebecca Sugar, a former storyboard artist for Adventure Time and the one who mainly writes episodes about Marceline and wrote songs for the show. When she announced that she's left AT to make her show, I was excited and had such high hopes for it. I really want this show to succeed and it could’ve been the next Adventure Time, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic or Gravity Falls but sadly it failed to do so. The show flaws outshined it the strength by it was handled unprofessionally, wasted their characters, the pacing is all over the place, no character pay for their past actions and Steven’s point-of-view. I don’t think it’s the worst show I’ve ever watched nor a masterpiece, it's just a disappointingly average show in my personal opinion. I hope Rebecca Sugar and her crew not just see this as their progressive show by representing LGBT and messaging but also see what they would have approved of on the show and how they could’ve made it better. I had a lot of good memories when I first watched the show. It had the potential to be better but it never filled the promises they made.  

[miyomiikonran]

Burn the Witch Personal Review

I know how this sounds, especially I never did smth like that, so just pls treat it more like bunch of thoughts and opinions on this new title from long-term fan of Bleach rather than some professionally done review. I watched all three episodes and for now I didn't have much time to read the manga (I have a lot of stuff to read for my studies so ;;") so I just went through stuff written on fan wiki. So beware! Spoilers ahead!

So anyway, new title from Tite Kubo. I could not know who's the author and I still would've guessed who it is. It has such a familiar vibe for me, it's a lot like Bleach for me in terms of humor, dialogues, character interactions and so on. Backgrounds also have this kind of similar vibe but I can't tell what's exactly causing it cus I'm no artist. Kubo in his glory days always had great backgrounds so that's all I'm able to say. I think he catched some breath after Bleach's ending and came back with new energy, so his skills are back too.

About characters. I'm glad he did two main female characters this time, even though both Noel and Ninny annoyed me through most of these ~60 minutes. I'm gonna say that's how it usually is before you get to know these characters better. Balgo annoyed me the most because he's typical perverted guy (which I'm really tired of) but with sweet dumny appearance (I'm here for it) so we'll see where will this character go further. Ninny's idol type, so I wasn't really excited at first, but I really liked her interactions with Macy, so I see chances for future development. Kinda the same with Noel and Balgo, they have some chances to get better through their influence on each other. Noel is kinda boring on her own most of the time, but her drive for money is sooo relatable for me right now.

My absolute favourite for now is Osushi, which kinda amused me, cus it's complete opposite compared with how I reacted to Kon at first, who also was sort of mascot in Bleach. I think Kubo has a thing for "seems cute but can kill you" type of mascot...

Let's adress the elefant in the room now. It's the same damn universe as Bleach. It blew my mind completely since I read about this series. It's the same universe (12 years after the war) and it has witches and dragons! Don't get me wrong, tbh I think it could work, it makes sense in it's own twisted kind of way. I just wish we were given any clues about existence of other "reverse worlds"/Soul Societies before this title came out. Cus it makes sense when you think about it. For me it looks like each country/culture (cus idk if each country wouldn't be too much) could have it's own kind of reverse world coexisting with human world, with it's magic, creatures and rules rooted in it's history, culture and beliefs. That's why suddenly we have these european-looking dragons and completely different approach to them- rather than kill them, humans are using them for their own gain, which for me makes sense for country that started industrial age and was first capitalistic-kind of system in the world. Obviously they would be like "ey, it's kinda a waste to kill them, maybe we could use them to make our life easier?". In Bleach it was all more about restoring and keeping balance between worlds, moral duty, honor and strict rules which makes sense (at least for me) in japanese society. Same with Shinigami and their powers. Other stuff like Quincy and Arrancars kinda throw off this kind of logic but well, I'm just trying to find some sense in this madness.

How's the plot then going, in such weird curricumstances? For me it could easily defend itself as independent idea and separate universe. If someone didn't knew Bleach and watched this I'm pretty sure it would be viewed almost the same for now. Will it have more connections to stuff we know from Bleach? Idk, I hope so, cus if not then it's just kinda using the nostalgia left by previous series. This world is surely builded the same, we have two coexisting worlds, one with common humans and the other with people being able to see and fight supernatural beings that endanger both of these worlds. We have the same kind of structure of power as well, at least for me. Wind Bind is new Gotei 13, this time with symbolism based on zodiak signs. Cool, it would probably suggest 12 divisions, but for now we know about only 8 but once again, we'll see.

Each division has it's own field of work, responsibilities and leader. They all look just as weird and eccentric as Gotei 13 when we first met them, so hello darkness my old friend, especially one lady looks like nazi-wannabe again (Quincy I'm looking at you!). For now we only saw Bruno in action who's division is a fighting type, tasked with extermination of dangerous dragons. He's got very cool design and I adore style of magic he uses because I never saw anyone use spray paint for drawing magical symbols before. Very modern-looking guy and I'm here for it, especially he looks like Grimmjow's younger bro. In general this universe is on our typical technology level with smartphones and stuff everywhere, which is suprising to see having in mind whole traditionally japanese looking enviroment from original Soul Society. About the rest we barely know anything so well. We'll see, once again.

Do I see any clear villain in sight? Nah, not for now. For now we only know about 8 dangerous legendary dragons based on common fairy tales. Interesting concept, but I would like to see some classic villian too. However, we already got the same kind of lesson that Bleach served us- authorities cannot be easily trusted either, as their judgement also can be too strict, cruel and subcjetive without many possibilities to oppose them by avarage person. I smell more future drama in this topic. Especially we once again got elderly boss who looks similar to Yamamoto from Bleach.

One thing that kinda dissapointed me was music. Bleach made me used to very climatic, often dramatic soundtracks, kinda dark-sounding most of the time. Openings were mostly very good too, while here I barely noticed any music at all. Animation didn't really leave me in awe either, only fights seemed interesting and magic was nicely animated. But it's kinda boring compared to very dynamic animation in Bleach. First two episodes made me think of first two arcs of Bleach but it's been over 15 years! ;-;"

In the end, will I watch more? Yeah, for sure. I got very excited to see something new from Kubo, I'm rooting for him and his new series to be less damaging for his health and mental state so this time he'll have means to develop and finish it properly, ideally without more conflicts with Shounen Jump. If he'll play it right with connections to Bleach it might get every good and bring back old fanbase, maybe even make people forgive him completely for Bleach's rushed ending. I see he already got some lessons from that experience, as now he decided to publish chapters in small batches rather than weekly. For me it's good solution that may help him keep his sanity intact. I'm willing to wait if it means he'll get back to his fomer skills and glory because I loved Bleach with my whole heart. If only anime production will be okay with such work dynamic then sure, great. I hope music and animation will get better overtime, maybe with more people getting interested they'll be able to spend more time and effort on it. I'm waiting for more characters to appear for more screentime as well, despite what I said about weird looking leaders of Wind Bind. Kubo proved he can make interesting and unique looking characters before, as well as create engaging villians and fights that fans are waiting for for months or years even. Maybe he even learnt a thing or two from plot holes that happend before. We'll see, I'm hopefull and willing to see where this series will be going c:

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale Reviews: Cobra Kai Seasons 1 +2

(Thanks @knightsweeties​)

So I should mention that I love 80′s movies. And one of my favorite movies of all time is the cliché OG Karate Kid.

With the best mentor character of all time in movies, Mr. Miyagi.

So when Youtube announced a sequel series based off of that iconic movie with the RIVAL being the main character. You bet I was ready to watch it... until I found out you had to pay for it on Youtube red. So naturally I waited until it was Netflix. Then I finally had a chance to watch it (legally)

So now that I have watched the series in its entirety. I have some thoughts on it.

Which you can read below (spoiler warning if you haven't seen the series. I recommend having a watch)

The Plot.

I will say that Season 1 and Season 2 have entirely different feels to them.

To put it briefly

Season 1 takes place with Johnny Lawrence, a guy in his 50′s hitting rock bottom, living paycheck to paycheck as a repair guy, and still stuck in the past.

Everything changes when he ends up inadvertently saving a kid, Miguel. from some bullies using his Cobra Kai karate.

Johnny realizes that he still has a passion for karate, and wants to bring back Cobra Kai, but without the psycho of a teacher involved.

So Johnny becomes the sensei of Miguel and the two’s dynamic is like that of Miyagi and Daniel (the original master and student of Karate kid) but with some hilarious contrasts and snaps that make fun of the movie in a fun way. In a way, the season starts off like Karate kid, but keeps changing one’s expectations of characters.

It even has the last episode ending with a final bout between Johnny’s student Miguel and Daniel (the original Karate kid’s) Pupil, Robby (who also happens to be Johnny’s own son). So the tension between the two are high.

Season 2 takes place AFTER the All valley tournament and Cobra kai is rising. Now with the inclusion of a man long assumed dead coming back, Daniel now trying to get Miyagi do as a real dojo to compete against Cobra kai. Tension starts to build and it seems like a war is brewing, the events culminating in a legit all out brawl on the First day back at school, with an ending that really makes me want a season two.

Season 1 is about preconceptions. Johnny and Daniel’s actions are based on their own preconceived notions, People let the past dictate how things are when that isn't the truth. Daniel automatically assume’s Johnny is up to no good because of his personal dealings with Cobra kai, and Johnny believe’s Daniel is at fault for everything awful that has happened to him, thus resulting in each of them indirectly attacking one another intentionally or unintentionally. They even try to reconcile only for Johnny to find out Daniel was training his son in karate, which Daniel actually didn't know was his kid, but this broke any trust the other have.

Season 2 is about Perspective, Almost everyone acts based on their own views on how things went down in their head. Everyone takes these perspectives as facts and there is no way the other person can be right, until a third party gets involved. And just like in the first season, Johnny and Daniel almost reconcile again, only to their views blinding them to the truth.

___________________

The characters:

I think I will just list off the main ones with their own arcs in the show and tell you all my thoughts on each of them.

Johnny Lawrence: Johnny is best described as a man stuck in the past, both technologically and mentally. He is a jerk, and considering his a**hole step dad and the psycho Karate teacher Kreese, he didn't have good role models on how to be a man. He pretty much screwed up his chances of being a dad to his biological son Robby, and spent half his life drunk and the other half depressed and angry. The day he saved Miguel and reformed Cobra Kai was the day that helped him start turning things around. Miguel became the student that helped bring him back into the modern day, helping him recruit students to his dojo, and even helping him deal with his hang ups regarding his failures with his son robby. Johnny is by no means perfect, but he is trying to be a better person. He is kind of like that out of touch uncle that is ignorant of a lot of things but is slowly getting used to it. He is tough, but he cares. Honestly the best adult character in the series with how hard he tries to actually be better but life just keeps kicking him down.

Miguel Diaz: a young boy who Johnny has been teaching to fight. At the start of the show, he had ZERO confidence, and felt like a nobody new kid in a town. Learning Karate helped give Miguel confidence and allowed him to stand up to the bullies that messed with him. Miguel is a good kid, in fact, he is my favorite Character in the series. In season 1, he was awkward, and unsure of himself. But as the first season went on, he managed to ask out the girl he liked, and even made good friends. Though Miguel started to pick up a lot of similar habits to Johnny from the original Karate kid, albeit directly and indirectly from his sensei. But season 2 quickly shows Johnny doing everything to make sure that doesn't happen. Miguel becomes the most civil of Cobra kai, becoming a more refined fighter and even a better person then any of the other students in either dojo. Thus making the end of season 2 so much more tragic and not even his fault.

Daniel LaRusso: The original Karate kid. A car dealership owner, and family man. He was living his best life, lovely wife, two good kids, and just enjoying every minute of it, until Cobra Kai came back. We get to see a lot of Daniel from Johnny’s perspective and the reveal is, he was just as much of a jerk as Johnny was back in the day. Even kind of a stuck up a**hole that tries to destroy Cobra kai through underhanded methods like having the landowner raise the rent, or stopping him from entering the All valley tournament. It isn't until he starts training Robby that Daniel starts to act like the man that we expect the main character of Karate Kid to act like.

Amanda LaRusso: Daniel's wife, She is great. She also has the most braincells out of everyone. She calls Daniel out on his crap and without her Daniel probably wouldn't be as good of a character as he is.

Robby Keene: Johnny's street-smart son and Daniel’s karate protege. At the start of the series, Robby is a bad kid, skipping school, drugs, stealing, and running with a bad group of kids. Robby really didn't care about his life choices or his loser father. He did however care about his mother, who was busy trying to have her own fun and neglecting him. it wasn't until he started learning Karate from Daniel, (originally working at the dealership to Spite his dad) did he start to turn things around. Robby hid the fact that he was Johnny’s kid from the LaRusso family and the developments in the first season resulted in a dramatic irony. In season two, his interest in Samantha (Sam), started to cause problems especially near the end of season 2. Robby is also another complex character and he is an amazing Parallel to Miguel. Robby keeps wanting the things that Miguel seemed to get, and always seemed to fall short, much like Daniel and Johnny’s rivalry in the original Karate kid. This has Robby holding back information that he does come clean about later.

Samantha LaRusso: Daniel's daughter. The most experienced Martial artist of the teens since she grew up with it. She is much like the love interest in the series in season 1 and becomes more of her own character in season 2.

Okay, so I am going to flat out say this. She is an awful person. Like at first, she ditches her friend to hang out with the popular crowd, lies to her parents about a hit and run, hides the fact that she is dating Miguel from her parents because his is Cobra Kai. I can forgive some of the things as an honest mistake, and in season 1 I can even look past some of them, since she does do the right thing about standing up to Kyler over his BS But the OTHER STUFF?

Sneaking around with Robby who is living in her house at the time because of a family situation which is a MASSIVE betrayal of trust. Accuses Tory of stealing from her mom, attacks Tory at the roller rank over a shove, ignores Miguel’s apologies and actions to at least try and clear the air only to KISS him when he is in a relationship with another girl. The list goes on. Now context matters, and then there is the whole  situation in episode 9. Now Miguel was drunk and trying to fight robby, (like an idiot who thinks a guy is trying to steal his gf) and it resulted in Sam getting hit, which Miguel was mortified that it happened. But a lot of people are divided on whose fault it is, I really think Miguel shouldn't be throwing punches so in that regard, he was in the wrong. Now unrelated, Sam was in the wrong in pretty much every other situation she was in.

Aisha Robinson: The second student of cobra kai, that went from an insecure nerd to a legit sassy confident bada**. Giving one of the stuck up popular girls the greatest karmic punishment. She is tough and knows her own worth. She is also another voice of reason character in season two.

Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz : And the award for most changed character is Hawk. A quiet kid with a scar from a cleft lip surgery left him the target of vicious bullying. Dimetri was his only friend, until he ‘Flipped the Script.’ Gets a mohawk and a back tattoo after embracing Cobra Kai. He becomes a legit bada**. As the season goes on, he does become more and more Aggro, his confidence now coming off more as arrogance and lashing out. By season 2, he starts taking lessons from Kreese and when his mohawk went Red, the old good Eli was dead. He is the prime example of how dangerous Cobra kai can be when one has bad guidance. Blue Hawk, fun, cool, still figuring out how to be a bada**. Red Hawk, irredeemable prick

Demetri: sarcastic and Neurotic, he saw things in the worst light, a natural whiner that really began his road to development in season 2, his friendship turned bitter rivalry is quite fascinating. Though the GOT references did not age well.

Tory Nichols: Certifiable Bad girl. She joins Cobra Kai and she is easily one of the most interesting characters in the show. She becomes Aisha’s new best friend and immediately butts heads with Sam. She ends up dating Miguel and Sam’s actions result in Tory declaring war on the daughter of Larusso. She is the catalyst of a lot of developments.

John Kreese: The sensei of Johnny, there is a LOT of beef between the two, but Johnny actually saw how broken of a man Kreese was and tried to help him despite their rough past. But Kreese only had one thing on his mind, revenge. The show actually shows how much more conniving and cruel Kreese is, even more then the movie. Kreese has been in wait a LONG time and he wants to crush Miyagi do once and for all.

____________________________

The Action and Acting.

I will say the acting on the part of the characters is pretty good. The dialogue can be a touch hammy at times, but when it involves Johnny, you can tell its genuine. All the characters in the original Karate kid movie really show how connected they are despite it being over 30 years.

The fighting Choreography is also fun and gets even better in season 2.

My favorite fights being Miguel vs Kyler and the boys In Season one episode 5, Miguel vs Robby  Season 1 episode 10, and  Season 2 episode 10 the school brawl.

Honorable mention is the Bar fight in season 2 with the older cobra kai alums.

_________________________________________

Overall:

The show can be a bit much for some people, its crass and its more teens and adults audience, but I highly recommend watching if a fan of Karate kid, or just want something interesting to watch.

I give it a solid 8/10 and I look forward to seeing season 3.

[meanderings0ul]

Coulson, Body Horror, and lifeforms in Sci-fi.

AOS was sci-fi adjacent since day one and has only moved more into that genre of action-adventure scifi over time. They have already touched on themes of biological experimentation, trans-humanism, androids, and the nature of consciousness and sentience before and it’ll be interesting to see them continue that with both the Chronicoms and Phil Coulson’s consciousness in an android body.

Robots, androids, and other mechanical beings are usually a theme present in science fiction but beyond that, the theme of whether these machines are merely intelligent vs genuinely conscious with their own emotional capabilities is a common one. Androids like Data from ST:TNG, the androids from Blade Runner, or even Dorian 0167 from Almost Human are a very different living thing compared to the marine mech TARS from Interstellar, some of the types of Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, or even the robot Gort from 1950′s classic scifi. 

AOS will most likely be exploring parts of this theme by comparing the Chronicoms, the various levels of LMDs from s4, and Coulson living as an android.

In a way, most of Coulson’s individual personal narrative throughout aos has already centered around coming to terms with boderline body horror. While his personal arcs are often being used to drive plot story lines and tend to most often be analyzed that way, this theme is still a big part of the character’s individual experience. 

In season 1 he finds out he was experimentally resuscitated without his consent, had his brain altered without his consent, and finally found out that they’d used alien biological material to do it.

The body horror element is most front and center in The Magical Place 1x11 and in 1x14 T.A.H.I.T.I. where details of what happened to him are finally revealed, but the anxiety of “I feel different.,” of I think something might be wrong with me started much sooner in the season.

By the end of FZZT he’s accepted the fact that his personality is different now, but the anxiety about physical ramifications remains present. There’s a thread of, “Do I still feel enough like me to accept this?” throughout the season.

The emotional narrative fades to the background as the upheaval of his and May’s entire lifetime careers’ imploding comes to the forefront, up until the biological compulsion to start carving begins. 

In season 2 we see him trying to hide the compulsions and the gradual onset of insanity from the team, excluding May, and they are both on the edge of handling it. In many ways, it was as if they were trying to plan for early onset dementia, but with Garrett having become so violent so fast Phil is afraid he’ll lose it and seriously hurt someone. 

2x7 Writing on the Wall provides some closure for the trauma of learning the truth about the T.A.H.I.T.I. program, finally deals with the intentions behind the brain procedure and that at least one of the terminally ill volunteers went on to have a good life. 

By 2b the plot is not using these themes anymore and it vanishes. Everything in 2x22 happens so quickly the only hint we get prior to s3 that he’s actually not coping very well with the sudden amputation of his left hand is in a two sentence conversation between him and Dr. Garner.

But at the beginning of s3 it quickly becomes obvious the coping with it all is just not there. The cybernetic hand is not helping him adjust very much and he leaves it off frequently. Like Daisy, he deflects from deeper emotional issues by joking and we see that a lot in 3a.

Coulson at this point is already a genuine cyborg. His left hand is a machine. The part of his forearm it connects to is never removed and would seem to be grafted on, so even when he removes the hand there is a cybernetic part remaining. Again he’s dealing with the questions, “Do I still feel human? Do I still feel like the person I think of as me?”

By the beginning of s4 Phil seems much more comfortable with both the loss of his hand and with having and using the cybernetic hand. Having it and discussing features for it are just a part of life now. 4a and 4b are about as close as we see him to mental and emotional stability in the whole show, though we find out from his LMD as if played it’s programmed role that Phil’s left forearm still causes him pain.

4c in the Framework we see some of the brain changes made in the TAHITI process come back to protect him in a way. Coulson doubts the Framework world, has some lingering memories and muscle memory from the real one. But, there was very little screentime of characters reacting the their Framework experiences for the most part. 

And of course at the end of 4c, he makes the deal with Ghostrider. How Phil felt about the injury itself in season 5 really wasn’t touched on.

He spent several weeks with large patches of necrotic tissue on his body, a slowly failing heart and lung. He told May he was intermittently in pain. But the discussion of his injury, including by Phil, mostly centered around his refusal to accept anymore invasive or alien-in-origin treatment. 

Given a major element of his character arcs throughout the show has been struggling to come to terms with sudden changes to his own body, this was hardly surprising. 

It’ll be interesting to see how this element of body horror and coping with it or repressing it or refusing it gets carried forward into his becoming an android in season 7.

Cyborg with alien DNA to android is less of a mental jump than normal human guy to android, but it is still a very different form of life. 

Chronicoms are definitely alive, have a culture and individual personalities and anxieties. It’d be reasonable to assume they are a silicate-based form of life, not carbon like humans. We know from 5x1 and 6x3 that Enoch can breathe and eat and drink, but does not need to. We know his skin functions as a sensory apparatus, but that he can remove it easily. Significant amounts of a Chronicoms physical form seems to function as a customize-able exosuit. Like Enoch has said, “I am not a robot or a synth...”

But that is the normal state of their species. How a human consciousness is going to react to living that way over time we don’t know yet. How Coulson is going to feel about living that way we will have to find out in s7.

The body we saw in 6x13 that Jemma and Enoch had reconstructed used both LMD technology and Chronicom technologies made available by Enoch’s help. It is more advanced than any of the LMDs from season four, and unlike Coulson’s season four LMD, his emotional capacity hasn’t been reduced and reprogrammed by AIDA to be ‘mission oriented’. This copy of Coulson’s conscious came from Fitzsimmons, who would have never altered or harmed it.

Without a serious handwave, this Coulson will be missing some memories. His memories might stop at the last point he exited the Framework in 4c or when he was first added to the Framework by AIDA. (We will just shrug about how that data was recovered and assume it got uploaded somewhere that didn’t blow up.) It’s also plausible that Coulson’s brain was mapped again during the middle of season 5 when they were first running tests when he collapsed, but I personally doubt that is the point in time that will be used. 

That he’ll likely be missing some memories will be hard on him and everyone else, but that part of this could have happened due to any head injury causing retrograde amnesia. It’s the change in his body more than his mind that Coulson will be internally dealing with again, in addition to most likely needing to convince May and other team members that it’s really him in there.

Season 7 will again be asking Coulson to decide Do I still feel like me in here? Is this still my body? Can I cope with living like this? In so many ways it is still a continuation of one of his character arcs from day one of the show.

We might see his opinions change over the season. We might see him decide he can’t do this long term. He might decide living like this isn’t as strange as he thought it would be. 

Personally I am at flip-a-coin levels of thought on whether we keep Chroni-LMD-Phil through the end of the season or whether the team changes their own timeline in a different way. Either way, aos did some of its best writing with the nature of the conscious mind theme in s4 imo, whether a digital life could be a real one and how personal that choice had to be, what made a duplicate of a person’s mind real or subpar and the limits of contemporary AI. I’m looking forward to seeing them expand on that theme in their final season.

[electrozeistyking]

ZIMVOID KING ARC - Headcanons and Facts for the AU

So! I spent a few days working on headcanons and facts about my Invader Zim AU, the Zimvoid King ARC (or ZKA for short). All written along side of installment three, "Dark Claws of a King", and now here on the net to burn your eyeballs, here's the master post on the ZKA facts and ideas I've recently spawned for the AU. Enjoy!

if you manage to read this all, you’re a certified creature

   ~   ZIB RELATED    ~ Facts that mainly surround the cockroach (and i'm pretty sure the majority of this post mentions this guy).

-Zib has fobidden himself to go on any adventures involving Zim. He's decided that it's not his place to try to stop a version of the Irken that is not his own. Plus, he's a merger. (This is all just nonsense he tells himself. The real reason is that he doesn't want to get involved with that shit all over again. PTSD and stuff, yanno?)

-Zib has a real problem with keeping his hands from doing things. He's actually gotten a Rubrix Cube to keep his hands occupied, and he keeps the cube in one of his pockets at all times in case he needs it. It's probably due to a deep, insatiable urge he has to build, build, build; creating his mech, modifying Voot Cruisers and such... once he'd had nothing else to make, he'd been left with an itch in his hands.

-Zib can also be seen tinkering with some forgotten technology Professor Membrane has laying around. The professor has actually only caught Zib doing this once; the roach had almost finished with an invention Membrane was only preparing to start working on.

-Zib's senses are all heightened and improved. His eyesight has never been more perfect, his hearing (despite his obvious lack of ears) has never been clearer, and though he regrets having it, he does happen to have a perfect sense of smell. So he knows if something stinks, it fucking reeks. Ugh. Awful, dude.

-Sometimes Dib will be like "Oh, lookit us, we're a couple of Dibs, ain't that cool" and then Zib does something very Zim-like and he goes "Fuck, I totally forgot he does that".

   ~   PAK!ZIM RELATED   ~ Facts that mainly surround PAK!Zim.

-Zib and PAK!Zim occasionally do something I like to call "syncing", where the two act and think as one entity, one mind instead of two. When synced, these two can be caught using terms like "us" and "we". Neither of them knows how this works, but I like to think it's like fusing in Steven Universe, minus the dancing and stuff; any distruptions to their sync (like if one of them really doesn't like something), they become two minds opposed to one again.

I like to think this is syncing in a nutshell:

   ZIB: We'd love to!    DIB: We?    ZIB: aw shit    P!ZIM: nice going genius

Zib finds syncing to be very relaxing. PAK!Zim likes how powerful syncing feels, even if he won't provide a comment on it.

-These two may have overcome their differences (well, were forced to), but Zib and PAK!Zim are still a Zim and Dib duo. From time to time, their little playful fighting turns into a real spat, and in the Zimvoid, it always hurt Zib whenever PAK!Zim tried to pull the silent treatment on the bug boy.

-PAK!Zim still occasionally threatens Zib that he may dig one of his PAK legs into the roach child's shoulders again. He feels too weirdly guilty about doing it the first time (as mentioned in the first installment of ZKA, "King of a Barren World"), so he'll never actually do it... but Zib doesn't know that.

-PAK!Zim calls Zib "stinkbug", since I thought that was more fitting, as people do call him a roach (this is especially true for me). He's a little cockroach.

-PAK!Zim can only talk in Zib's head. Zib once wondered if PAK!Zim's voice is real, or if it's false. He quickly remembered that inner voices you typically have in your head cannot change volume. PAK!Zim can yell, and it gives Zib headaches and nosebleeds every time he does. PAK!Zim often tries not to yell when the duo are around other people; both are worried if people would think the PAK is ruining his head, and they don't want to know what could happen.

-PAK!Zim has terrible eyesight. And by that, I mean he can't see. The only time he can see anything is when he and Zib are synced. Neither of them really mind it, but they always try to avoid syncing when Zib's showering. Despite how comfortable they are with each other when synced, that is the only discomfort both of them have. They just... I dunno, I'm kinda getting uncomfortable about it myself.

-Zib finds himself to be weirdly possessive over PAK!Zim. Maybe it's because that he sees the sentient robotic backpack to be an anchor for him when shit's getting tough. Having had four years to get over their differences, Zib has actually befriended the PAK and doesn't know what he would have done without someone to talk to all that time.

-To branch off that last one, I have the firm belief that because of Zib's weird attachment to the PAK fused to the back of his head, Zib would probably cease to function if PAK!Zim is ever removed. Ever since PAK!Zim officially woke up, Zib has developed this seemingly comfortable, permanent sense of knowing that someone is there for him, will always be there and they're not going to leave him alone because guess what? PAK!Zim has no choice but to go wherever Zib goes. He occasionally forgets that, though.

The idea of having the PAK (his PAK) removed terrifies him; you'd be tearing that feeling of never truly being lonely away from him. Removing the PAK would remove his buddy, his pal, his Zim. He'd be lost, confused, alone, and he'd have no idea what to do. It's just him by himself all over again, no one else. Plus, who knows what else could happen to Zib? What if it turned out he relied on the PAK to survive, and removing it could potientially kill him? Neither PAK!Zim or Zib are willing to see what could happen.

TL;DR: Take away the PAK, and Zib gets crippling depression and he might die.

-Though he can't see, PAK!Zim can hear pretty damn well (even if he barely listens half the time).

-No one else knows that PAK!Zim is alive. Dib wants the PAK removed because he thinks that if they remove it, Zib's thoughts will stop being so... "corrupted". In his own mind's eye, Dib thinks that if they remove the PAK, it'll be helping Zib, but what he doesn't realize it would absolutely DESTROY Zib's mentality.

   ~   FAMILY RELATED   ~ Facts that involve the Membrane family as a whole.

-The fact that his other son has claws perplexes Professor Membrane to no end. He pretty much tried to see if he could study Zib's weird claws once he found out about them. So far, what he's found out from his studies is that Zib's claws are really fucking sharp and they really hurt (mentioned in installment three of ZKA, "Dark Claws of a King").

-More facts on the stinkbug because yes, Zib has another huge problem: it turns out rants from his "brother" Dib helps Zib conk right the fuck out. It unfortunately works every time.

-Zib, Dib and Gaz just... they kinda see themselves as siblings, even though Zib and Dib are just alternate versions of one another. After a while, they kinda got over it and now it's just:

"This is my brother! I have a brother! We're brothers! We're practically twins! See this? This guy right here? Him? That's <my> brother. I love my brother, and I'll kick your fucking ass into the goddamn dirt if you insult him in front of me." (this is all just from zib btw.)

   ~   GOOFY   ~ Facts that are INTENDED to be goofy.

-For whatever reason, I enjoy the idea of Zib having a weird addiction to eating sticks of butter. Yes, his new family decides to have an intervention about Zib's addiction, but it totally fuckin' flops, so they end up having to try to hide the butter and cut him off from it instead. (they gave up trying when it all disappeared from its hiding spot later that very same day.)

   ~   IDK FACTS   ~ Facts that I've no clue where they should go.

-On Keef in ZKA: the little red head has actually mellowed out now that he's a teen. He still adores his friends, but he's calmer, not as clingy, and is an excellent listener, so he'll let Zib ramble, but will occasionally interrupt to ask questions. He's like Zib's mini therapist.

-I like the idea of Keef being bisexual.

   ~   AUTHOR TRIVIA   ~ Trivia from the author that you totally won't need but may find interesting anyway! why was i speaking in third person—

-"King of a Barren World" was posted on the fifteenth of May, but Archive kinda fucked up and it says I published it on the sixteenth.

-You'll see me call Professor Membrane "the professor", but only because I totally forgot he's a scientist. Not sure how, because his schtick is REAL SCIENCE, but—

-This AU was made by accident. And by that, I thought up a scenario, wrote about it, thought up another scenario and wrote about that one too, and then found out people actually liked this nonsense I was writing, so it's an AU now and forever -or at least until I die-.

-The Zimvoid King ARC is not a real arc. I just thought the name sounded cool.

-Before anyone asks "what does ARC stand for", it doesn't stand for anything. I just capslocked the word arc because I just thought that looked cool.

-I accidentally made a Discord server for ZKA.

-Speakin' of accidents, I may have accidentally started shipping Keef and Zib. Oops?

-I really like calling Zib a stinkbug. As user MelodyoftheVoid once put it: Half man, half bug, all stink.

-I have strictly forbidden myself from making Zib's hair-scythes antennae. I love headcanons on them being antennae, sure... but I decided that I'd have no idea how to write them in ZKA, so I was like "Nah, dog".

-Of all my IZ AUs, ZKA is the one I haven't dropped yet. Maybe because it's only four days old at this point, but still. omigosh zka is a baby au :0

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Imagine that you were put in charge of a modern, high-budget, well-written Animorphs TV series. What changes to the plot/characters/world would you make while adapting it? (Books that you'd skip, arcs that you'd rearrange, things you would add or outright alter...)

[Important caveat: I have ZERO experience in set design, directing, editing, camerawork, or any other processes involved in TV production, unless we’re going to be super generous and count the bit of scriptwriting and stage-acting I did in high school.  Ergo, these ideas might make no sense in practice.]

Animate it.  I would much much prefer to see an anime-style show to a live-action one for a handful of different reasons:

Battle scenes, morph sequences, and alien appearances wouldn’t be constrained by budget realities.  Although we’ve come a long way from AniTV’s practical effects, in 2019 Runaways still minimizes Old Lace (the sentient dinosaur) and struggles with her somewhat less-than-convincing appearance while she’s onscreen.  I’d like to see real-looking battles between exotic animals and highly unusual aliens.  I’d like to see Ax portrayed as a deer-scorpion-centaur with no mouth who also has complex facial expressions.  I’d like taxxons and hork-bajir that match their descriptions in the books.  CGI for a moderate-budget TV show can’t do that yet.

The characters’ appearances could match their descriptions in the books.  I don’t really care about AniTV’s Jake having blue eyes or Marco having short hair.  I do care about the fact that Cassie is described as short, chubby, dark-skinned, natural-haired, and androgynous in self-presentation… whereas AniTV’s Nadia-Leigh Nascimento is (through no fault of her own and 100% the fault of Nickelodeon) none of those things.  I’d like to see all of the characters drawn in a way that matches their canon racial heritage, and voiced with actors of those ethnicities as well.  For bullshit marketing reasons of bullshit, that’s not as likely to happen in a live-action show.

I’d want the show to convey the frequent mismatches between characters’ physicality and their personalities.  It’s an important motif of the books.  It’s part of the reason that Tobias has been claimed by the trans* community.  It’s a major plot point, lest new viewers think that the vice principal of the school is actually trying to kill his own students.  It doesn’t come off in AniTV, for all that I commend them for even trying (casting Shawn Ashmore’s twin as controller-Jake, portraying Chapman as straight out of Stepford), just because the nature of controller-ness and nothlitization are difficult to convey literally.  Animation has a lot of tricks, from deliberately distorted drawings to screensaver-like “mental space,” that can actually convey concepts like mind control or body dysmorphia pretty well — Alphonse in Fullmetal Alchemist and Aang in Avatar the Last Airbender great examples of body-mind mismatch and multiple consciousnesses in one body, respectively.

Use a cold open for every episode.  I am a sucker for Batman cold opens or any other opening scenes that pick up in the middle of the characters’ everyday lives, because they work so well to convey that there is a crapton of life happening outside of the plot of any given episode.  Several Animorphs books (#9, #14, #35, #41, #51) open this way, to great effect, and I love the way that it gives us slices of life we might not otherwise see (morphing to cheat on science homework, completing entire offscreen missions, having dinner with the family) and help build these characters’ worlds outside of individual episode plots.

Introduce James sooner (and have better disability narratives).  There are several aspects of Animorphs’ social justice consciousness that age okay (Rachel shutting down Marco’s constant flirting) or not well at all (Mertil and Galfinian).  One important way the series could update Animorphs is through having canon disabled characters like James, Mertil, and Loren have bigger roles and not resorting to kill-or-cure narratives.  Maybe James could come in sooner and form a Teen Titans West-esque team with the other Auximorphs so that he and Collette and the others could be recurring supporting characters with unique plotlines.  Maybe Loren could still gain morphing power, but remain blind and brain-damaged so that the hork-bajir need to work with her to figure out accommodations while sleeping rough.

Modify Jake’s and Cassie’s parents to account for the contemporary setting.  The fact that the kids so often disappear all afternoon or even overnight without anyone worrying just wouldn’t translate to a contemporary reimagining of Animorphs.  Tobias and Ax are each other’s only family on the planet whereas Marco’s dad and Rachel’s mom are both overworked single parents.  Jake’s family, however, and Cassie’s…

Cassie’s parents are so freaking cool in canon that they would definitely start to worry if Cassie went for an entire “weekend at Rachel’s” without answering any texts or calls.  Maybe there could be some scenes with them talking about how they have this super-mature responsible daughter whom they can trust not to get into trouble even if she does hate cell phones, but oh well because they’re not big on technology either.

Jake’s parents are… less cool, but they still try their best.  The show might explain their lack of concern about either of their disappearing kids through upping the hippie factor from his mom, maybe until she practices Free-Range Parenting.  (Why yes, it is true that Jake’s family would have the necessary privileges to get away with free-range crap while Cassie’s family would not, because yes it is the case that black families have been arrested for leaving kids alone for 10 minutes while white families are allowed more passes under the law.  Yes, that is a steaming pile of racist bullshit.)  The other way it could go is by having Jake’s parents completely checked out, which could get in the way of plots like #31 that hinge on them genuinely caring about their kids, but could also introduce an interesting dynamic if it partially parentifies Tom.

Include at least one Rashomon plot.  The TV series would by necessity lose the first-person narration, with all its brilliantly subtle shades of bias and misinterpretation.  One way to try and bring that back in would be to convey the same events from multiple points of view with subtle differences in the way that each person perceives what happened.  This could happen somewhere in the Visser One plot, with Rachel interpreting the scene as a straight Animorphs-vs-yeerks battle, while Visser One interprets it as Visser Three incompetently sabotaging her as Animorphs ruin her life, while Marco interprets it as a struggle to protect his mom and also save his friends, while Visser Three interprets it as the andalite bandits flagrantly plotting with Visser One, while Jake interprets it as Marco going off the rails from stress… and the only witness who has a sense of what actually happened is Eva.  Other possibilities abound.

Start with a plan to make one episode per book… and modify as necessary.  There are areas of the series I’d like to see expanded (#50 - #54 covers a lot of ground in relatively little space) and areas that I think could afford to be compacted (#39 - #44 feature a whole lotta nothin’).  But instead of adding or discarding an entire book, I think you could spread out many of the plots by simple virtue of TV shows not being constrained by first-person narration.

Certain books just wouldn’t get straight-translated today anyway (#40, most notably). I don’t think any books are so bad or useless that they couldn’t be modified into decent television episodes.

The ramping-up that leads to open war happens mostly in the background of #44 - #51, but a bunch of scenes with just controllers talking to each other could go into that process in a lot more detail.  This content could help fill out plots like #44 and #48 that frankly don’t have a lot else going on.

The entire plot of Visser happens over a nonspecific period of time between #30 and #45, so instead of getting one book we could get an entire running Yeerk Empire subplot with major consequences for the main plotline.

Similarly, the andalites’ decisions happen mostly offscreen but have major consequences for the Animorphs.  The consequences for the Electorate after the events of #38 could also run for a whole subplot that sets up their decision to nuke Earth in #52.

The biggest absence from the last couple books is Rachel.  Her last book is a friggin’ dream sequence, she acts out of character in #52 especially, and the narration order cuts off directly before giving her one last book.  It wouldn’t be necessary to add an entire episode just to rectify this oversight, when #51 could still be Marco-centric but also show her and Jake on their sabotage mission, and #52 could have the same rough plot but with a few scenes between her and Tobias thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, maybe the various Chronicles could be a handful of Doctor-lite episodes where the Animorphs themselves are incidental and Elfangor or Aldrea has the helm.  Maybe the events of the Chronicles could come out organically over the course of the show, for instance by expanding the memory-dumps Tobias gets in #1 and #33 or having Jara tell Dak’s story in #13 or #23.  The Megamorphses, on the other hand, could pretty easily just occur as regular-series episodes, albeit possibly as two- or three-parters.

Lean into the comic-book aesthetic.  Animorphs is written very much in the style of a graphic novel, from its “teens with superpowers save the world from aliens” plot to its heavy use of onomatopoeia.  Even the use of hypertext symbols around thought-speak hearkens back to the comic book convention of using pointed brackets around alien languages to convey translation.  The show could homage this motif through having dramatic transformation sequences, “uniforms” of multicolored spandex the kids use to morph, an opening credits sequence that emphasizes the power of each animal, and other superhero-comic elements throughout.

Have the violence be consequential.  To keep the examples from earlier: in Fullmetal Alchemist, as well as in Avatar, characters that get hurt stay hurt.  A character getting shot or stabbed is portrayed as a potentially life-changing event.  Characters’ injuries do not disappear between episodes, and even alchemy and waterbending are not portrayed as total fixes.  Characters scar, they become disabled, they spend entire episodes in recovery, they accrue trauma, and they do not shrug off life-ending injuries.  Animorphs helps to justify the idea that six kids could (mostly) survive (most of) an entire war against a friggin empire through making the protagonists nigh-unkillable thanks to their healing abilities, but it nevertheless shows that shooting someone will result in that person bleeding and screaming and possibly dying.  Having a sci-fi or action show meant for children isn’t actually a valid excuse for portraying violence as cool or funny or inconsequential the way that (Avengers Assemble, Teen Titans, Kim Possible, Dragonball Z, Pokemon, etc.) too many children’s sci-fi/action shows opt to do.

[thegildedcentury]

What We Talk About When We Talk About Luv: The Beauty and Horror of Blade Runner 2049′s Tragic Antiheroine

“I’m the best one.”  Luv declares as she struts away from K, fresh blood from a stolen kiss adorning her face as she departs, having again reduced her opponent to helplessness and having again decided, bafflingly, not to kill him.  

If we think of Blade Runner 2049 as a pretentious yet inferior movie, a pale imitation of its source material lacking all the intellectual and emotional resonance of the original, these four words spoken by Luv mean nothing, existing as a tossed off line spoken by a tossed off character in a film that accomplishes nothing aside from looking pretty and making you wish you were watching the original.

I disagree.  I think Luv is incredible, one of the most fascinating, nuanced, and profoundly tragic characters I’ve encountered in a very long time, a figure who both deserves and rewards our attention.  Though it’s easy to miss during an initial viewing (I certainly did) Luv has a rich, deep story arc that branches through the whole of Blade Runner 2049, one that both parallels and intersects with K’s story, the two characters informing each other even as they violently ricochet off one another.  Once understood, the tragic depths of Luv’s story don’t just reveal a remarkable character but enrich the movie as a whole, adding an extra dimension to a narrative already dense with meaning.

Luv, like our central protagonist K, is a Nexus-9 Replicant model, a product of the Wallace Corporation.  When we first meet her she is in the process of selling other Replicants as Off-World slave labor.  This may seem like a betrayal of the first order but, as we will soon learn, Luv does not see it that way.

Luv works directly under CEO Niander Wallace himself, acting as his personal assistant, assassin, and all purpose fixer.  While Niander Wallace is the face Technological Capitalism chooses to show the world--brilliant, eccentric, full of glorious and high minded ambition, a Ted Talk come to life--Luv represents it’s actual real world consequences: empty sadism, nihilistic violence, and ignorant self-aggrandizement, which is not to say that Luv is stupid.  Luv knows she is a slave but nevertheless exalts in her position because she is the best slave, Niander Wallace’s chosen instrument.  If Niander Wallace is God, and he certainly seems to think he is, Luv is his "First Angel”, the chosen means by which he enacts his will on the world.  Luv knows this, but she can’t bring herself to fully comprehend its ramifications, a failure of understanding that ultimately leads to her tragic destruction.

Any discussion of tragedy would be incomplete without at least a brief detour to account for the Ancient Greeks, the originators of Tragedy as Western Civilization knows it, so let’s get it out of the way now.  All tragedy results, on a fundamental level, from a failure to obey the message inscribed above the Oracle of Delphi: “Know Thyself”.  When you don’t understand yourself, you open yourself up to becoming prey of the Gods, what today we might call the Passions, though few Greek Tragedians would have recognized a distinction between the two.  (Euripides being the notable exception.)  The most famous embodiment of this kind of tragedy through self-ignorance was Oedipus, the subject of the tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.  Though a prisoner of fate, Oedipus effectively strolled into his own cage by letting his passions rule him, first by giving in to his wrath by killing a stranger he met on the road, and then by giving in to his lust by marring the wife of the man he killed.  When wisdom finally comes to Oedipus in the form of the realization that the man he killed was his father and the woman he married is his mother, it arrives too late to save him, and instead destroys him.  

The character of Luv in Blade Runner 2049 bears less direct blame for her own tragic fate, yet the mechanisms by which it operates are fundamentally similar.  Luv does not understand herself.  The result is pain and suffering, yet it is far more nuanced than it first appears.  What superficially manifests as depraved cruelty is, in fact, the result of a more fundamental lack, the sort of profound misunderstanding of her own nature that elevates her from the status of a mere hired goon to a character worthy of our consideration, and even our sympathy.

Unless I’ve overlooked something (which is entirely possible) Blade Runner 2049 makes no mention of whether or not Luv has the sort of artificial memory implants that prove such an integral part of K’s personality and story.  Knowing this is vital to understanding her character, and while there is no way to be absolutely certain, I believe Luv’s actions clearly demonstrate her lack of a synthetic past, maliciously depriving her replicant mind of what Eldon Tyrell in the first movie called “a cushion or a pillow for their emotions”.  As a result I believe, despite her often cold exterior, Luv is a raging tumult of conflicting, contradictory emotions she can neither understand nor control, paramount of which are her feelings regarding K.

Luv expresses interest in K during their first meeting, her fascination paralleling the sparks that fly between Rachel and Deckard in the old recording they both listen to.  Unlike the meet-cute that occurred thirty years prior in the first Blade Runner, the attraction isn’t mutual, and when Luv attempts to inquire further into K’s life he rebuffs her.  This quiet, polite rejection will ultimately have devastating consequences for both characters.  K makes a powerful enemy, while Luv becomes divided against herself, afflicted with powerful feelings she has no context for or understanding of.  As Kierkegaard said, life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.  Without any history there can be no understanding, we become disconnected and begin to float, easy prey for any passing impulse.  Knowing this doesn’t let us absolve Luv of her misdeeds, but it does give us a chance to reach a better understanding of her, as well as the more enigmatic aspects of her behavior.        

We see Luv cry twice in Blade Runner 2049. The first time is when she sees her master Niander Wallace stroking and bidding happy birthday to a newborn female replicant (credited only as ‘Female Replicant’) who he then proceeds to murder by stabbing her in the womb, a brutal crime committed for no real reason other than vent his frustration and illustrate a point in a monologue he’s delivering more or less to himself.  The second time is when Luv tortures and kills Lieutenant Joshi, K’s master.  Both instances involve a woman being murdered, stabbed to death specifically, their body violated with a piece of metal in a grotesque pantomime of the act of heterosexual lovemaking. (When Blade Runner’s symbolism isn’t Judeo-Christian it’s Freudian.  Freud would have diagnosed Luv with the three A’s: Ambiguity, Alienation, Ambivalence.)

When Luv cries with Niander Wallace it is in response to the nameless female replicant shedding her plastic birth caul and spasming into life.  Luv casts a fleeting glance upward as the tear rolls down her cheek as if in acknowledgement to a higher power that bestows the transcendent spark of life, but if that’s the case any pretense to the sacred is destroyed when Niander Wallace murders the newborn replicant, an act that serves as a vulgar reaffirmation of his own mastery over life and death.      

When Luv cries a second time it’s in response to her torturing Lieutant Joshi by crushing shattered glass into her hand, an act of sadism that concludes with Luv murdering the Lieutenant outright.  

The fact that Luv sheds tears in both instances despite their profoundly different circumstances may lead us to the conclusion that Luv’s tears have no real emotional resonance, instead being an involuntary autonomic response to any extreme stimuli, what is little more than a bug in her design.  It’s a natural assumption, but one that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Luv is the best one, at least as far as her status as a consumer-grade product is concerned.  She is the pinnacle of Wallace design, the closest to perfection he’s yet managed to come.  If Luv had a fault in her genetic architecture that made her cry at inappropriate times, Niander Wallace would likely have disposed of her with the same dispassionate matter-of-factness  he disposes of everything that mildly displeases him.  Yet if Luv’s tears are genuine, how can we make sense of them?

The answer is the absence of her memories.  Without the mental foundation of memory that would provide her with a chance to ground the violent events she experiences and violent emotions she feels in context, Luv is helpless to control how she reacts, a condition her judiciously maintained cool exterior can only do so much to hide.  

The tears she sheds while witnessing the nameless female replicant’s birth and the tears she sheds while torturing and killing Lieutenant Joshi are both genuine.  This is naturally confusing since the situations are so different, but as the author Leonard Richardson writes in his book Constellation Games, (which I cannot recommend highly enough) crying does not mean you’re sad, it means you’re experiencing an emotion that’s too large to keep inside of you.  Blade Runner 2049 throws us off the scent because the first time Luv cries the cause is obvious, then when she cries for a second time it seems completely inappropriate to the situation, yet when we appreciate the emotional tumult storming inside Luv, both reactions begin to make congruous sense.  The first time Luv cries it is out of empathy and a sense of the sublime.  The second time Luv cries it is out rage fueled by a mix of resentment and jealously. 

When Luv first strolls into Lieutenant Joshi’s office she says in regards to K “I like him.  He’s a good boy.” an evaluation Lieutenant Joshi’s silence seems to affirm.  Lieutenant Joshi is a character who, let us not forget, is for all intents and purposes K’s owner and master, having the same power dynamic with him that Niander Wallace has with Luv.  Killing Lieutenant Joshi not only serves the practical purpose of giving Luv free reign to access Lieutenant Joshi’s computer and find K, but it also gives Luv a chance to eliminate a romantic rival, experience the catharsis of killing a human master in a way she never could with Niander Wallace (who she needs to reaffirm her status as the Highest Angel), and eliminate the person that has enforced rigid control over every aspect of K’s life.  She’s acting out of a very warped sense of duty to K, not quite the sort of redeeming "kinship” that led Roy Batty to save Deckard’s life at the last moment, but a kind of solidarity nonetheless.

When viewed from this perspective, the desires motivating Luv are very fundamental and very human.  She wants solidarity with her fellow replicants. She wants revenge on those who’ve enslaved her.  She wants to experience romantic love.  The fact that she gets none of these things, that she has been explicitly denied the capacity to understand what these desires are and how to act on them and is instead forced to derive comfort from her status as the best one, the best product, the best slave, is what elevates her as a character beyond the stark dichotomy of victim or villain to the higher echelon of tragic antiheroine.

Luv spares K’s life twice in open defiance of the spirit, if not the letter, of Niander Wallace’s commandments.  The first time is when she and her fellow Wallace fixers storm Deckard’s Las Vegas sanctuary and abduct him.  K fights back despite being wounded thus forcing Luv to beat him into submission, though when the time comes to move in for the kill, she holds back.  Instead she kills Joi, K’s holographic A.I. companion, crushing the emitter that contains her consciousness beneath her radiantly polished boot.  

Immediately before doing so she says “I do hope you’re satisfied with our product.”  Luv looks at Joi when she speaks the line, though it seems to be intended for Joi, K, and Luv herself, all three of whom are themselves commercial products of the Wallace Corporation.  It’s a line that can be read as pure sarcasm, yet when considered in the context of what we’ve been talking about, we can view it as a sort of question, and a sort of appeal as well.  Joi and Luv are both Wallace Corporation products, but Luv knows herself to be the best product.  There is an implicit “Why?” in Luv’s words and actions, an inquiry that demands an answer from K.  “Why Joi and not me?  Am I not the superior model?”  K choosing Joi over her is an insult to her attraction and an affront to her pride, yet the only way she can express her outrage is with violence.  By destroying Joi she demonstrates her preeminent status as a product, while also eliminating another rival for K’s affections.  

Luv departs without another word, leaving K alive.  It’s safe for us to assume that Luv hasn’t simply fallen victim to the classic bad guy cliché of incorrectly assuming the good guy’s dead.  They are are both the same model of replicant, there’s no reason for us to think she isn’t precisely aware of both K’s limits and his potential.  Luv is still intrigued by K in a way she doesn’t understand, and lets him live secure the the knowledge that they will meet again under similarly unpleasant circumstances.  By then the scales will have completely fallen from K’s eyes and he will be endowed with an unshakable sense of purpose, his own personal raison d'être.  Luv will not be so fortunate.

K, at great cost, comes to understand who and what he really is in time for him to act on it in a way that gives purpose to his life and, more importantly, his death.  Like all great villains Luv is K’s antitheses, a distorted reflection of him, what C.G. Jung might identify as his shadow-self.  K begins the movie doing the same thing Luv does, namely killing on cue in accordance with his design.  The difference is K encounters people who change his worldview, making him aware of the possibility of altering his circumstances.  Luv never gets that chance.  

The name ‘Luv’ is obviously dumb, the kind of dull platitude you’d find on a candy heart or in a rushed-off text message, and the fact that it is the name Niander Wallace chose to bestow on his First Angel shows the true indifference he feels regarding her, how the contempt he has for all life extends to her as well, despite his lofty rhetoric and empty praise. 

Names are powerful, but they aren’t enough to imbue one’s life with meaning and purpose, a fact illustrated when a massive advertisement addresses K by his adopted name, the name Joi gave him, calling him “A good Joe.”  Not only does this show that even something as personal as a name bestowed by a loved one can be corrupted and co-opted by Technological Capitalism, but that both Joi and the advertisement are probably making decisions based on the same artificial intelligence program, leading both of them to pick the same name out of thin air.  This works to expose K to the artificiality of the relationship he had with Joi, forcing him to seek out something more authentic and human.  It’s the sort of epiphany Luv is denied, so while she does seek to form a sort of relationship with K, the why and how of it completely eludes her, leading her to act on a sort of animal instinct that can’t distinguish between aggression and affection, two very different human Passions that appear to her as indistinct aspects of the same raw emotional yearning she becomes less and less capable of containing over the course of the story, a compulsion that climaxes with her beating and stabbing K nearly to death, then following it up immediately with a deep, soulful kiss. 

The final battle between K and Luv at the sea wall isn’t just a grim parody of the iconic scene of two lovers passionately entwined in the surf from From Here To Eternity.  (Though it is at that.)  It’s a baptism.

Christian baptism is a ritual where the physical is sanctified and thus made to represent the spiritual, its invocation of grace elevating the ritual to transcend the mundane and evoke the divine.  When Luv and K fight they are also sanctified by the symbolism surrounding them, which renders the conflict more significant than two people beating each other up.  It is the physical versus the spiritual, the sacred versus the profane, the meaningful versus the meaningless, an elemental confrontation between the loftier and baser aspects of reality.  For Luv the thing that matters most to her and carries the most meaning are her Passions, which aren’t in themselves bad, but when misunderstood and uncontrolled lead to destruction.  In her fury she attacks and defeats K, and in her infatuation she yet again neglects to kill him.  Her mercy is rewarded with death.

The final contest between K and Luv is their mutual attempt to drown one another, one that ends by demonstrating the ultimate disparity in their respective personalities.  Both Luv and K forcibly hold one another underwater for what are at first roughly equivalent amounts of time. K survives because he is able to exert enough control over himself to hold his breath until he can turn the tables.  Luv in contrast dies because she is a slave to her Passions.  Instead of holding her breath and waiting for an opportunity to regain the upper hand she rages, clawing and growling, resisting with all her unchecked strength until her life is totally spent.

K and Deckard partake of the waters, die, and are born again.  Luv is subjected to the same trial, but she is denied such grace.  She is the First Angel, the most raw and brilliant and terrible, and as such, she must fall in all her dreadful glory, our horrible, beautiful, drowned Lucifer.

Like the studio-mandated happy ending of the original Blade Runner that everyone loathes, there could be another ending to this movie, a more conventionally satisfying ending where K and Luv gain a deeper understanding of themselves and, in doing so, find the capacity to care about and even love each other.  It would be nice, but it would also deny Luv her final tragic grandeur, and us the vision of a true antiheroine.      

The actress Sylvia Hoeks’ portrayal of Luv is as eerily perfect as the character herself, a performance that easily ranks among the best popular depictions of uncanny quasi-humanity ever rendered, on par with Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman, Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lector, and Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty.  Luv is also different, a step beyond but also a step removed.  The sheer virtuosity of Sylvia Hoeks’ performance is largely based in restraint, the sort of illusion of control that Luv is so good at deceiving herself with that it’s easy for us, the audience, to be deceived as well.  It is right and good that we bemoan the lack of good female roles in popular cinema, but such objections can come to ring hollow when they come from an audience that routinely overlooks outstanding exemplars like Luv, a rendering that’s brave enough to not be obvious, whose peripheral status in the narrative does nothing to diminish.  I don’t think we’re going to see a great many characters equal to Luv in the future, not only because it’s rare for a concept this good to be executed this well, but the demographic of people who were once most inclined to notice such things are now largely intellectually hemmed in by an ideology that Blade Runner 2049 does not neatly fit into, and who thus deem it unworthy of consideration.  It is my ardent hope that it will eventually find a public worthy of it, just as its predecessor did.  It’s the reason why I’m writing this, why I’m proselytizing for Luv, who is, after all, the best one.  

OTHER PUNS I CONSIDERED WHEN TITLING THIS ESSAY

All You Need Is Luv

Luv Will Tear Us Apart

Luv Story

Luv Actually

The Luv Guru

Me Luv You Long Time

[houseki-no-suffering]

a lot of jumbled thoughts on ch 76

aka: shit is about to go down, oh boi oh boi, but let me ramble about stuff first 

also im late to the party but shhh we got another 3 weeks before the earth arc so its still okay

isnt it funny how we’ve spent six months speculating about Euclase’s shadiness while Phos told Aechmea they’re ‘amicable’? And isnt it funny how Phos contradicts themselves at the end of the chapter cause they’re scared Euc will see right through them? Will we ever know more about Euc? Please? Pretty please?

also, I’m surprised by the moon people’s efficiency. They have no idea if Phos’ plan is going to work, maybe they dont even know how long it’ll take for them to become nothingness if Sensei starts praying, and here they are, making arrangements to leave everything to the gems. 

Reminds me of chap 56(?), when Phos thought the gems should acquire lunarian technology. Can’t believe it was this easy and now Amethyst’s about to become a hybrid between a pilot and an engineer? Well done, Ame, nice character development. Evangelion crossover when?

Why did Phos pick Amethyst, anyway? Alex, Yellow and Padpa are incapacitated, Goshe and Cairn are unpredictable, but what about Dia and Benito? Maybe Benito already has their hands full with taking care of Alex. But Dia?

Dia’s interesting tbh. Even Phos knows that, given the choice, Dia might decide to stay on the moon. They started off as one of the main characters and then slowly slid to the background and they’ve been p much static for a long while. i wonder if they’ll ever change at this point.

Ah, the problem child. 

This part hurt, as it’s custom now with Cairn-centered pages. Yet i just adore the idea of Cairn blowing up the whole moon one disastrous experiment at a time.

ABOUT THE PROTECTIVE COATING! 

how does it work exactly? does it protect gems from cracking? does it increase their hardness/toughness? has somebody thought of using it on Phos cause, yknow, they’re still mostly made of brittle phosphophyllite and they’re going in what’s basically enemy territory unharmed?? can somebody please care about Phos for once?

“My friend has time”

That’s the face of a man who doesn’t, in fact, have time. Aechmea is every bad boss you’ve ever had, he just doesn’t care. But bribing people with pasta is smart, i know i’d hardly resist. 

Also please let’s skip over how Aechmea is putting literal guards so that Barbata can’t hit on his shiny rock wifey. If anyone still believed Cairn has made nothing but independent choices so far please stop being delusional, you’re only hurting yourself.

Yeah, uhm, i’m gonna die (and my species has no concept of death so i have no idea what that means) for this totally good guy i’ve known for at least a few months (and my species lives forever so a few months is nothing, really) and that i’ve married (yeah, still trying to wrap my head around this marriage thing. also wife. everyone calls me wife and princess for some reason). This is fine.

also, if Shittymea’s gone and become nothingness he wouldn't be able to miss you, Cairn. but has anyone taken the time to explain it to you? Anyone?  

On another note. Is it just me or Cairn’s wife-outfit is way less revealing than Cairn’s bitchy girlfriend-outfits? Even when you don’t consider the lab coat. I wonder if Cairn’s still choosing them. 

Maybe Aechmea wants them to dress in a way that’s more appropriate for a wife/queen? Or maybe his possessiveness has started to extend to something more than having Cairn surrounded by guards at all times.

FINALLY WHAT VENTRI SAID IN CH 8 MAKES SENSE! 

And goddammit, this is one of my favorite theories and you’re telling me they already used it and discarded it? Is that why the lunarians experimented on gems? is this why the gems went mad? what about the human particle? THEY’RE STILL EXPERIMENTING, I FEEL IT

what was there for the moon people to gain? they already had admirabilis to experiment on (the criminals) and they most likely breed them to keep their population stable. Why’d the lunarians need more? this explanation doesnt match Ventricosus’ and it doesn’t really hold up. 

Thought it was impossible at this point, but Aechmea just earned 10 more untrustworthy points. I wonder why he’s hiding information from Phos

HOW VERY CONVENIENT

“I’m going to do everything I can.”

So this means this is Phos’ final attempt. This is it. If it doesn’t work out they’re gonna quit. 

Shit is about to go down during the next arc, an Earth arc. And this is exactly why i think Phos’ll acquire the seventh treasure during/at the end of this arc. More about this in a future meta cause this thing is already too long.

i’ve read a couple of posts already about this sentence. The translation is a little awkward, and it’s still ambiguous in Japanese. 

Knowing Ichikawa’s stories, i’m tempted to say it’s foreshadowing, a metaphor for what’ll happen next. It might even be that the story is coming to a close, it’s very hard to say.

MORE LUSTROUS SCRIPT SAMPLES! 

sorry, my inner linguist took the wheel. Yet i’d pay to see the actual lunarian manual. and the lunarian script. nngh. 

but yeah, “it’s not japanese/chinese” confirmed, “it’s not just alex’s bad writing” also confirmed, “it’s mongolian” not confirmed. but it def looks like it. a little. a tiny little bit. i love it. 

Also let’s take a moment to appreciate everyone’s cuteness in these pages cause the end of this chapter hurts. And was Phos joking? are they really planning to call Benito? When did Benito become a main character?? I’m so proud of them

“don’t act rashly” is a recurring piece of advice among gems. Even Padpa told Phos to keep cool and think, while Cinnabar is constantly observing and Alex clings to a 400 years old hatred.

It makes sense for a society that’s as stagnant and conservative as the lustrous’ to value contemplation over action. These rocks live forever, there’s no need to rush into things after all. Interesting.

Once again, Phos is carrying all the burden on their back. A child, one of the youngest gems, they’ve lost partners and pieces of their body in a short time, unveiled unsettling truths, betrayed their family multiple times, sided with the enemy, had partners and friends turn their back on them. All for the greater good.

They’re pushing themselves to their own limits, breaking them over and over, destroying their mental stability in the process. Why are they doing this? What’s the point if every answer just elicits new questions. 

It’s heartbreaking to feel Phos’ regret. How dare they think of Sensei’s kindness? How dare they envy their old self? After everything they did, after betraying Sensei? They can only move forward now, for all the people who didn’t make it or that count on Phos. It’s just heartbreaking. I feel so much for them.

[mobius-prime]

140. Knuckles the Echidna #30

King of the Hill (Part One of Three): Bad to the Bone

Writer/Pencils: Ken Penders Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Welcome to the final three issues of Knuckles the Echidna! Unfortunately, I don't find this arc to be particularly interesting. Unlike a lot of the other arcs, which drove forward the story and expanded on characters and worldbuilding, this one feels a lot more like filler, introducing only a couple new characters who have never been mentioned previously and don't even play a big part in the comic after this arc. One of these characters, a tough-looking Overlander man, has just landed on the Floating Island. He silently takes out a rifle from a case, puts it together, and takes aim at a bird flying overhead…

Gee, he seems like a great guy! At the same time, we pan over to a horrifying sight of a different caliber - namely, a purple gorilla named Monk wearing nothing but a skimpy loincloth, of whom we get to see multiple terrifying crotch shots as he slings a rope onto the passing island and pulls himself up. Seriously, I don't know why they even dressed him in this awful getup, or lack thereof - it would have seemed less lewd if he wasn't wearing anything at all. Apparently, he once lived on the island, and is absolutely pissed now that he's back.

I feel like Monk is maybe the most mentally stable character we've encountered so far. Knuckles, blissfully unaware of all the crap happening on the other side of the island, is chilling in some unidentified cave on a mattress, reading a book that his father gave him.

First of all, for a race of former space explorers these guys have sure fallen far, huh? No wonder so many of them didn't want to give up technology if their past is so full of scientific achievements - it's a huge step back. Second of all, I find it interesting that they mention Saturn and Europa, given that those are a planet and moon respectively in our own solar system - I get that this whole page is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey and all given the book cover up there, but it still seems to imply that the echidnas visited our actual planets at one point. And finally, regarding the mythical echidna named Dave, I do appreciate that to some degree Penders is able to laugh at his own ridiculous naming scheme for the echidnas, even if the whole thing is again just a reference (he even gets interrupted as he starts wondering about "the monolith"). Catweazle suddenly flies in in a panic, blubbering that he saw a man with a gun shoot his friend Snowpigeon (why do all the birds on this island have such stupid names? Catweazle, Eggmuffin, Snowpigeon? Oh right, this is Penders we're talking about here, we just went over this). Knuckles runs out to find the culprit, but he doesn't get far when he's struck by a rock thrown from the bushes by Monk. He recognizes Monk instantly as a bully who used to live on the island and torment him when he was younger.

He almost allows himself to act flippant until he considers that Monk may have been Snowpigeon's murderer, since Catweazle didn’t bother to specify that she was killed by an Overlander. Monk, upon locking eyes with Knuckles, has a flashback of his own - one night, several figures which he didn't know but whom we can easily recognize as Thunderhawk, Sabre and Locke tied him up and carried him to the edge of the island, where they coldly threw him over the edge into the water far, far below. He managed to survive by breaking out of his bonds and swimming to safety before he could drown, but goddamn, they just straight up sentenced this guy to death for being a teenage bully! I'm sure it's meant to be taken as like, oh, they wer looking after young Knuckles and helping him avoid being bullied, but was trying to sink someone to their death in the ocean really the right response there, guys?! No wonder Monk is pissed - and furthermore, he seems pretty convinced that Knuckles actually had a hand in it, which is why he's targeting him now, eager for revenge. Knuckles tries to offer an olive branch to start off fresh, unaware of the mix-up, but Monk isn't having it and starts swinging violently.

I think, if I'm not mistaken, that this is the first time we've ever seen someone in the comic actually swear. Only a few characters in the comic ever end up swearing, always censored with Q*bert speak, and Monk is one of them. They continue to fight, but find themselves halting on the ground to stare as a shadowy humanoid figure holding a rifle approaches them…

Hiding in Plain Sight

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Colleen Doran Colors: Barry Grossman

Julie-Su has been galloping around the island on her streaking pasha, looking for Knuckles during all of this. She happens upon Espio, Mighty and Ray all hanging out in the forest. After being introduced to Ray, she asks where Knuckles is, and while they don't know, Espio offers to go along with her to look. They ride off, but over an hour later they still haven't found any trace of him. Suddenly Espio grabs the reins from Julie-Su and yanks the Pasha to a halt, having noticed with his chameleon senses that one of his own kind is lying invisibly in the leaves ahead. He goes to help, but the individual seems injured and distressed.

Julie-Su rushes Barney off to Echidnaopolis while Espio stays behind, ostensibly to continue looking for Knuckles, but once Julie-Su is out of sight he calls for everyone else to come out, knowing that his people are somewhat reclusive. Several more chameleons uncloak among the brush, saying they've been looking for him, and lead him a short distance away, where he sees to his shock…

We have had… absolutely no indication prior to this that Valdez and Espio even knew each other, let alone were "best friends." This whole shocking betrayal thing they're going for here has absolutely no impact considering that not only was their relationship never addressed before this, but we don't even have any idea what kind of personality Valdez has in the first place. We know nothing about him. He was in the Secret Service, he's… uh, male? And a chameleon? And he used to serve in the past as well before the Robotnik War. That's it. Sure, it's sad when someone gets roboticized and enslaved by Robotnik and all, but it's hard to feel any real emotional response to a character we know next to nothing about when something like this happens.

[bigskydreaming]

Young Justice Season Three spoilers

YJ Producers: We have a Muslim superhero this season, look how great she is and how progressive we are!

Actual YJ episodes: Okay so Muslim superhero might be a bit of a stretch since well, if you wanna get technical, she’s actually a sentient piece of alien technology whose soul went into the body of a dead Muslim girl when her original alien tech got smushed. But even though she continually insists that she is not Gabrielle Daou, the Muslim girl whose body this was originally, and that’s the entire reason she chose a new name for herself, she is a completely different person aka a non Muslim, not even human person - she still wears a hijab! Totally counts!

YJ Producers: We always wanted to portray LGBTQ+ superheroes, we’ve actually had one the whole time and you just didn’t know it because mean old Cartoon Network wouldn’t let us show it, now that we’re on our own we can and will be showing LGBTQ+ characters this season!

Actual YJ episodes thirteen episodes into the season: Error 404 Content Not Found

YJ Producers: We’re finally gonna include Cyborg! Victor Stone is in the house, we love and appreciate that character so much, we really wanted to wait until we could do his story justice!

Actual YJ episodes: So see, after getting gruesomely almost-deaded after a huge blowout fight in which we showed Vic has a lot of rage cuz Black Teenage Boys Are Just Like That, that was all aimed at his dad for not showing any interest in his life and for never showing his son he cared until now cuz Black Dads Are Just Like That, well okay, yeah that sucks, but what happened NEXT is really cool - so his dad saved his life, right? Even if it was by using alien tech that every single person he came in contact with kept telling him wasn’t like normal tech, it was sentient and thus yes COULD be bad, which was further demonstrated through the fact that said life-saving tech kept like...hijacking Vic’s own body and turning him into a rage-monster that we could totally show being a Stereotype of Black Teenage Boy Aggression as he remorselessly hunted a terrified Violet but it wasn’t his fault, he was totally powerless to control his own actions cuz of the Evil Alien Tech in his body and like wait, whats bad about that, I forget the question??? Oh right! But stop WORRYING, its all good, see, as long as he stayed around Violet and never went too far from her ever, the woman of color had magic rage-pacifying skills that existed solely to calm down the Stereotypical Angry Black Teen when he couldn’t control himself because Reasons. LOL WHY ARE YOU UPSET, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT, THIS IS A GOOD VICTOR STORY, ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED???

YJ Producers: We love and value our characters of color and would never hurt them, we’ve actually taken steps to make sure of that!

Actual YJ Episodes: Violet and Vic are both practically unkillable, see? As proof, watch us violently murder Violet in every single episode in new and creatively gruesome ways, with bonus Vic near-death experiences that allow us to show him just utterly wrecked in ways we’ve never shown a single white character, even in this season when we’re all about showing off how much creative freedom we have now without CENSORSHIP! 

YJ Producers: This season is also going to focus on the stress and mental health issues that go along with life as a superhero, and who better to demonstrate this by suffering from superhero-related PTSD than Jefferson Pierce? The guy whose divorce already showed the stress and relationship issues that go along with life as a superhero (since all our white heroes in relationships are still going strong)!

Actual YJ Episodes: Oh, nothing say about this one huh, PUNK? That’s right, we actually did exactly what we said we’d do, see? Just look at how much time we spend talking about how traumatized Jefferson is and how miserable he is after killing a kid, and that’s nothing we’ve ever done (or would ever do - SHH THEY DONT NEED TO KNOW THAT) to a white hero! PLUS, like, he’s definitely getting better though, thanks to the support of the much younger character he’s surrounded by, instead of y’know, turning to his established friends and colleagues his own age for support! AND AND AND don’t forget about his growing relationship with the white doctor lady who is definitely NOT super creepy and NOT likely to betray him and break his heart and/or force him to make painful decisions when choosing between her and the kids he’s vowed to protect at some climactic point later in the season that all of that is super clearly not building towards!

YJ Producers: And don’t forget about Jaime Reyes and Virgil Hawkins and Mal Duncan and Raquel and Karen! They’re all still here too!

Actual YJ Episodes: We’ve definitely forgotten that Jaime Reyes and Virgil Hawkins and Mal Duncan and Raquel and Karen are all still here too.

YJ Producers: Major life events have happened to these heroes offscreen in the time we’ve been away from them, stuff that’s really shaped who they are and who they’ve become by now. All this stuff really matters, its how we’re different from other shows, we don’t pretend these characters stop existing the second they’re off your screens! Looks, Barbara Gordon is in a wheelchair! She’s Oracle now!

Actual YJ Episodes: Why would we bother to explain when or how this happened with even a single line of dialogue when The Killing Joke exists and is available on our streaming service? You sound dumb.

YJ Producers: Kaldur is our proof of how important our characters are to our over-all universe, look how far he’s come! He’s not Aqualad anymore, he’s AquaMAN, he’s one of the co-chairs of the Justice League, right up there with Wonder Woman who he definitely doesn’t need to turn to for approval or oversight of his actual decisions!

Actual YJ Episodes: We’re pretty sure we covered all this in the two minutes of screen time Kaldur’s had all season!

YJ Producers: Look, bottom line, this season, being away from Cartoon Network really allowed us to stretch our wings and flex creatively, we’re doing a lot of stuff with this story that just wouldn’t have been possible before, when we were on a network like CN and had overseers restricting our every move! This season gets a lot darker, a lot more mature, a lot more everything cuz freedom of speech baby! That’s what its all about!

Actual YJ Episodes: In support of our thesis, watch us up the graphically violent content of every single episode and kill lots of people instead of just cartoonishly knocking them out and carting them away to jail! That’s it, that’s everything we wanted to do that CN wouldn’t let us, that now we have total freedom to prove in a myriad of ways! What do you mean, what about *looks at smudged writing on hand* LGB - look we can’t be expected to read what that says when we have graphic violence to depict, fuck yeah!

YJ Producers: Besides, in happier news, its not all doom and gloom this season! Connor and M’Gann got engaged! Now that we’ve completely moved past all the stuff M’Gann did in S2 and don’t consider it worth mentioning, Superboy and Miss Martian are back together, and SB is totally gonna marry the woman who betrayed him in the one highly specific way that goes back to the very source of every trust issue he has and reason he has so many walls pushing people away!

Actual YJ Episodes: Yeah this is definitely happening. Suck my dick, Connor fans and fans who relate to and identify with SB and his story and think its maybe just not the healthiest to wave a wand and go “Happily ever after!” With, y’know, the guy whose greatest canon fear and paranoia is the sanctity of his mind being violated and being unable to trust that his own thoughts are really his and not just being spoon fed to him in a pod at Project Cadmus or by his telepathic girlfriend when she doesn’t like his opinion or his criticism of her actions and just doesn’t want to fight about it anymore. Look, she said she was sorry, get over it. What more do you want? For Connor to move on and have a healthy romantic relationship with someone who he doesn’t ever have to wonder if his trust in her and second chance is real and valid and not just her making him say and do what she wanted, like the way she definitely has before? For him and M’Gann to rebuild their trust over time, gradually, as friends, with the understanding they can be close again but romantic intimacy between them specifically probably isn’t in the best interests of the guy who will always have to wonder now if his thoughts are really his, no matter whether or not that’s true? Yeah, no, that sounds like a lot of work tbh, and really, we just like Miss Martian and Superboy together, they’re just cute, you know? Sides, we killed Wally and we don’t actually wanna talk about why Barbara’s paralyzed now and like, focus on her as a character, so what other longterm pairings do we really have? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THESE ARE ALL OUR OWN CHOICES AND IF WE WANT BETTER FOUNDATIONS FOR OUR CHARACTER DYNAMICS WE SHOULD MAKE BETTER CHOICES? UGH GET OFF MY BALLS, MAN.

YJ Producers: We’ve got Terra this season, and we’re doing some really cool, brand new things there.

Actual YJ Episodes: Slade’s Apprentice arc from Teen Titans the show and The Judas Contract in the comics, but really aren’t they the same thing? If you think about it, is it even possible to do that in a new way? Look, its not like we could do anything MORE original than that, like what, did you want us to have Tara genuinely be the good and loving sister she was when she reunited with her brother and expressed how traumatized she was by the things she did when she was supposedly being mind-controlled, actually invested in saving other trafficked meta-kids from being used and hurt the way she had been? Like, the way it seemed she was being written before we revealed it was a fake-out and she was actually working for Slade exactly like those other times we swore we were gonna be more original than that? Ugh why are you so unrealistic, dude, you have such weird expectations.

Me: Like dear YJ, you’ve still got me watching, because like a) I’m weak and I need this, b) nostalgia, c) Dick, Artemis, Connor, Jefferson and the chance of Jason and also Violet, Brion and Vic are all still enjoyable as characters even though your treatment of them and your narrative choices are all extremely suspect and also craptastic and also I really wanna punch you for a lot of this.

But goddamn, this was NOT your best work, and after years of waiting only to get this? Like.....so not crash, dudes. Not even a little bit.

[sunset-spring]

Hey, I'm kind of scared to ask you this, but I wanted to know what you thought of the epilogue in Season 8. I'm terrified of what you'll say, but you seem to be a very logical and clear-headed thinker, so I am kind of curious. If the answer isn't good, then please respond privately. Thank you.

It’s ok, I’m not gonna lie I’m nervous about a lot of questions related to season 8 just because so many people have such hard line stances and opinions on it. I have a lot of the same fear talking about it for the same reasons I’m sure you were scared of even asking. Whether you like or dislike s8 or like it, it’s not a big deal to me - no judgement either way. Opinions are varied and everyone has their own reasons for either.

On to the actual epilogue, some context I wanna give is that I had seen spoilers for the season even though I couldn’t watch it til a few days later. I had a prior family thing and I was stressed and I went to tumblr on my phone to look at some art to keep me calm. So I saw a lot of reactions to the season as a whole, but I couldn’t tell what reactions were genuine problems or what were over dramatized hate when I didn’t have full context. 

So when I watched the season, the expectations I went in with were “there might be some things that I’m not going to enjoy, and some that are overblown.” And when I watched it… that was pretty much what I got. There were definitely some problems, but there was also a lot that I think was made out to be way worse than I personally found them to be.

The epilogue itself gets a lot of weight and importance put on it. And personally I wonder if it’s in part because it was leaked before the season aired. When I watched it, I felt very neutral to it. No super strong feelings either way, mostly just “oh, that makes sense for this character, but this doesn’t work very well and is not a great fit.”

Which I guess is a segue to talk about the individual bits in detail. This is going to be long and I’ll do my best to organize it for ease of reading, but I want to go into all my thoughts and logic as best I can and that might result in a bit of a lengthy read, so if it gets a bit ramble-y and confusing, I apologize:

Pidge and Hunk ended up in a place that I felt was very natural for both of them. 

Pidge using her passion for technology to help defend the universe alongside her family was something that felt like it was true to her personality and something that’s a very good world-building aspect for what would happen after the story took place. The concept was something I interested in all the way back in season 3, and is part of what inspired my cadet squad AU initially. So seeing that happen didn’t feel out of place to me. 

Hunk as well had always had his passion for cooking as a big part of his character. Seeing him become a chef and using that passion in a way to bring cultures together is a really good and is very in line with his character. We’ve seen him using that skill in other meetings, such as in season 3, and the way he uses cooking to bring people together is a big thing in the final season, as well as for his character overall. Space Mall is another good example, because while it’s mostly for fun and antics it also showed Hunk connecting and changing Sal for the better. 

Keith, Acxa, Ezor and Zethrid slowly turning the Blade into a humanitarian organization is something I’m a bit neutral on. On the one hand, seeing them come together to change a rebellion group that was no longer necessarily needed into an organization to help others has logic to it, and is a very good thing for them to do. But I’m not sure how I feel about it based on their characters and arcs:

We didn’t get a lot of time to get in depth with Acxa, Ezor and Zethrid, so the grounding for them is a bit iffy. I can sort of see it  since they were in a sort of similar position as Lotor’s generals as that Blade of Marmora is in terms of role: a rebel group that is based on taking down the old empire. And due to what we know of their backgrounds, they were people who were in an “us vs them” mentality based on how they were treated. The conflict of Ezor and Zethrid as warlords vs Acxa who chose to go on a separate path was supposed to show how the damage of that mindset could escalate into something harmful, even with people who had genuine reason to have it - I think that could even be applied to Lotor at least to some degree with how he broke down in season 6. 

I personally think Ezor is probably the best example of this based on her personality, specifically in season 7. We see the fear she has over being hurt and tracked down by others, and then we see her taking joy in the concept of hurting others who she has power over. Because of that fear, whenever she has security and power, she uses it in a very sadistic and spiteful way. That trait is a very natural thing that can occur in situations like her own, and is very understandable. But it’s also very damaging to herself and others.

So having them shift from a mindset of hurting others in order to protect themselves to helping others on a personal level isn’t a bad road to take; in fact it’s one that I think works really well. But because we didn’t get a lot of time to explore their characters more in depth and get to see that transition, I don’t think it works for just a single shot epilogue sequence. It would’ve worked better as it’s own plotline, but with how much already going on and a limited number of episodes to work with I have no idea where they’d fit it. 

Meanwhile for Keith, while he has a basis for being in the Blade already, I don’t really see a strong foundation outside of that. And I think for me, the reason it didn’t have that grounding was because we didn’t get as much with Keith outside of his familial arc with discovering his heritage and mother. That was his sole character focus outside of becoming a leader and Black Paladin, and his arc with becoming a leader was sadly sidelined in season 4 for the other. Which I can understand from a character perspective too - his heritage was an important thing he needed to connect to and understand. But as a result the other sadly didn’t have as much to go on. 

And I think that’s why this was his spot, because had he gotten more development in terms of leadership, I think he would’ve been in that Galactic Coalition leader spot with Krolia and Kolivan. Because with the scene of him with the two of them prior to the feast in the final episode, I feel like that’s where the story wanted him to be, but they also knew that they couldn’t get him there and make it seem earned. So him being the leader of the Blades as a new humanitarian organization feels like a compromise of that. He’s in a leadership position, but not on as big of a scale as the coalition. Which isn’t necessarily that bad, it’s working with what they had to try to get a good medium of what they wanted and what could be done. But it leaves it feeling a bit lacking in terms of personal motivation for Keith. It doesn’t scream “this is Keith making a choice and committing to a cause,” it feels much more like a structured narrative decision rather than an in universe motive for the character.

The final two are the ones I’m most nervous about talking about, because they get the most strong reactions from others. But I’m going to do my best to explain my thoughts.

I can see some of the logic in Lance’s end, but I ultimately think it didn’t convey the message they wanted with his arc very well and as a result ended up with some bad implications.

One of the things with Lance’s arc is that he starts off being a character who talks himself up a lot. He plays himself off as someone really awesome and cool, is very flirtatious, etc. As he continued to progress, we started seeing some of his insecurities. Season 2 introduced the fact that he was worried about not contributing to the team in a way that was substantial, and in season 6 while Pidge and Hunk did their tech and Lotor and Allura were working on the Sincline ship, he was left with little to nothing to do. 

Even with those insecurities, though, the way he responded to them was to actively take steps to improve himself. He doesn’t feel like he has a thing? He trains himself in a specific skill: Sharpshooting. Upset that Allura has chosen to be with another guy? He talks himself through it using the mice as a way to communicate what he’s feeling.

And I want to draw attention to what I feel are some of his biggest defining character development moments. In season 3, when he accepts Keith as the leader, when he talks to him on Thayserix, and when he talks up Allura in season 4 as the heart of Voltron. Moments where he builds others up. And Allura multiple times has talked about those moments with Lance. And her talking about him drove what I believe is his actual character arc, based on those insecurities and the way he plays himself up.

He is enough as who he is. He isn’t contributing any less by not having a niche like Pidge or Hunk, he isn’t supposed to be a grand hero who gets all the glory. He’s Lance, and he’s enough as he is. It’s that simple. 

But the way they choose to show that simplicity in the epilogue is… not the best. They set it up a little with the farm scene in season 4, but overall the choice to make his simple life be living as a farmer has a lot of bad implications based on stereotypes. Which is why so many people have such negative feelings towards it, which is totally understandable and completely valid. 

The idea of him settling in a more simple lifestyle isn’t something I’m apposed to, but I believe that choosing that instead of another type of occupation or lifestyle is a very poor choice, and as a result doesn’t convey his arc well or in a positive light. Which is unfortunate, because I really think that arc is good otherwise.

As for Shiro’s, there’s a lot going on with it and a lot of factors that play into it, which makes it difficult to talk about. 

The marriage is, I believe, a small step in terms of representation, as it’s the first time in western cartoons that a mlm wedding has appeared. But I also admit that because of it being such a small scene with no build up and no relationship to build it up, that it is very flawed. Others have talked about their distaste for it and I understand why, and I also understand those who enjoy it for being there at all. There are also aspects like his retirement that people aren’t fond of, and that’s understandable too, but that’s where I have my own feelings to talk about personally. 

The events of season 7 with Shiro and Adam upset a lot of people, and I myself wasn’t that fond of it. I didn’t feel as strongly as others, but the trope of “Bury Your Gays” is something that has been in media for a long time with a long history. So being upset by it is absolutely valid. The reason I personally didn’t feel as strongly as others was because Shiro, a main character who has fought and survived through the show, was still there, and still a gay man on screen whether he was in a relationship or not. 

The on screen break up I personally didn’t have a problem with either due to the fact that I have personally seen a lot of framing of relationships with abuse and unhealthy dynamics as “straight culture” and gay relationships as inherently free of those types of scenarios. I personally identify as asexual or questioning, but know I’m at least not straight from my own self reflection. And seeing this kind of mentality is very harmful and something I wish would stop because it pushes people within the community to stay in relationships that might potentially be dangerous based on pressure that such dynamics are impossible to occur within a wlw/mlm relationship. There’s also a factor of validity of orientations being erased due to relationship status, such as many people who identify as bisexual having their identity erased by others while  being in a m/f relationship, which is also harmful. While having a healthy and thriving mlm relationship on screen would have been great and a very good thing, I don’t believe the break up itself is a terrible choice because it shows that relationship status take away from someone’s identity.

Not only that, but Adam was not the only character within the show to die on screen, so it was not as if the fact that he was gay was a deliberate target on his back in context. Ulaz, Thace, and many other characters have had on screen deaths from seasons 2-7 before Adam. But as I said, the history behind the trope of “Bury Your Gays” does make Adam’s death sting in a much more personal way for a lot of people, which again is a very valid feeling that I don’t want to brush off. 

So with all that in mind, when the epilogue came and showed Shiro marrying Curtis, that leads to some flaws. Namely the fact that the relationship with Curtis is non-existent, and Curtis himself doesn’t really have much of a character to speak of. The marriage itself is good in the sense that it showed a gay marriage on screen, thus opening the door for other shows to do the same.

But in the context of showing a relationship, there was no relationship to be shown. And if Shiro and Curtis had developed a relationship over the course of the season, it would have been much better for both the story and characters, as well as for showing representation for the LGBT community. Without that, it feels like a last minute addition, which it admittedly was, instead of a genuine show of love and wanting to include a mlm couple. Which in the end, while good intended, it leaves it heavily flawed. Which no hate to anyone who enjoyed it for what it was either. I can genuinely see reasons on both sides why someone would dislike or enjoy it. Personally, the flaws outweighed some of the good for me and keeps me from enjoying it.

As for his retirement, this is where I get far more subjective and into how I personally relate to Shiro, which I know others may disagree with because this is very personal to me specifically I admit. 

When I first started watching Voltron, Shiro was my favorite character. He’s still up there among my faves even with Lotor swooping in after season 3. I loved Shiro’s personality; strong willed leader, open and still fun with the other paladins while still stern when he needed to be. The reason the fan name of Space Dad stuck was very obvious. He was put through hell, continued fighting and came out of it still kicking. And he still had that fun and supportive nature for others as he continued to keep going. 

A lot of people focus on him as mlm representation now, but he’s also representation for those with PTSD. And that’s where I started with him. 

The reason I like Shiro so much is because he reminds me - to an uncanny degree - of my older brother. 

He’s helped raise me my whole life, he taught me how to draw, and he still does so much to support me to this day. And in order to get help paying his student loans, he went into the military and was stationed in Iraq for a short time. He’s back now, and he’s totally fine! And I know many people have opinions on such wars and military, and I agree, trust me. 

And that’s why I don’t have a problem with Shiro’s retirement. After everything he’s been through, while him being a hero is great, I also feel like him stepping back, even if it’s in like a Miyazaki back-in-a-few-years way, is a good thing to show as healthy. Him retiring doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to be a hero, because in the context of the story in hindsight, he has always been gay and has always been a hero. And retiring doesn’t mean he never was, or has stopped being a hero. 

At least to me, but again, this is a very personal opinion and I absolutely understand why people would disagree. But these are just my feelings on the matter. 

That was a very, very, VERY long explanation of my feelings on the epilogue as a whole. I’m pretty sure this is the longest post I’ve ever written. 

But hopefully this has done a good job of explaining my feelings on the epilogue. I’m not really sure how I’d compress it all into a tl;dr, just because there was so much to talk about, so apologies for those who can’t sit and read it all at once. But overall, I was very neutral to it all things considered. 

But thank you @thenorthernphoenix for asking this! I’ve been sitting with these thoughts for a while in my head being nervous about putting them out there, but this helped me really collect them all and hopefully articulate it in a good way.

And again, if you liked the epilogue, more power to you, and if you didn’t more power to you. Everybody’s different with their own feelings on the matter.

[darkzorua100]

I first off like to say that a part of me is disappointed that we didn’t actually get the clash of the titans between Revolver and Soulburner. That duel would have just been so epic and I’m crossing my fingers so hard that they will end up having a rematch in the future. I’m very thankful though that the writers didn’t go the route I seriously thought they would have by having Lightning’s group show up to interrupt the duel just so Soulburner wouldn’t have actually lose because lets be real here, with the way he was acting, Revolver would have kicked his ass so badly if he wanted to. 

No, I’m genuinely surprised how much I enjoyed this episode. Like holy crap, this was amazing for character development and season 1 nostalgia. This is a obvious statement but jesus everyone in this show needs therapy, even those that went to therapy need more therapy!

First off let’s talk about Takeru/Soulburner. This episode really solidified a big character flaw of his. His emotions. When his anger gets the better of him, he really doesn’t not think straight. His dueling, while it might not seem like it on the surface, was just so rash, summoning his ace monster whose effect makes it so much better to summon it in the late game but he summoned it right out of the gate just to have a big beater on the field. And I just love how Flame was the one to address this. He was willing to risk Flame’s very life, when it wasn’t necessary in the first place, just to get his revenge on Revolver. And guess what, he didn’t care. He put his own partner’s existence at risk, not thinking of the consequences of his actions, because all he was thinking about in that very moment was getting even at Revolver for the Hanoi Project and his parents’ death. If Revolver was actually going to be dueling for keeps, he would have destroyed him because Soulburner wasn’t thinking straight at all. He would have lost Flame because his anger got the best of him in that moment. Interesting implications for what this could mean for the future because now that this fatal flaw of Takeru’s has been addressed, it is definitely going to come back to bite him in the ass and the next time this happens, he is going to lose Flame and who knows how Takeru is going to react to that. After all, Flame is the one that has been helping Takeru through all of his problems, the one that has been addressing his problems and helping him find a solution for them. His depression, his lack of confidence in himself, his anger. I’m genuinely worried about Takeru’s emotion state if he actually does lose Flame. It is definitely not going to be pretty.

Now Ryoken/Revolver. Oh my god, and I thought his guilt complex was bad during season 1. It seriously has gotten so much worse during season 2. Now I know the fandom is very divided when it comes to Ryoken/Revolver as a character. You either love his guts or you want to stab said guts. There really is no middle ground when it comes to him. Still, regardless if you hate the guy or love him, you can’t deny his impact on the show. This guy has had a hand in everything that has happen at this point. And that really has not been a good thing for Ryoken’s mental state. This whole duel, Revolver allowed Soulburner to use him as a punching bag to unleash his frustration on because in his eyes, he probably thinks he deserves it as the son of the man who destroyed Takeru’s life. And it is just sad because when it comes to the Hanoi Project, Ryoken did nothing wrong! Yes he was the reason that Yusaku ended up in the Hanoi Project but do I have to restate the fact that he was just a kid! Heck I even went back to episode 43, the episode where we got Ryoken’s backstory, and he even states it himself that he had no idea what was actually going on! So no, you actually can’t blame him for that. If anything, he saved his life! Those six kids probably would have died if Ryoken didn’t do what he did. But as we all know, Ryoken couldn’t feel good about that because life had to guilt him with ever choice he makes. Geez, Ryoken seriously is just the unofficial 7th Lost Child. This single event destroyed his life as well and has continued to destroy it. He became Revolver when he was 13. That just says a lot right there. He is just so obsessed with completing his father’s work that’s lets say he actually does destroy all six Ignises. Then what? Where does he seriously go from there? I don’t know and it is concerning when you remember that he was planning on suicide bombing Link Vrains just to kill the Ignis.

I do like to mention Yusaku/Playmaker role in this whole thing. As good as this duel was for Ryoken and Takeru’s characters, this whole thing probably could have been avoid if he just told Takeru what the heck was up when it come to Revolver. Yeah we know Yusaku isn’t some social butterfly, and in his mind probably didn’t think it was his right to tell Takeru about Ryoken without his permission, but you seriously didn’t tell Takeru anything?! You could have left the detail out about who Revolver actually was, again that feels like something Ryoken should do personally (and holy crap he actually did in front of everyone. That made my jaw drop when he revealed his real life identity to everyone) but you could have at least told him that Revolver was the one to save you guys from the Hanoi Project and inform him that he wasn’t the one directly responsible for it. I feel like this is a trust issue between them that needs to be addressed but isn’t going to be. Yusaku has shown that he’s a bit protective of Takeru after the whole Blood Shepherd’s incident but that doesn’t mean you just leave the guy in the dark when it comes to the same event that you both were apart of. He has a right to know as well, Yusaku. I mean yeah he needed to get that build up anger out of his system but this situation still could have been handled so much better if you just told him the truth. Though with that in mind, I take it he doesn’t know about Spectre being a Lost Child either? Yeah we just need to sit Takeru down and tell him everything huh?

Now for the other half of the episode. The return of the Tower of Hanoi. Holy crap, that was awesome. I love when shows take a symbol that was once used as destruction and turn it into something the heroes can use later down the line. The Tower of Hanoi has essentially been turned into the symbol of the alliance between Team Playmaker and the Knights of Hanoi since they all came together to turn it into a locator for Lightning. That was just the highlight of my week. I also liked how Takeru and Flame had a moment together about this alliance. Ryoken knows that Takeru sucks at coding but he still had him show up, knowing that he was going to be pissed at him, just so he could get his anger out of his system. I just love how in his own way Ryoken cares for each of the Lost Incident victims and wants to make up to them for what his father did. They are still going to have to fight against each other later down the line but I’m going to enjoy this alliance and Ryoken being a big brother figure to the Lost Childen as long as I can. On another note, I find it interesting how in this episode we find out how Neo Link Vrains wasn’t even a fixed up and improved Link Vrains but simply a new version of it. The old was so destroyed because of the Tower of Hanoi that SOL Technologies couldn’t fix it or they simply didn’t even try to. Knowing SOL, they probably didn’t even try. 

The Frog and Pigeon. I love how Revolver wasn’t having any of their crap and just trapped them in a hamster ball and just decided on the spot that “hey I have a frog and pigeon as pets now.” I truly do love this meme lord. He really make this show so much more fun. I do like how he allowed them to come along with him and the others when they were entering Mirror Link Vrains. I truly do think Revolver is going to use them to show the world that the Knights of Hanoi are fighting for a good reason and that the Ignises are a threat to humanity. Don’t think the start of season 3 is looking to good in Playmaker’s favor if he and his team are going to be seen as the enemies in that case for supporting humanity’s greatest threat. 

So a last few things to add before I wrap this up. Playmaker/Ai, Soulburner/Flame, Blue Maiden/Aqua, Revolver, and Spectre are the ones heading into Mirror Link Vrains. Ghost Girl is staying behind to watch over normal Link Vrains should Lightning unleash an attack while everyone is gone. Kusanagi is watching over the boys as always, the rest of the Knights are watching over Revolver and Spectre as while as the rest of the network, and Blue Maiden...well she is a strong independent woman who doesn’t need anyone watching over her. We got to see Bohman and Haru during this episode. Bohman seems to be getting his final upgrades and he thanks Haru for watching over him as a brother during his beginning states but Haru just tells him he did so because of his orders. Interesting how Bohman still see Haru as his brother and I wonder if that’s going to have any effect in the upcoming episodes for the both of them? Bohman did say an infamous line from ARC-V, implying that him and Haru are also going to be joining together at some point and it makes it wonder if he’s actually going to go through with that? Ai finally fulfilled his promise to Roboppy and made her smarter and I’m 100% sure that’s going to have some terrible repercussions. Akira seems to have made a program to protect Link Vrains so hopefully he will be joining Ghost Girl soon in guard duty. Windy...I don’t even know what the heck he is wearing. The tiny cape and eyepatch are just amazing. He isn’t to happy about his new appearance though. Seriously hoping his Origin has a similar design because parallels. 

But yeah a really good episode. I bash on this show a lot but when it does good things, they are really good things. The preview is also looking promising because with what we saw of Haru this episode and what was stated about him in the preview, it really looks like Blue Maiden might actually get the win and get through to Haru. This will be a nice call back if so to season 1 during her duel against Spectre on how she tried and failed to save him because she truly didn’t understand him. Maybe this time she will with Haru? If not, and she actually does end up losing, the fake out is real.

We also have the summary for episode 87 now and yeah Spectre vs Lightning is going to be two parts. Seems that Spectre has taken back the lead but I’m still 100% he isn’t beating Lightning. I am curious now though, after thinking about it, that if he does end up getting killed during this duel, similar to how he felt Earth’s death, will Go end up feeling Spectre’s death because Earth is inside of him? Again I’m a sucker for parallels so I’m very curious to see if Go will be on the cast list for this episode because of this. Also Revolver’s reaction. Lightning has just been going for Ryoken’s throat, trying to wear him down by taking out his allies. If he takes out Spectre, that will be a hard blow to Revolver. If Lightning does have a clone of Dr. Kogami around here somewhere, oh boy here come the pain train. Next stop, Revolver.