#but with bad guys i mean also antagonists tbh

[alteredphoenix]

Two reasons why I think Azurathel calls Turalyon a zealot:

(1) The most likely: His first introduction to the Alliance is being met with soldiers that have him and the dracthyr surrounded point blank right outside Stormwind and sees the place is crawling with SI:7 scouts that are keeping tabs on them and mages that can see through their visages at any given moment. This is an example of being wary of a new entity that’s finding refuge/a new home from a black dragon that was at one point under Alliance custody for playing both sides in the Pandaria Campaign plus the history of fighting between the Alliance and black dragons a’la Onyxia, so it makes sense that the trust isn’t there. However to him this probably verges on the grounds of paranoia (because, again, there’s no way Azurathel has any idea of the history between the Alliance and black dragons at this point in DF), so while Azurathel understands the precautions he’s thinking along the lines “yeah, this guy’s may be a good soldier and leader but he’s also cracked, he doesn’t need a Titan artifact to watch what we’re doing” - and Turalyon understands the wariness.

Or,

(2) The least unlikely: Azurathel heard about Turalyon being a Light worshipper (despite not having any idea what the Light would be, being asleep for millennia), saw him decked in that golden armor, equated that to the Primalists’ worship of the Incarnates and usage of their shamanic magic, and had warning klaxons go off.

Or,

(3) The devs know how much people are salivating over having a (white) Human Male Paladin being made a villain for a change (due to a number of player HMPs in RP realms being alt-right/channeling their fascism/xenophobia through Scarlet Crusade RP) and threw in the “zealot” crack as a nod to the fanbase that want villain!Turalyon despite there not being any buildup between Azurathel and the dracthyr being led to Stormwind and him meeting Turalyon off-screen) a’la See Point 2.

[dzvelinaskebiyars]

Hajun's/Joker's analysis

(This is more like a rant tbh)

I don't see lot of people talking about Hajun, whereas I think he's fascinating character and even though there's a lot we don't know about him, he's written enough for me to rant and analyse about.

Hajun, a.k.a Joker, is a character in Windbreaker webtoon written by Yongseok Jo. He's part of Sabbath crew, which plays antagonistic role in the story. Joker's moral compass can be confusing at first because he's illegally making money, but he's also well-intented person. He has taken the role of caregiver and provider for his brothers and he seems to give everything he has to live up to that role. However, the money he's making is from underground and illegal boxing, where people bet money who's gonna win and who's gonna lose. I believe fight clubs are popular outside of this manhwa so, I'm sure you all understand what I mean. It's been shown that Hajun enjoys fights and he's fascinated by mma & martial arts, but boxing is what he has taken biggest interest in. He tends to get excited whenever he meets strong opponent (like how he immediately started a fight with Owen, who's supposedly cyclist genius) and immediately asks for a fight, whether politely or not. He never misses a chance to get into fight, not for money but because he genuinely likes fighting strong opponents. He has quick reflexes and can easily block random and sudden attacks, he's also a guy who starts throwing punches before others can even blink. Can he act impulsive? Yes. Is he a bad person? No. And I'm going to explain why.

Firstly, his little brother HATES that Hajun is making money by beating people up, hence he, himself, starts working and denies his education. Hajun, as a big brother, of course can't turn blind eye to it and hence approaches his brother about it more than once. Upon hearing what his little brother said in part 3 of Windbreaker, Joker decided to change his ways of making money so his little brother wouldn't have to work so hard especially at construction site, which is very dangerous for a kid.

Mind you, it's not easy for Hajun either because as I said, he truly enjoys fighting and he needs to make money as soon as he can but there's very little he can do without professional career or guardian. It's not only money as well, he's cooking for them, handling their healthcare and etc. He's trying his best to be emotionally available for them as well and makes sure to hear them out and be understanding in his own ways.

Aside from being caregiver to his brothers, he's a person who values fairness. He refused to against Dom Kang when it was two on one because he considered it to be unfair, he doesn't pick on weaker opponents because he knows it'd be unfair - like how he refused to block Shelly because she wasn't good at physical fights and he didn't want to injure her. But he went against his own morals few times in order to gain money, like helping Wooin with drug dealing just because Sangho gave them money.(Or maybe he thinks it's alright as long as he gets money out of it) However, Joker himself never doped and achieved everything by his own strength and skills.

His morals might be little questionable at some point but he's truly well-intented man. He even stopped cycling in the middle of race, despite being close to finish line, to save the injured puppy and go to the vet afterwards. He seems to be very responsible person as well, as he took the puppy under his care, provided for it and always made sure puppy was with him and safe. Once, he also stopped at the red light during the cycling race when he didn't have to.

He's quite hardworker as well, acknowledges his weakness and trains to improve himself. He's quite motivated character and has sportsmanship whatsoever. Author is portraying him as tough on outside, soft on the inside type of guy in the series. But again, there's more to his character that has to be explored but we're lacking information, unfortunately. A really good trait of his is that he's not changing his values and morals for someone, no matter what kind of situation he really is in. He has his priorities set straight and follows it with undying loyalty.

Tag list: @shintaru

[soundwavereporting]

So you've heard Earthspark Season 3 is pretty good

Or maybe you just want to see the small screen's post-IDW take on Everyone's Favorite War Criminal (I'm not judging) but you heard season 2 is a hot mess.

Fear not! Under the cut, I present the cliffnotes of season two, so you can easily go into season three without having to watch season two! (or even season one, I guess, because I'm an overachiever)

Season Two Cliffnotes:

Decepticons are bad again. Starscream is in charge.

Something (I forget what tbh) creates 'chaos energy' and 'chaos terrans' which are terrans, but 'born bad'. They're named Aftermath and I forget the other one, but she's essentially Twitch's evil twin.

At a carnival, Mo, and the Terrans (I think all of them? idk it doesn't matter) get caught up in the nonsense of a guy named Fairmaestro. The big twist is Fairmaestro's super cool UFO space carnival ride is actually Cosmos! He fucks off into space at the end of the ep. Meanwhile Robbie meets a girl named Izzy and has a crush.

The Decepticons have also decided fucking off into space is a good idea (they want to go back to Cybertron. I forget why the Autobots don't want to), except Starscream wants to kill Megatron and OP or something, I don't remember, so they don't. Or they might've been trying to get control of a space bridge?

Mo and Thrash (I think? Definitely Mo though) meet a Quintesson.

Starscream does Stuff and raises a Titan named Terrortronus who lives under Witwicky (I think), and is powered with chaos energy. (see above), which ends up draining Aftermath & Twitch's Evil Twin of energy. Starscream also gets something called the Cyberslayer (I think) that can kill cybertronians. But also bring them back?

The kids and the Terrans realize they can 'sync', which means they turn into a combiner ship thing or something and create a dome around Terrortronus and part of Witwicky, which results in all the Decepticons being contained. Because Starscream is stuck inside Terrortronus, Shockwave takes over the Decepticons, whose goals are now to 1) escape 2) fuck off to Cybertron.

Season 1 Cliffnotes:

First, I really recommend watching season 1! It's very fun and stands on its own.

Robbie and Mo (siblings) find the Emberstone and get these cool cybersleeves, which allow them to feel each other's emotions. Finding the Emberstone also brings about the creation of two new bots (Terrans) named Twitch and Thrash, who are Robbie and Mo's partners, respectively.

The kids' mom, Dot, fought in the war and is buddies with Megatron, who defected to the Autobots at some point. Their dad, Alex, is a college professor and a Bumblebee stan.

Transformers/Cybertronians are known to humanity and there's even a comic series about them!

The Autobots & Megatron are working for a secretive organization called G.H.O.S.T. (I forget what it stands for). G.H.O.S.T. has lots of secret bases and whatever. Agent Schloder works for G.H.O.S.T. and is also a Bumblebee stan.

Bumblebee and Breakdown are umm "brothers"

In the midseason finale (I think) Robbie and Mo end up creating three new Terrans: Hashtag, Nightshade, and Jawbreaker. Hashtag's whole thing is social media (obviously) and Nightshade is a nonbinary science prodigy who makes a whole secret base for the Maltos, Autobots, and Terrans. Jawbreaker is just kind of there for comic relief and/or secondhand embarrassment.

The main threat is a guy named Mandroid, who hates Cybertronians. G.H.O.S.T. eventually becomes a strong secondary antagonist.

Eventually the Autobots and Decepticons team up to take down Mandroid/G.H.O.S.T. These last two points aren't actually mentioned in season 3 but in the interest of full context, here you go.

F.A.Q.

Q: Um, I heard Tarantulas was in this show?

A: He's in Season 1 Episode 13, "Missed Connection". Unfortunately he doesn't show up again afterwards :( but he is in my heart, always.

Q: Soundwave ep? Is he divorced?

A: Watch Season 1 Episode 8 "Decoy" for all the answers.

Q: Is Wheeljack really yeehaw?

A: Yes. Laserbeak is ALSO yeehaw.

Q: Why don't the Autobots want to go back to Cybertron?

A: I honestly don't remember.

Q: Are you a Prowl stan? Is that why you made this post?

A: Per my blog description: "despite the title of my blog, i am actually a soundwave stan."

Unfortunately, Soundwave doesn't have enough screentime in this show (especially season 3) to justify a "Season 2 Cliffnotes so you can see Soundwave". Prowl is another favorite, though.

Q: Is Season 2 really that bad?

A: To be entirely honest, it killed my interest in transformers for the last five months! YMMV.

There. I've done it. Go enjoy Prowl.

[zeroducks-2]

People hating evil characters is weird to me. I guess the only characters I actually hate are annoying ones cause usually that’s not a point of their character in the story, they just happen to be infuriating. Like Slade being a bad guy is cause he’s a bad guy, that’s like his whole point as a character. Yeah he can be nuanced and worse at times but he exists to be an antagonist. It completely makes sense to me that the Tara thing makes people uncomfortable but he’s still a fictional antagonist, it’s not really a moral failing on the part of the creators.

Tbh if you've experienced these characters in any way (read TJC or watched the more recent animated movie or read Deathstroke 2016 or watched Teen Titans 2003, or whatever else features their interaction) and you don't like Slade, that's fair enough.

Loving and hating characters (and every other emotion) happens all the time and it's part of the experience. HOWEVER, I do take issues when it's people who do not know the character, who have barely ever seen them and just heard "stuff" from other fandom people, who go on crusades against said character because "they did bad stuff".

You see it in people who hate Tarantula "because she raped Dick" and they have not read one single comic in which she appears - they have no idea what she even looks like or what's her real name, but they "hate her" because they read a post in which the sexual assault was mentioned and since she "did a bad thing" they "hate her now". This has to be the most shallow fucking thing, but it's convenient because if you hate on the "bad guy" it must mean you're morally pure and upstanding and you're one of the good ones.

Back to your point, hating on a character without any kind of reasoning or nuance only because they did "bad things" is the death of critical thinking. But people out there act like characters who do shit that's even vaguely considered unethical or morally reprehensible irl need to be hated, and like their existence is some sort of moral failing from the writer's part, and it's so fucking annoying and childish.

Which leads me to my second point which is a tad more controversial, but hey I'm a bitch with insufferable opinions so here we go I guess.

I'm bothered by people who pick a character and use them as their scapegoat, and I mean collectively as a fandom. It kind of is the case with Slade but he isn't the perfect example, however the principle is the same: hating on the villain, especially when the villain is very human and makes very human mistakes, using them as the only person who is capable of doing evil and therefore acquitting every other character of anything they ever did.

With Slade it becomes that Slade is the only bad guy of his story, who hurt Grant and hurt Adeline and hurt Joseph and raped Tara and killed and maimed and tortured, and therefore Grant has no blame in what he did to himself, and Adeline is just a poor innocent woman who was hurt by her unfaithful husband, and Joey did nothing wrong and everything that happened to him is solely Slade's fault, and Tara wasn't already a mercenary hitwoman for hire who lied and cheated and killed - rather she was just a poor innocent girl who was manipulated and corrupted by the Big Bad Guy.

I don't know if you see what I mean with this, but it's very much a thing in a lot of fandoms, especially when it comes to horror media where there is a cast of controversial, "imperfect" characters. One example of this is Mouthwashing, in which (spoilers ahead of course) there is a cast composed of people who range from being downright horrible to having very human but very noticeable flaws - every single one of them is "guilty" of something, and the protagonist in particular is also the one with the most prominent antisocial behaviors. But he's not benefiting from them - Jimmy isn't someone whose life is made better by his piece of shit behavior, rather this is a person with issues and who struggles with mental health (he's suicidal and has very strong delusions), giving him a very hard time keeping his life in order. Which of course doesn't make any of the horrible shit he does less horrible, but I think it's interesting how he's (mostly) not acting out of convenience, rather he's acting out his own demons. And what the fandom did was deciding that this guy is the only one to blame, and that his shitty behavior absolves everyone else of their sins. He's effectively the scapegoat and everyone else - it doesn't matter if they act selfishly, childishly, violently, cowardly or anything really - is guileless and has never done anything wrong in their lives. Jimmy is the only one who's to blame, and the rest of the cast is made of pure perfect angels.

I've seen this happen in many many cases. And it sort of turns into a mob of people whose only fandom personality is to hate on this one guy and gather Upstanding Morality Points, and of course the natural consequence of this is bothering or even outright harassing people who instead are fans of such flawed characters.

I hate it. I'm not saying anyone should have to like a character in particular, but the way people hate on the "easy to hate" guy instead of trying to understand them, especially when it's a complex character whose action make them suffer as much as the people they're hurting, distances me from fandom spaces. People will see a feral beast of a character with their leg caught in a bear trap hissing and growling while in the process of chewing their own limb off, and will toss stones at them and call them disgusting and weird. It's so unkind and I hate it so much.

[khaire-traveler]

Idk if this sounds really weird but I'm getting a bit tired of greek myth retellings for books bc like, yeah some are pretty good and others get really creative, but they all do the whole "the gods are kind of assholes" thing that the original myths do and it really pisses me off after a while. I keep seeing people try to tell the stories in modern prose but they don't modernize the Theoi while they're at it. In the myths, they're just characters to do plot stuff so the myth can tell the story its trying to tell. But how they did characters back then is different than now. Maybe it's just because I know the gods aren't actually like that, and its the helpol in me speaking, but I just wish they put more nuance to the gods in these books like they do for whoever the (usually mortal) protagonist is. It makes me really wanna write my own modern greek myth inspired story, change this pattern up a bit.

Also part of me kind of wishes that more people would write their own myths bc thats such an interesting way to tell a story, but tbh I don't think I'd trust anyone who just has a casual knowledge of the theoi and such to do it just bc misconceptions are so prevalent, yknow?

THIS. Nonny, you have put into words a feeling I've had for a long ass time. They always talk about modernizing Greek myths, yet they forget to modernize the gods, instead just opting to villainize them because it's "more interesting" (forget the fact it's been done a thousand times by now and is no longer an interesting twist, really). It's so incredibly frustrating to come across these uninspired stories where the gods are just another Big Bad Evil Guy™. GIVE ME SOMETHING WITH SUBSTANCE, COWARDS!!! MAKE THE GODS REDEEMABLE IF YOU'RE GOING TO VILLAINIZE THEM!!!! GIVE THEM THE ABILITY TO LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES AND CHANGE AS CHARACTERS!!!

I demand more interesting content about the gods than, "Ooooo, wouldn't it be sooooo cool if the gods were actually the bad guys??? Wouldn't that be sooooo original?" No, it wouldn't; kiss my ass (clarifying that's not aimed at you, Nonny lol). You wanna be original in this day and age? Make the gods cool, modern, and intriguing. Give them actual purpose outside of "being immoral and evil and corrupt", as if all they are are wealthy billionaires who don't give a shit about the fact that they have world-ending abilities. THEY CONTROL THE ENTIRE PLANET, BRO; MAKE IT INTERESTING!!! Hephaestus leading the world in amazing technological and industry advancements with cool futuristic shit that would blow your mind. Athena providing counsel to political leaders to steer them on a path AWAY from corruption and TOWARDS improvement. Apollo cultivating new healthcare techniques that eradicate certain illnesses entirely and even inspiring humanity to blossom creatively through means of divine inspiration. Hermes doing quite literally anything other than mail services would just be fun to see, tbh; have him domesticate wild beasts and terrifying monsters - he's so much cooler than Mail Man™. It took me a few minutes to come up with that; it's seriously not that hard to come up with literally anything besides "tehe, gods are evil". For the love of all that is creative and fun, do something FUN with Greek gods instead of just making them immediately antagonistic. Lame. Boring. Unoriginal. Be daring, and strut your creative muscles. Show me what you're made of, authors.

[dapper-lil-arts]

Thoughts on post-redemption Starlight?

I know a fair amount of fans don’t like the focus she gets in later seasons, combined with how rushed her turn to good was, and preferred it if she just stayed a villain.

Me, personally, I’m in two minds about it. I do like her character-focused episodes later in the show, particularly anything with Trixie, but I also have to acknowledge just how good of a villainous foil she was to Twilight (props to Kelly Sheridan too, she absolutely NAILS the role of a petty, manipulative scumbag).

I guess if I had it my way, I’d split things down the middle. Keep her on as a recurring antagonist for more than a 2 season, but still the redemption. Just make it more gradual.

Maybe have her go through villain decay so she gets progressively less threatening as time goes on and the gang goes up against more powerful villains, until eventually she’s reduced to just a minor inconvenience.

THEN you can have Twilight swoop in and be like “you’re sure you don’t want to give friendship another shot?” And she’s like “Ugh, fine.”

Or something like that, anyway. Best of both worlds, that’s what I say.

Thoughts?

your suggestions aren't bad, but they do get to the core of what improving starlight entails, which is basically changing everything about her and keeping the core essentials. My favorite aspect of her is her with trixie, tbh. The fact that two ex-villans can improve each other after being brought to their lowest is really damn cute, and trixie's 'assistant 'being much more powerfull than her is just a funny thing.

but the show focuses way too much on her, thats for sure. her backstory is worse than 'because music killed my granma okay?', her crimes are cosmic in scale for a redemption that's so fast, and she has a similar issue than Discord does where they're keeping a psychopath in their midst and only give her slaps on the wrist when she violates their basic damn boundaries (but starlight is not nearly as bad for sure.)

Your idea of her crimes getting weaker and weaker as time goes by is pretty good tbh! Some really good stories have antagonists that keep on losing, and insist that theyre still better than the protagonist, only to be proven wrong and wrong in gradually worse ways that has to make them commit even more to their horrible ideals. Think of Chazz princeston from yugioh GX, or one of my favorite examples: Silver from pokemon heartgold. Again and again, the good guys beats them, something they find is utterly impossible, they can't accept it. So they spiral! They commit to a set of bad ideas, they invest all of pride and ego on the line. So when they're humbled into utter oblivion, they break, heh. it's a fantastic way to start a redemption. ...Though what they did with Starlight is kind of the baby version of this.

The shows sense of morality kind of gets in its own way sometimes. Cozy Glow, a child manages to block all magic for like a day, that's Tartarus for her. Starlight runs a cult and nearly breaks down time and space and she gets to be Twilight's secretary. Kind of bonkers.

I don't want to be a starlight hater but the show makes it kind of hard.

Like, just because the showrunners say she can outmatch an alicorn in magic and everyone likes her now and that she can easily keep up with the legion of doom, it doesn't mean I'm just going to accept everything thats fucking sold to me! Jeez.

[pocketmolly]

I love how present Damian is in all of the crisis/events in dc! Like this man is not just Batman's sidekick and it shows I mean of course he won't have the same plot importance as dc trinity or whatever but this guy is shockingly relevant in almost every event (at least in the new52)

1. Dark Knights Metal

The teen titans go to the challengers mountain in Gotham and Damian somehow fucks off from his team (cannon fodder tbh) and ends up inside. There, he meets Green Arrow, Harley, Killer Croc and Nightwing and they fight their way into the (almost?) center. Damian kills dark robin and only through this do the good guys gain the knowledge that enemies can be killed by Nth metal which leads to their eventual victory. (Gotham Resistance)

2. Shadow War

This event kind of centers around Ra's Al Ghul, Talia Al Ghul and Slade after the Robin (2021) so it makes sense why Damian is a major character in it, basically Batman and Robin just kinda hop around trying to stop Talia and Slade from murdering each other. Anyway Damian has a humongous part in the conclusion where he manages to defeat the bad guy himself and Mary Sues his mother into not killing the guy who murdered Ra's. Also this event is kinda goofy where it ends in sunshine and rainbows (Slade is still alive and sets up Dark Crisis) (Ra's comes back as a ghost).

3. Dark Crisis

Dark Crisis gives Damian his little one shot where they portray him as both 12 years old and 34 years old. Anywho, Damian quickly says 'fuck you' to both Jon and Nightwing and goes on his own adventure where his team frees Justice Incarnate (which is the JL of the multiverse) and somehow unlock Dr Light's powers which she uses to stabilise the multiverse??? And don't let the team accomplishments fool you because Damian hacks into a cosmic tuning fork in an ape dimension to find the source of the Darkness??? (Please read Dark Crisis: The Dark Army, it is so good!!)

4. Lazarus Planet

Even the name of this event screams Damian... This event also starts off in Robin (2021) and is the biggest crossover Damian is at the center of. He starts off as a main antagonist where it's mostly a batfam event. Then, at the climax of the event, Damian is converted back to the hero's side when it becomes an international event. He's basically the main strategist and leader in fighting the god, King Fire Bull. There are a bunch of one-shots where heroes are struggling with new or a lack of powers which is why I say it's Damian's first big crossover event, additionally the entire batfam kind of revolves around him, being literally at his beck and call. The ending is also super sweet where Damian rallies the people of Gotham to revive Batman but he also kind of decided to kill Batman in the first place so that's not so sweet. I think this event, though not extremely well written, gives us a taste of what Damian would be like leading the JL (idk if it was plot convenience but everyone just agreed to following orders from a 15 year old) alongside Nightwing and Jon.

5. Night Terrors

In this Damian is revealed to have control over his dreams (which is crazy btw) and he goes to some monk to learn how to resist sleep? Anyway, while the other heroes are snoozing, Damian gets to team up with Deadman, Sandman and his father's unconscious body. It's the classic superhero story where he swoops in to rescue the two and they get the nightmare stone or something. Truthfully, I'm not too sure why they chose Damian specifically to play this role because I'm pretty sure any other hero would have been an okay substitute but I will never complain about Damian content.

This is just off the top of my head and I'm aware Beast World did happen but that event definitely needs its own post because I just absolutely adore it. Anyway, writers have been pushing for Damian to become a major character in DC and I really really hope he gets to be beside Nightwing and Jon when they inevitably (DC will never let them) take over.

[swordsandarms]

how would you describe the dynamic between aerys and rhaegar?? no matter what rhaegar was aerys's first and only child for a long time, and tbh i kinda love to delude myself thinking aerys loved him almost as much as he hated? him.....

Wrote about this before, but of course I can't find it, but since it's rarely given enough complexity anyways, might as well do it again.

This is the endless problem of not allowing Targaryens the right to be more than one dimensional and have complicated human feelings and Aerys is probably the sorest spot for it. A lot of people are finally backing down on the weird dehumanisation of Rhaegar, thankfully, but Aerys less so, as he is a big problem even for "Targaryen fans" - he is the sole Targaryen called fully "mad" - that can be acknowledged as that absolute sort of mentally unstable, and in a violent way that can be fully antagonistic, too - bringing that whole can of worms used against a whole 300 years worth of generations of a family, so everyone stays away.

Here comes the tired disclaimer that of course I've got to put out over and over before writing of Aerys as a mere person instead of a fairytale boogieman: he wasn't a good guy with particular virtues; he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed; he wasn't a proactive, great King, and although he spoke of great plans that sounded sound didn't put in the effort to accomplish anything; he wasn't a good father and least of all husband for most of his life, even in his better days with less excuses (well, explanation) to it. Etc etc

But he had the complexity of feelings and behaviour of a whole person! I've said it before but Aerys is one of these background characters dead before the story starts that gets TONS of interiority that adds so much nuance to this otherwise muddled portion of history, but he's not a "nice dead victim" and hence gets little attention while less "lesser" background characters get essays of made up fanon.

Aerys' desire for both successful lineage and grandeur for his House clashing with his deep personal insecurities is more of a downward spiral than his actual mental illness. (Again, something I touched on in a different post that Tumblr won't let me find) Aerys wants and fails to be anything grand, and Rhaegar being seen as great while being nothing like him is a sour spot, because if greatness is his opposition what does that mean? Of course he latches onto Viserys when it's clear he's got his character.

But what about Rhaegar? Did Aerys love him? Did Rhaegar love his father once? He was his prized heir in a positive sense for the longest of their relationship. He kept him close in detriment of his mother's claim on him (took him to Casterly Rock for a year when Joanna died). But does that necessarily say anything about love?

This is the man who would end up hurting his sister, who would be open about the intention to wish bad things upon his child, but he's also grieved these children with his sister once, he's turned to the gods humbled despite his self righteous arrogance, asking if it's him, if he can do anything to make it better.

And, in his madness, Aerys kills Brandon and Rickard for "threatening Rhaegar". Which is fascinating. I've been trying to think of whether he is trying to put Rhaegar in a worse position by it, but it doesn't work. If it were the case, he'd be glad to latch onto the accusations and make the best of it, instead of becoming the bad guy further by "protecting Rhaegar". If he weren't able to think that straight, at least his advisors would (he's got plenty of "whisperers" in his ears, we are told, and they are against Rhaegar's faction). But if they tried, but if they tried it's clear the "he threatened Rhaegar" convoluted thought won.

And I joke about the Rhaenys moment supposedly being the breaking point in Aerys and Rhaegar's relationship from his point of view (of all things) but... With these powerful families, the personal and political are in a constant clash. Yet it is quite something that political tensions are all high ("like before the Dance"), Aerys' undermining and threatening Rhaegar's position is open knowledge, and yet, what gets to Rhaegar finally is his father rejects his child - rejects family.

Was there only honour and "doing things right" in lieu of kinslaying? Was there a reason why it was hard to give up on his father and admit to himself he wasn't salvageable in any lesser ways until it's too late?

And oh, he was ever so aggravated by Rhaegar being so good at things and admired for it, but when he dies in battle... There surely must be some conspiracy, some betrayal for his shining son to be gone. Rhaegar himself wouldn't just be bested without a better explanation! Someone ought to answer for it, damnit!

[chaos0pikachu]

hi! it's the one piece anon, this time off anon, lmao, thanks for the answer!

watching one piece for the first time as a adult with no prior attachment to it is wild, btw—and makes you want to take sanji and throw him into an active volcano about 100 times per episode, akbsjdjdj

i actually have no idea what my favourite arc would be so far, tbh, i enjoyed alabasta solely because of crocodile—i love me a horrible man who has a plan and executes it :)—and thriller bark was a good time, and now impel down is fun because stakes! i love stakes! i keep complaining to my friend that no 'death' ever really sticks, lmao, and now having accidentally spoiled myself i know that at least one will, akhsjdjdj

also, i have So Many opinions, it's insane, so glad that my friend knows i'm a yapper and analyser at heart and wanted to watch (in her case rewatch) the show with me because of that, lmao, and i am looking forward to when we are in a place where it's safe to engage with fandom stuff because man, i wanna yap so bad about this show

(and we are watching Everything which means no skipping the bad parts—we have seen sanji be on the second maiden isle react like the biggest douche and yeah.....that was fun :) truly)

(also, zoro is just. great, i love that man <3 especially because my sense of direction is just slightly better than his)

(this got very long, oops)

please don't apologize I fucking love talking about one piece lmao I literally bard the series to a friend b/c they don't wanna watch 1000+ episodes and they don't read manga but they really like the series (and loved OPLA)

Sanji is....sigh. Like the Whole Cake arc with him is great, like it's really strong and Sanji at his peak. There's times when I really like Sanji - one of my favorite small moments is when he gives Ussop his goggles back in Alabasta sanji/ussop gets no love b/c ussop is ugly even tho they're a great ship rip. Another great moment is when he gives Nami his jacket in Little Garden, and when he helps Violet in Dressrosa, like, when Sanji's compassion is front and center he's GREAT.

The problem is Sanji is a product of a very old shounen trope - the perverted man gag - quoting myself here but it's an age old gag - DBZ has Oolong, and Master Roshi, Inu-yasha has Miroku, Naruto has Jiraiya, Ranma 1/2 has Master Happosai - just to list some off the top of my head. Sanji's gag isn't new and it's not even unique. If there's any difference its that Sanji is just better developed than most - not all, but most - of these types of chars. Which creates a big dissonance with how western fans deal with and discuss Sanji.

I hate the gag but like, it's canon, Oda isn't writing for me he's writing for teenage (Japanese) boys first and foremost. It is what it is and I just take Sanji as is and am glad OPLA toned him the fuck down.

Crocodile is a fandom fave for a reason, he's such a deliciously fun antagonist and I'm glad he came back in Impel Down and is still around even after that.

Ngl I almost dropped the series b/c of Alabasta LOL sorry guys! It's one of my least favorite arcs of the series I felt like it dragged so damn hard. It introduced so many important characters - Vivi, Ace, Crocodile, Robin - and plots - the weapons - but omggggg I was bored at times.

Water 7 is probably my favorite arc, maybe followed by Wano? Idk I'm apparently one of the weird fans who likes a lot of the post-timeskip arcs. I think Dressrosa is a great arc and also up there for me. I liked Skypiea well enough - and it becomes stronger with time - but I'm meh on Little Garden, East Blue Saga doesn't get good until Sanji imo when we get into the Nami stuff which IS one of my fave arcs of the series, I like Thriller Bark than most the halloween stuff is great, but my favorite arcs are all post-timeskip except Water 7 Saga.

The death stuff is something a lot of fans talk about and I've learned that Oda has addressed this. Basically he said he doesn't like drawing characters who die - ironic considering other things that happen in the story lmao - he wants to keep the story a kid friendly adventure and doesn't wanna draw char deaths. So you get Pell and that dude in Skypiea lol Oda

Zoro is great, I hope he never gets a "new" backstory b/c I like his normal ass backstory not all the straw hats need to have secret tragic backstories! Let my man be moderately normal, have bad direction and wanna dedicate his entire self to his Captain :3

[mihai-florescu]

Putting a message i sent earlier under a read more, it has some thoughts ive expressed before tho. ES, of course

My thoughts as an EichiP... i view ! and !! as different stories in the way they're approached tbh, what i fell in love with enstars for was the character driven storytelling of one event seen through different perspectives, where you see the antagonist in one perspective become a protagonist in another story and can empathize with the entire cast like this. I fell in love with eichi's story of second chances, getting what you want and regretting your actions in the process, redemption, desperation, overcoming fate and asserting one's self into the story, saving a school in a dying industry that saved your life by giving you a dream; i consider it an arc fulfilling to the reader at the end of ! era. But we still had to continue... and it's not like we didnt get inklings of eichi's dreams of idol utopia, the idol soldier idea goes back to main story 1, but !! loses the charm of the original series through expanding the worldbuilding so much and shifting to a plot driven story that opens 10 cans of worms instead of offering resolutions. There's not really room to breathe if the stakes just keep getting higher and higher...

As for the colonisation plotline, it's been here since the beginning of ES2. The SS arc makes it obvious, but i remember even before, the talks about ES taking over from local businesses, trying to be seen as the standard, it was always the direction ensemble square as an institution would take. But the "antagonist in one story, protagonist in another" approach doesnt work anymore with such subjects. The guys responsible for this are your coworkers you share dorms with. I read the stories but cant empathize anymore, so i've been feeling disconnected from eichi for a while. I see enstars with eichi at its core but i didnt care for his center event, i read it, didnt like the ending, and overall felt off. Eichi becoming the villain of ! to attone for the war kind of loses significance if a year later he is a cartoon villain idol colonialist you can't even sympathize with anymore because of the magnitude of events. However i do think !! has done good things for some characters pushing them further or developing them in a way ! didnt. But for others...

I also have my issues with sci fi elements becoming the norm, even taken metaphorically or as hyperboles, when one of the central themes i love about enstars is humanity. Then again, i am a war era fan that relied on manipulating human desires and perceptions, and the fact that there were no monsters or gods, just humans framed as such, playing on people's fears and beliefs, it's a bit jarring to me to have them introduce AIs forming from escaped comatose brains (im minimizing the switch climax rn, i didnt even hate it as a whole, just this resolution im unhappy with)

It also feels like we've lost some of the meta aspects of the writing i liked, a certain awareness of being characters in a story and there being an audience. But im still struggling to word my thoughts on this matter. I felt it present in main story 2, even if it annoyed me at parts in its obviousness ("good thing we're not protagonists, no one would want to read about us" youre right aira you are not interesting to me. And yet i'll read your story to try and empathize nevertheless. I have other thoughts on aira too, perhaps for another time). I wish we explored a bit more what it means to no longer be the central protagonist, from trickstar's perspective...and brought back the successors topic. But i havent read every ts story yet so i'd be foolish to complain before really making sure i've checked everything. To me ! ended satisfyingly with room left for elaborations and imagination, but i dont feel like !!'s ending is really ending anything at all. Not necessarily bad since it's not like the game is shutting down, but overwhelming worldbuilding wise while underwhelming character wise...

Let's see... im not sure how to end this. Just a bit of a stream of consciousness as a ! fan who still loves enstars despite my critiques. Mainly, well, no one's gonna take away the stories that already exist that i do love and impacted my life greatly. And i do think !! had some really good things too it brought, or at least stories i hold dear too. Change is scary and i don't think it's always for the best, but it's also fun to see where it goes next...

[spookberry]

An infodump is being requested and hoped for, what random topic have you been rotating in your mind lately*?

*can be from seconds/minutes/hours/days ago

Okay well im gonna rant about high school musical some more then, specifically Sharpay

One thing of note about Sharpay Evans that I have in the past seen people get wrong, whether cuz of the setup we're used to with high-fem mean girl antagonists, or just faulty memory equating the 2nd movie's structure to the other two as well- is that Sharpay "runs the school" in some way.

Sharpay Evans has an intense personality and is insanely rich. So people know her. But shes not even really in charge of the drama department(darbus doesnt actually play favorites within the club itself, she just likes the drama kids more than the non-drama kids) Sharpay's the queen of people assuming you know what you're talking about just because you're confident when you say it.

At school shes not really friends with anyone, outside of her brother. Like she sits with other drama kids at lunch but she doesnt talk to them lol. Sharpay is considered a laughing stock by most her peers and THATS the reason she doesnt want Troy/Gabriella involved in the musical. She assumed the "meatheads" as she calls them were going to make a joke out of something she cares a lot about.(thats not to day she isnt the bad guy of the film or something, she definitely is. Just that she isnt in a place of real power over anyone) After callbacks it becomes clear Troy and Gabriella are serious and their peers arent just making fun of the drama club so shes quick to offer support and congratulate Gabriella. Like Sharpays just dramatic and likes to be the star of attention, you cant fault her for that.

Like, shes queen bee of the drama department and a schemer to boot, but when shes at East High she doesnt really have any power the way she does at Lava Springs.

Also side note can you IMAGINE how fucking awkward thatd actually be to have like half your class working at a resort your family owns. Luckily Sharpay has no shame and would boss them around even outside of this scenerio but I briefly put myself in her shoes and I felt like shriveling up and dying. Like her mother makes this comment "these are your school chums not the fuddy duddy lava springs staff" and im like "this makes everything a million times worse, ma'am your daughter already has a bad reputation amongst her classmates and now youre allowing this??" The wildcats even mention feeling weird about having to wait on sharpay to which their boss assures them they wont have to(which is a lie!!)

Fun fact tho, me and my sisters used to rewatch the first and second high school musical films so fucking much that one time we were bored and started just like, quoting the 2nd movie from start to end word for word, songs included. And then afterwards we were like that was weird... do we know the first one too? we did.

The plotline in hsm3 with rocketman and the british girl was so lame tho tbh. Sharpay would never breakdown during a performance like that. Did you see her in 2 with Troy as her partner? It was like performing with a cardboard cut out and she still nailed it.

Side tracking again to actually talk about Gabriella this time. But the way the third movie treats her makes me so annoyed. Like the whole world is against her! Her Main Thing since Day One of this franchise has been that she wants a break from being "the smart girl" and just finally embrace her chance at a normal school life. She's never lived anywhere long enough to finish out a full school year, let alone have friends, and she finally gets that at East High and what does the universe do?? Make her feel bad and like shes throwing away her future for wanting to go to prom, perform in her last musical, and graduate high school with her friends. Which is like conpletely normal and reasonable to want?? I dont blame her for not wanting to go back to East High after all of her friends basically pushed her out and lectured her for wanting to enjoy her time there. Its not like stanford was going anywhere. She still couldve left for college in the fall like all her friends were going to.

I like to imagine Gabriella turns out to be someone who wants a very stable life for her kids. She settles down and makes sure they experience all the small joys of growing up that she just never really had.

Sharpay's ending was kinda sad too tbh. Even if she didn't have any plans for higher education at the end it feels off. (Why was she and Ryan even worried about the Julliard scholarship anyways? Theyre insanely rich)

Also dont even get me started on Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure. Theres some parts to it that i think are absurdly stupid in like the way a movie about sharpay trying to get famous should be absurdly stupid. And then there are other parts that are like :/ who even is this.

[annoying--moth]

Silly Game Time: Who are some of your favorite Bad Guys in fiction, and why?

I'm not talking a mere antagonist nor a character who might be doing bad things reluctantly or even for good, noble reasons. I mean a *villain* who's out there causing trouble and/or scheming because *they want to*, and are usually enjoying it. They can be from any sort of story (books, movies, shows, games, OCs, etc.), so long as they're an honest-to-badness *villain*.

*pulls out list* as a certified villain enthusiast, this is my kind of question.

Mayura, Miraculous Ladybug - her motivation is having the hots for the main villain Hawkmoth, and you cannot tell me she did not enjoy her (albeit brief) time as a full-on supervillain. I love her so very much, her design is s tier (it's my dream to cosplay her one day) and she's just so cool~~ she was like my #1 favourite character back in my Miraculous days

Shego, Kim Possible - how could I make a villain list without mentioning her. Favourite character from my current hyperfixation (tbh she is the current hyperfixation at this point). I love her sass, badassery, and I can't not mention her design. (I don't like girls so I don't really have a crush on her, but she's still amazing)

Dr Drakken, Kim Possible - While Shego holds the title of Favourite Kim Possible Character/Villain, I like Drakken a lot too. He's endlessly entertaining, and just a silly little guy at the end of the day. (Also I totally ship him with Shego lol)

Cyn, Murder Drones - If evil, why friend shaped? She's unapologetically evil, yet so silly and adorable. I love how she narrates every action she does ("climbing... Criss Cross apple sauce") and her constant smile, even when she's doing something awful. Also her VA is seriously so amazing, omg!! I've even got a keychain of her on my backpack ^^

Bill Cipher, Gravity Falls - He's such a fun character. He'll just do the goofiest yet most sadistic shit, and only half the time it's for shits and giggles (at least from what I remember, it's been a hot sec since I've watched the show). I have not read The Book of Bill yet, unfortunately, but I'm really excited to see some of the weird lore he has. (Maybe I'll ask for it for Christmas, actually...)

That's all I'll put, but I could probably think of some more. Like I said, I LOVE villains. They're so cool (IN FICTION)

[angstandhappiness]

DUDE

wukong for the blorbo bingo?

Wukong? Idk…..I don’t think about him that much—

*coughs*

[sixstepsaway]

i've had some thoughts bouncing around for a while about ofmd s2, and in light of the news, i'm going to brain dump some of them. if you don't feel like listening to me complain about HBO and would rather just go cry about OFMD not getting season 3, that's chill, go ahead, no hard feelings

so.

season 1 was absolutely the definition of lightning in a bottle. it had great acting, great writing, gorgeous set and costume design, it was great, and not only that but it was unabashedly queer

jim had a whole episode dedicated to "actually i'm not a woman i'm just jim" and then everyone - even the bad guys, even the antagonists, even their nun nana, everyone - referred to them as they/them after that, no questions asked

the main character went through an arc that was basically figuring out his sexuality and going "oh shit, i love a man" on a show that was not directly advertised as "OUR QUEER MEANS DEATH" like a, y'know, Queer Show would be

and stede and ed's romance felt like it was important. It felt like the pirates of it all was mostly incidental, background, filler, just fun to pad out the situation and give them things to be challenged by (the badmintons!) while also being fun on its own. it's the kind of show where if you pulled all the characters out and slapped them into a whole other situation like space agents or time travellers or everyone lives together in a loft runs a bakery... it'd still work. sure, the badmintons would be less murderous and run a competing bakery or something, but it'd still work, because the focus was on the characters, and on the romance between stede and ed

the first three episodes of season 3 felt that way too. the love between stede and ed was paramount and if you swapped to a mafia au or a bakery au it'd still work (with some gentle adjustments for ed's Behavior™ to be fair)

but.

season 1, they kept saying it was a rom com, and it felt like one. it was just a rom com that was set at sea! how fun!

now, rom coms have tropes. they have genre-specific things that you kind of expect from, well, a rom com. you expect mess. you expect things like ed fucking off with jack because he doesn't feel good enough

(i've recently been rewatching new girl and although some of the humor makes me cringe, it's still a great show, and one of the main things about it is that everyone is messy. no matter how much schmitt loves cece, he's going to make mistakes. no matter how obviously nick and jess are going to end up together and belong together, they're going to sleep with the wrong people, make mistakes, break up etc. it's as much a rom com as ofmd.

one of the things that makes new girl so good and makes me love the main couples so much is how hard they work to be together, how they fight adversity and the mess of their own flaws and toxicity and still get together because they love each other most, in the end)

i remember in s1 thinking how if stede had been a woman, jack would have been too, and ed would've had at least one romantic/sexual scene with jack when he ran away with him

but i also remember thinking, "yeah, but the show hadn't explicitly done the his name is ed reveal and the kiss on the beach yet, and the reveal hits so hard, it makes sense not to do that earlier", and tbh i stand by that

which brings me to s2, after the first three eps, where they tried to go back to rom com and it just felt... forced.

rom coms usually have adversity. they have other characters that directly and truly threaten the main pairing by being interesting to those characters! no matter how you feel about izzy, he was framed as a love interest or as an ex that was still complicated, but the show very much tiptoed around that

does "i have love for you" and "i loved you best i could" make sense for the characters? yeah.

do i feel like if ed was a woman, she and izzy would've had a messy rebound relationship for stede to have to contend with, for the two of them to come out the other side of wanting each other from? yeah.

ofmd s1 felt unabashedly queer. s2 felt like they didn't want to be too gay.

they put olu with a Woman™, they put jim with a woman almost like it was less queer and more acceptable this way than queering olu, they completely waved off olu and jim's relationship and dropped any concept of polyamory because that would've made it even queerer, not less queer

(i'm using queer here as a definition more of breaking boundaries and being outside of the norm to the extent it makes cishets deeply uncomfortable and the queer in question aren't conforming to society's standards. and this reading of s2 (and s1) is entirely subjective, it's just what's been bubbling here for me)

pete and lucius went from "we don't own each other" to marriage, with no footnotes of what marriage meant to them specifically, whether they were, in fact, conforming with the 'norm' of marriage (exclusivity, labels, definitions etc) or whether they were still chill about these things or whether this now meant no more penis drawings

the queerest episode was probably the party episode (which was so good), but even that was especially queer because some cast members fought to make it so (con wanting izzy's drag to be beautiful not funny has HAUNTED ME, because that means it was originally supposed to be played for laughs!!) not because it was that way naturally

the fact i read somewhere that the party and the drag was originally lupete's wedding makes so much more sense to me because yeah, they WOULD have a wedding like that, but instead they got a lame final episode wedding because it would have been way too queer to do it at calypso's birthday with drag and queer joy everywhere

it also would have been more realistic to the lucius and pete we got in season 1.

there were a lot of things in season 2 that felt... weird. we've talked about it. we have all talked about it.

the final episode, even outside of the thing i hated most, was just horribly written imo. there's big sweeping gestures and no kind of real emotional pay off for the main relationships (lupete included), and everything got tied with a neat little bow at the end

i remember when we were told s2 was 8 episodes and how much the budget had been chopped thinking, "ha, we're so not getting a season 3"

i remember when i realized how weirdly rewritten most of season 2 had been thinking, "yeah, there's not going to be a season 3"

i remember when bitching about ed's arc being totally truncated and handwaved thinking, "mm, we're not getting a season 3"

and i remember when the Revenge sailed off into the sunset with everyone but ed and stede on board thinking, "oh yeah, we're done."

just enough was left open that a season 3 could happen.

just enough was left open that if a miracle happened, there'd be something to do with season 3.

but i genuinely, 100%, hand on my heart, think djenks knew he wasn't getting a season 3

and don't get me wrong, i'm not absolving him of the poor writing choices he made in season 2, but i am saying it makes a lot more sense if you think of it from the perspective of corporate meddling and having everything taken away while he was actively trying to make season 2

we already know HBO cut the budget a ridiculous amount so they just had to make everything work with what they had. we already know HBO cut the episode number.

season 2 plays out like they prepped a good chunk of it, ready for 10 episodes, and then HBO cut the budget and cut the episodes

and so things had to be changed and chopped about. ed's arc got lots of screen time and focus for three episodes (before the cuts) and then things got quicker, and fast

characters were cut for time and for budget reasons.

and then i think towards the end of production and the end of writing, djenks learned the odds of season 3 were minimal at best, and he panicked

i think the original plan was probably for ed's arc to go for the majority of season 2. maybe a middle piece where he and stede tried but it still wasn't Right (last night was a mistake) because ed had so much to work on and so much to heal

i genuinely wonder if the finale was completely rewritten at the last minute because to me it makes way, way more sense from a narrative standpoint for things to have been more staggered out. let's consider ten episodes instead of 8:

episodes 1-5: same as they were when aired, including the gravy basket giving us set-up for what ed's dealing with internally, giving us something to latch onto and prepare for his redemption. NO KISS AT THE END OF EPISODE 5. episode 6: ed is still wearing the bell. he's sort of done his amends with lucius, but now he needs to do amends with the rest of the ship. stede is still learning his piratey ways, so there's hijinks in the background. jim and archie and olu try to decide what their relationship is after the garlic and all, and debate room arrangements. lucius and pete announce their engagement. stede and ed nearly kiss. episode 7: more ed redemption arc. he's still working at things, he's shying away from violence because violence is what took him down this dark path to begin with. maybe we get some discussion of his father. stede, blind to ed's flaws, insists he's nothing like his father! ed tries to make amends with izzy but somehow this is the hardest of all because he hurt him the most of all. izzy gets chance to apologize for what he now sees as his part in pushing ed down into the darkness (trying to drag blackbeard back) and izzy's apology makes ed feel worse somehow and gives him some absolution when he finally figures out how to return his own. ed kisses stede but says he wants to take it slow. episode 8: wedding episode!! calypso's birthday!! ed uses his loot to bankroll lupete's wedding. stede reacts with violence to ned and we know from everything before that ed is actively trying to distance himself from the violence of piracy because, yeah, of course he is. is it a good idea? nope. does it make sense to his character for him to still be putting a good chunk of the blame on piracy for his actions, rather than accepting the parts of his whole and learning how to regulate those parts healthily? yes. anyway, stede reacts to his own violence by clutching for ed, ed feels after like his boundaries were pushed. same as show. episode 9: ed is having a meltdown. he and izzy have started to heal, so izzy watching him stare at fishing boats and just chatting to him like nothing happened actually makes a lick of sense. lupete are on their honeymoon at jackie's. olu gets to hook back up with zheng and archie and jim want to go along because they're not super happy on the ship still because although ed is doing better, the past of what he does still hangs over everyone. olu, zheng, jim and archie do not discuss the poly of it all properly, and it's hilarious and a mess, and gives us something to look forward to handling in season 3. ed freaks out about stede being violent when he's the one thing he felt like wasn't violent (and thus safe for him to be with), and about taking it not at all slow, breaks things off and runs away. izzy gets stede to come back to the ship. stede gets into a fight with zheng, the bombs go off, whatever (not a fan of this for her sake but if it has to happen, it can happen) episode 10: ed is off fishing but it's not going well and he's pissing pop-pop off all the time because he's not good at fishing. stede and co are handling the ricky of it all. the episode is mostly the same at the start, but instead of ed immediately going "omg, i gotta save bae" he doesn't find out about the attack until right at the end of the episode. stede and co make it back to the revenge and escape safely, and when ed retrieves his leathers and returns he thinks they're dead! he threatens/tortures/whatever some english and they say no, stede escaped! they all escaped! the season ends with ed, all decked out in his leathers, with his sword, now in the position stede was last season: staring out over the water, planning to find the man he loves.

this sets season 3 up for ed to be on his own for a little while, for him to handle and figure out how to channel his violence into something 'good' (wanting to find his love, wanting to protect his crew etc).

maybe season 3 flashes back to baby!ed again and the fact his first act of violence against his father wasn't motivated by anger or spite, it was motivated by wanting to protect someone he loved: his mum.

then season 3 they find each other again, and maybe they meet in the moonlight for the parallel to hit even better, they finally get back together properly, for good, with maybe some comedic issues along the way, and ed finds his place in the world to be less "blackbeard, the terror of the seas" and more "ed protects those he loves."

i honestly think this is probably how the show was originally meant to go, or at least something close.

i think midway through season 2, djenks heard it was over and he (rightfully) panicked and threw together a finale that tied up as many loose ends as he could because he knew.

and i dont think there's anything that could've been done about it. i think it was dead in the water (no pun intended) the moment all the MAX/HBO/whatever reshuffles happened, I think it was too queer and I genuinely think executive meddling made a lot of the more queer elements go away, possibly right down to trying to wipe away the exes/love interests of it all with that whole father figure thing

and, again, i'm not absolving djenks of some of his more baffling writing decisions. he's a grown man and he makes his own choices. but i am saying i think it explains a LOT about why the finale we got is what we got, and i'm not sorry stede and ed ended the show together rather than apart or with their lives hanging in the balance or something

anyway these are just a bunch of thoughts i've been having, tied together by the cancellation.

[thedemonscrawler]

Do you think Moon's current paranoia against Ruin is like a parallel for Original Eclipse and Lunar?

Like, do you mean Original Eclipse being paranoid of Lunar? Or the other way around? Because tbh, I don't think Eclipse and Lunar have ever been paranoid of one another's actions.

If you go back to the original original Eclipse, October takeover stuff-- Eclipse was no more paranoid about Lunar's behavior than he was anyone else's, and good deal less suspicious than he should have been. Lunar was pretty fatalistic about how Eclipse saw him-- Eclipse was very up front about how little he valued Lunar, and Lunar knew it.

With Eclipse 2.0, the backup who got the star-- well, Lunar was pretty sure that Eclipse was going to kill him. And he was 100% correct about that. What's that saying, 'it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you'?

Moon's current actions are very Eclipse-like, but just in that Eclipse is an anxious, suspicious, distrustful person. When it comes down to it, so is Moon. And he does have decent reasons to be mistrustful of Ruin-- Ruin has hurt his family in the past. He made Bloodmoon 2.0, destroyed the computer, kidnapped Sun, destroyed the Daycare, etc etc.

Is he right to be paranoid of Ruin? Well, we don't know yet. The characters have never worked with a former antagonist like Ruin before-- Lunar was a pawn, so even though he was an antagonist at first, he wasn't the one calling the shots.

So far Ruin has been more cooperative than you'd expect if he were planning something, which is making Moon look really bad. I also think the poor guy just has chronic 'sounds SUS' voice. They could be going for an angle where Moon's fears are assumed to be paranoia and he had to struggle against that (which honestly is a storyline that I'd prefer for Sun).

Me? I'm holding out for the 'Ruin's virus has manifested as it's own personality and is the one doing shit' twist. The show was built on 'oh shit there's another person in your head', it'd absolutely fit.

[sleepy-the-loz-enthusiast]

Are there any monsters or bad guys you'd like to see more of in LU fics?

Good question ! I'm entirely sure tbh- in a lot of LU fics the monsters are really just basic loz monsters (like bokoblins, moblins, lynels, lizalfos, etc.) and I've read a lot of fics with a good variety of them

But as for bad guys (I'm guessing you mean antagonists like Ghirahim, Zant, Cia, those guys) I may be biased but seeing more fics where Ghirahim is revived somehow and causes a nuisance would be fun. Like, Sky and maybe Wars (I think Ghirahim is in Hyrule Warriors??) would be like 'oh golden goddesses no not this bitch again', and it also poses the question of how is he back? Is he working for the Shadow? What does this mean for Demise?

Also, Sky angst. So much Sky angst if Ghirahim was featured in a fic.

Anyway, thank you for the ask !!! Have a good existence :]