#cause the main tag is for fans who probably aren't looking for criticism

[hypotenussy]

ya know a lot of hazbin hotel really feels like it's genuinely trying to do something meaningful but it's written by an edgy 15 year old with no idea how to execute those things. which is based when a 15 year old does it and not so based when a 32 year old does.

[bidonica]

So yeah about what I was saying in the tags to @metalgearstranding's post about Ocelot's parentage here. I finished the TPP side quest involving Paz and I have Thoughts on the topic of character development being pushed to the periphery of the Metal Gear games, which also include BIG BIG SPOILERS about the endgame of MGSV so if you've managed to get into metal gear unspoiled about that and wish to remain so, don't read beyond the cut. And if you decide to read, content warning for discussion of sexual violence.

So I've basically finished the main storyline of TPP -- reached the "Truth" mission, lost Quiet (I also got her back btw. Yes you can. Love wins) and now I'm two repeat missions away from finishing the main list, while I still have a few side ops to unlock. One of the side op series I finished first is the "find the wandering Mother Base soldiers" one, where you have to capture lost soldiers from the old Mother Base and collect memento photos in the process. The "mementos" are scenes you can trace back to Paz's diaries in Peace Walker, and I thought they were some side material whose purpose was to nod at the players who actually played PW without making it integral to the game. As a matter of fact, a lot of people skipped on Peace Walker, being a portable game and all -- even my brother who is a lifelong fan of the series and introduced me to it never played it, which I like to hold over his head because I am now Doing Metal Gear Better.

Then I recently ended up on this article and found out there was a whole side plot involving those mementos and the unexpected reappearance of Paz at Mother Base. If you played Ground Zeroes, you'd know Paz died a gruesome, gross death, with two bombs planted into her body by Skull Face -- one that had to be surgically removed from her abdomen without anaesthesia and the other in, well, her vagina, that exploded when she threw herself off the flying chopper Big Boss was carrying her on, causing or at least exacerbating the incident where BB and the Medic ended up in their nine year coma.

So in TPP there's this door on the third floor at the main Medical Platform. You can open it and find a room with Paz in it - alive, but with a V-shaped scar on her abdomen and her mind stuck in 1974. Ocelot and Miller will explain that the Medic was able to extract the second bomb at the last minute(*) and save her, never mind that she looks like she barely aged.

(*)I reiterate: from her vagina. Not sure how I feel about how sexual violence is used in this game, because on the one hand it is true that it disproportionately affects women POW and it would probably be disingenuous to not address it altogether, but at the same time these aren't the games most suited to handle this topic because they tend to be very, uh, adolescent when it comes to women and their bodies even when the context is rather dramatic. You also see it in the lingering shot on Quiet's breasts during her attempted onscreen rape (then there's also, of course, the implied offscreen ones) and don't get me started on whatever is going on when you defeat the Beauty & Beast unit in MGS4.

This triggers a flashback from Venom, where he basically overwrites the scene as you experienced it in Ground Zeroes with the scene as recounted to him by Kaz and Ocelot, and his point of view shifts between Big Boss and the Medic. Which is honestly pretty clever if you're playing this unspoiled, because if you unlock this early on in the game the point of view shift foreshadows the twist from the "Truth" mission. And if you, like me, play it after, you get to be like "aha!" at it.

The twist being, of course, that Venom isn't Big Boss but rather the Medic, brainwashed into becoming Big Boss' Phantom.

Again, there are hints -- when you start bringing Paz the memento photos, she will comment on them with a nostalgic, sugar coated version of what she said in her Peace Walker diary entries, because if you look at those, her tone is a lot more critical and at times snarky, because Paz was a double agent. Sure, she eventually had a change of heart and 1984 Paz might be reflecting that. But her phrasing, combined with her repating "I'm a student... I'm an angel of peace..." the whole time, points at this being the Medic piecing together a version of Paz that he knew; it's unlikely he got the full intel on her at the time of her rescue in GZ, and what with Ocelot not being there at the time of Peace Walker, it might be he also didn't include it in his mental conditioning at all.

The Paz side plot is possibly the only one that fully engages with Venom as his own character and not as a Big Boss proxy. It's about the Medic's trauma and guilt for not having been able to save Paz, who in his eyes was just an innocent girl. Which was a lie, but isn't at the same time because she certainly didn't deserve what happened to her. The last picture you find is called "Morpho butterfly" and Morpho was the name of Pequod's predecessor as the chopper pilot. It's all about Venom's mind struggling to deal with the loss of his old comrades, not to mention his own identity.

It's also the most effective demonstration you get of his brainwashing, because you see him being unable to trust his own memories, rewriting them in real time.

Paz, of course, isn't real. Venom hallucinated her the whole time. Her words in the audio files are actually his thoughts, which has some interesting repercussions, like was it actually the Medic who witnessed this?

Me finding a way to make this about Kaz aside, what I'm getting at is: this whole subplot is the only one that tackles Venom's situation as a PTSD ridden, brain damaged, brainwashed person head-on. It also highlights his compassionate nature by making his guilt towards Paz be the only thing that resurfaces from his old life.

The mental and neurological issues, the seizures, memory loss are all things that are established with Venom's introduction; when you rescue Kaz, Venom asks him to talk to him and help him remember, but in reality the mission support Kaz gives you is merely about logistics, and in most cutscenes he and Venom talk of the matters at hand, or of Kaz's desire to get back at Skull Face and Cipher. Venom's brain issues don't really factor significantly in the story segments or the gameplay (except for the color blindness that was meant to be a sort of Checkhov's Gun in the unfinished Kingdom of the Flies mission. My Roman Empire). Yeah they couldn't pay Kiefer Sutherland for more than three line readings or whatever yadda yadda, but this very Paz subplot proves that you can give him character development without him saying much.

It's that, in order to do it, you have to (casually?) find that one door that you can open at Mother Base, and go through a whole side quest that is entirely optional. You could technically finish the game -- or at least what we have of the game -- and never have to contend with the protagonist's specific trauma and actual personality.

You could argue that it works on a meta level, because Venom is the player and the player themselves is Big Boss' phantom, his impersonator. Metal Gear rarely misses with this sort of metanarrative, fourth wall breaking stuff. So keeping Venom the actual character to the periphery to center Venom the avatar of Big Boss, who is the avatar of the player, makes sense in that context.

But it becomes frustrating when you engage with Metal Gear as a story, which isn't just plot, but also the personal, emotional motivations for the characters to make a choice rather than the other. Which is... what drives the plot. It's something that happens again and again throughout the games -- character development as something that is, essentially, happening in another room. It's not that it doesn't exist, but it's stored away elsewhere and you don't get to see it. Which is made even more frustrating by how bits and pieces of it randomly emerge, and they are compelling -- I'm thinking of Kaz recounting his personal history in the Peace Walker tapes, or Strangelove's dying monologue (kudos to the voice actors on both accounts though, because they definitely contributed in delivering the emotional punch of those scripts). But it's always just flashes and rarely something you get to experience in full.

(the frustration is magnified in TPP when you have the main storyline just. Ending at a certain point -- because it's unfinished et cetera -- and then find all this arguably juicier material at the periphery of the game.)

[thetimelordbatgirl]

I feel like MCU Stans/Fans are getting more toxic by the day. Seriously MCU Spider-Man fans won't let people have there own opinions. All MCU Movies have become same-ey and generic. I mean Spider-Man Far From Home was lazy, uninspired, and ruined my favorite Villain (Mysterio) and turned him into Drone Man basically.

Then Ant Man and the Wasp has to be the worst Movie I've ever watched due to hoe unremarkable it was, felt like generic MCU movie and the literal plot is get the Lab????

Then we have the recent No Way Home and so far it looks like Nostalgia Bait and cringe jokes. Seriously who thought these jokes were funny. We got the same writers from Antman and the Wasp and Spider-Man Far From Home. This will probably be generic and Nostalgia bait.

I watched Spider-Man 2 when I was kid and watched Spider-Man and both those were such grchemistry.

I didn't watch Spider-Man 3 until recently in 2018 because I was scared of venom as a kid. Amazing Spider-Man for all its problems was enjoyable and Amazing Spider-Man 2 I unironically enjoyed even though it has a dumb plot. Honestly Gwen from Amazing Spider-Man is probably the best Live-Action Spider-Man love interest and that's probably because of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone's chemestry.

I already know Disney will ruin Spider-Man just like they did to Star Wars (Though I wasn't that invested in Star Wars so this will sting even more)

Sorry for the long rant.

Its okay sdddde I understanding needing to rant about the MCU, cause ironically, answer under read more:

Honestly, I avoid going in the main MCU tags unless I feel like going in them, since I fear MCU stans fully, given how while some of them can be pretty chill and some even are critical of the MCU, they pretty much drowned out by the toxic MCU stans....though I feel like toxic MCU stans gather more off Tumblr like most fandom's toxic stans, aka on Twitter and stuff.

And yeah, MCU Spidey isn't really my favorite take on Spiderman. If I was to rank the takes on Spiderman while under Disney, I would honestly rank him pretty low, as out of the three takes on him so far on Spiderman, MCU and 2017 Spiderman fall low while ironically, Ultimate Spiderman show's Spidey is pretty accurate in areas to what he's meant to be, to the point there was an episode dedicated to why he using Iron Man armor is basically bad.

Which is ironic, given MCU spiderman in comparison is basically Iron Man JR, to the point his MCU only solo villains have been connected to Iron Man (Tony fucked over one's job while then stealing the ideas of another) and both times, Peter had to clean up Tony's mess and both times....he never stopped admiring Tony, not even when Mysterio revealed Tony stole his idea. Like ironically, Mysterio is the one villain who actually affected Peter's life beyond one film, aka the identity reveal plot which....is honestly stupid to go into for Spiderman's third solo film, but it's still a bad take on Mysterio, given its again, changing him so he's caused by TONY's wtf move and....still connecting him to Peter somehow. And like you said, No Way Home is basically Nostalgia Bait, as all the villains aren't even connected to MCU Peter, they from actually good spiderman films and two of them have already been changed to have some form of Tony tech (Doc Ock absorbing Peter's iron man suit so his arms get red bits while Electro appears to now have an arc reactor) and the only appeal to this movie is a, the villains and b, the uh, ending scene off Venom Let There Be Carnage and c, the possibility of the two good Spiderman's appearing....and honestly, Disney's ruined any impact the whole Michelle falls scene with it being in ALL trailers and TV promos now, and like, if they trying to appear like Gwen Stacy....they should probably know even Marvel nowadays avoids the Gwen Stacy thing, given it uh, falls into fridging woman for men's angst or in Michelle's case, endangering a girl for men's angst.

I can't really comment on Ant Man And The Wasp, as can't say I keep up with them in comics, but like, I don't think I minded the film much....but that's just cause I honestly enjoyed Ghost's take here and honestly only disliked the ending, aka the stupid need to tie it into Infinity War/Endgame, as I dislike both of those films and therefore, seeing that ending just made me wanna die.

And honestly, I do think the love interests over the Spiderman films have been fine, and kinda find it funny not many picked up MJ in the OG films fell like Michelle did and went straight for Gwen Stacy falls comparisons, but when it comes to MCU, while Michelle and Peter have chemistry so far in the trailers, we already know its going to be just, mostly Peter having a plot thing while Michelle kinda just doesn't, like closest we know of Michelle's home life is stuff she alluded to in Far From Home, aka her and her mom not having seen her dad for years and such, but Homecoming according to a interview, did have a deleted scene:

Like....Michelle only has tell in terms of alluding to her home life, unless No Way Home finally fixes it, meaning she stands out as the love interest with not much going on outside of Peter, which is bad compared to MJ from OG trilogy, whose shown to have a shitty dad and has goals and such and pursues them throughout the films, while Gwen's family was apart of Amazing's plots, aka her dad, and again, she's shown doing things outside of Spiderman, which like....if MCU is meant to be better, how does this look for Michelle?

And going back to IW/Endgame, Far From Home is just another victim of bringing up the Snap and crap CONSTANTLY, to the point....the whole class was a victim of the snap, cause by snapping Peter, Endgame would have implied that Peter by Far From Home time, would be in a different class if his class moved on....so of course, they snapped the whole class in response bar one but apparently that's cause the actress didn't come back, so...

Ironically like Star Wars under Disney, MCU spiderman could have been good, as Tom as Spiderman could have been good, let alone having the talent of Zendaya and such, but instead....we got Iron Man Jr straight from Civil War to present, and given hes getting THREE MORE FILMS, its only going to get more bad.

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

can i say a sort of pointless rambly thing i was thinking about that i can't put under the cut bc i'm on mobile?

jk, i'm not actually asking. ramble below, not edited for clarity. the following is completely unclear and i will not fix it:

i've been thinking about how part of the reason i'm so chill about caryl is bc growing up as a queer woc 99% of my main ships were like, never gonna fucking happen bc they literally couldn't. it was like, "omg, they gazed at each other from across the room, let's analyze the homosexual subtext of this one scene for the next fifty years, that's not necessarily hyperbole." i've watched all my ships fuck other ppl/have other love interests, and i knew that my thing was never gonna be canon, so to see like, one thing being like, "one half of my ship fucked another person several years ago while pining for the other half of my ship," i'm like...#nice, bc that can and likely will be used as a plot point to get them together later on, whereas in other situations i've been in i just kinda had to deal with it. so my impulse when i see ppl losing their shit is to be like

and to be slightly annoyed, tbh, bc the ship is still on track to be canon, and it's like, literally two white heterosexuals, they're prime candidates for juicy angsty pining that actually gets a resolution.

but!

that being said, i recognize that that attitude isn't necessarily fair. for one thing, i'm not the only queer woc (or some variation thereof) in this fandom, and some ppl's impulse might be exasperation instead, bc like, "wtf, even my mayohet ship has dumb fucking drama," and that's valid as hell, and i get it.

and also, i get that, even if you didn't grow up shipping impossible ships (or mulder/scully, bc that's a brand of bullshit all its own), this has been a suuuuper drawn out process where sometimes it feels like they're legit sprinkling crumbs to keep you hooked, just to play you again, and when you are invested in something, like /rly/ invested, especially if it's a form of escapism or hyperfixation or whatever, that can be e x h a u s t i n g. and i get that. i truly do, and while i make a lot of snide comments about the fandom being bonkers, i do get where the bulk of you are coming from (unless you're one of those ppl who hate on actors and esp actresses for just doing their jobs, and attack them on social media, in which case i am very much judging you and you need to get your life together).

i also realize that in the scheme of things i'm still a newbie. i've been here, what, twoish/threeish years, whereas some of you have been here since the beginning, so i'm not as worn out as y'all. but i also think that gives me a bit of objectivity that some of y'all have (understandably) lost.

my positivity is not meant as a sleight against those of you who are feeling negative, but is more of a semi-objective viewpoint (i say semi, bc lbr, i'm invested af in this, so i definitely have bias), and to me the threads of the storyline they're crafting seem sort of obvious.

like, let's look at it, yeah? they have one season left of this show that has been on for over a decade. they need to cater to everyone to give them a satisfying ending, while still hanging on to carylers bc of the spin-off. darylrreah seems like a very calculated move, bc it gives them both something to make abcers happy, while also creating tension and suspense and pining for carylers (i think they might underestimate just how fed up some carylers are tbh, and are banking on us to hang on for one last ride, which, honestly? if they play it right will probably work.)

if they end up doing a dumb love triangle thing, which, without seeing the episode and gauging the subtext i can't confidently say if i think they will or won't, it will ultimately end in our favor. it has to, bc leah isn't going to third wheel them on the bike in the spin-off. we can say with good authority that whatever that relationship ends up being (again, idk if they'll drag it out or not) it will be temporary. which leaves caryl open to ride off into the sunset and then bone down in every state in the united states and in puerto rico for good measure.

it's a lot of cheap drama, but i really and truly do not think it's anything to worry about, and i still really and truly trust kang to not make it out of character. ik ppl still don't agree with me on that point, and i'm not gonna argue, but to me it really does make perfect sense.

and i also predict that they are gonna play it up hardcore in the promotional shit and talking dead, but when that happens, remember it's bc it gets attention. regardless of where the story is ultimately going, relationship drama gets attention, which gets viewers, which gets amc and twd producers nice and comfy with full pockets

idk. to sum up ig i just wanted to clarify that i don't mean any harm with my relentless positivity. my history in fandom has just made this seem like nothing in comparison, bc while ppl are freaking out, i'm like, "oh damn, they're actually gonna get together by the end of this, aren't they? i didn't know that could happen!" and that makes me excited instead of upset

and you definitely don't have to listen to me. maybe i'm actually wrong. maybe i'm completely full of bullshit and am just good at making things sound confident. i got a lot of As on papers in college over books i never read, i know how to bs. but i also know how to analyze, and i while i will be the first to tell you i am not the best at a great many things, i do know that i am good at critically analyzing text while taking into account the context it was written in, and imho all signs point to canon caryl. when, i'm not entirely sure, but i see it happening. if it doesn't then they severely fucked up their storytelling, and that'd just be bad writing on their part.

(if you want proof that i'm good at reading writers'/producers' intentions, consider that i watched like, 8 seasons of supernatural before giving up, and said to myself, "i think they're gonna make destiel canon, but not until the very last second bc they are rly into catering to their fans but also have to consider their dumb fanboy audience so they can't do anything crazy overtly gay," and guess who hit the nail on the fucking head on that one)

none of this is important, but it was rattling around my mind grapes and i wanted to write it down into something vaguely coherent, and where else better to do it than here. i can word vomit and then send it into the ether and pretend i never said a thing. i love this horrible website, nothing can compare

i have no real conclusion to this, it was mostly stream of consciousness, but i hope it sort of helps y'all understand where i'm coming from, and why i am as chill as i am about things. not about y'all. y'all cause me so much anxiety i get physically sick and have to legit block tags, but with the actual show content i'm zen as hell

uh

the end ig?

it feels weird even signing off on this, but w/e

-diz