#did messed up stuff but I see how he got there and became radicalized in such a specific way

[fulcrums501st]

not a Silco defender but a Silco understander

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: tack-tick

today's interviewee is tack-tick, a pioneer of the "phistin" ship and DSMP fan since before the first election! below is a transcript of the interview.

Q: What was your overall time in MCYTblr like?

A: I'd say my overall time in Mcytblr could be described as finding diamonds in the rough. This fandom is defined by finding your group, sticking to them and if you're smart not really looking beyond that. I did look beyond that and saw a lot of discourse and such. I had a good time with my friends but I did get negatively affected by the discourse at times. It was kind of a toxic shithole but by God mcytblr was our shithole lol

Q: Do you remember any specific discourse that affected you, or was it just the overall culture around you?

A: As a Technoblade main, it was the discourse surrounding his character that messed with me. At the time, I was mutuals (none in the phistin palace dw guys) with some people who hated his character. I, as an anxious teenager, was very worried it would cause drama if I unfollowed them and my dash became a lot of those long negative essays about how he was an awful person and yknow the drill. It was mainly my own fault and my dash became signfigantly better once I realized no one would be offended of I unfollowed, blocked a bunch of tags, started up my own discord server and focused more on writing fanfic instead of doomscrolling. A good lesson in curating your dash of anything else. (Btw those former mutuals are fine people, we just had radically different tastes in what we liked and disliked about the Dream SMP)

Q: You mentioned the "phistin palace"-- before we get into that, would you like to explain the "phistin" rarepair itself?

A: Now we are cooking! So, Phistin is the ship of Kristin and Philza. It's main focus was on the scraps of lore that we had about their relationship which was Kristin was the immortal goddess of Death and they couldn't really see each other often but loved each other very much. I'd say it's main appeal was being one of the few ships that was just really stable in the Dream SMP compared to the Karlnapity polycule and whatever youd call Quackbur. Fun fact, I can't find the post now but if i remember correctly me and tumblr user Demonadelem helped name the pair Phistin. Although, that was ages ago so I could be misremebering

Q: Was the ship entirely within the SMP, or was it just the general ship name for the real-life couple?

A: It was both. Since Kristin didn't really stream on the dream smp, a lot of her personality had to be based on what Phil said about her and her other streams. Basically, lore about the ship was pulled from the SMP but the dynamics and personality was from both. You could play around with the dynamic if you focused on Kristin being a goddess

Q: With that basic information laid out-- what was the "phistin palace"?

A: The Phistin Palace was a discord server I founded in August of 2022. Phistin was a ship that was basically a side thing I did in fandom because my main focus was Technoblade and emerald duo stuff. I think if you're a Technoblade fan you're legally obligated to be a Philza fan and vice versa. I don't make the rules. So Phistin was something I did when I wanted a break from Technoblade as a way to practice romantic shipping.

Then Technoblade passed away and I didn't want to do anything with his character for a while so I focused completely on Phistin. However, when I tried to find any fics they were either a background ship with only one line or Kristin was already dead from a tragic disease who's main symptoms were lying daintily in bed. While I was writing my own long form Phistin focused fic, Two Birds if anyone read it, I got a comment that complimented me for "giving her an actual charatcer" and maaaan that is a very low bar to be praised for. So, I started the palace as a way to find other Phistin fans who actually cared about them beyond Kristin being angst fodder for SBI.

Q: Do you have any fond memories in specific of the "Phistin Palace" discord server?

A: Oh so many. During the Syndicate finale, three of us all liveblogged and freaked the fuck out when Kristin showed up for the first time in a minecraft skin on the server. I made on of those AI chatbot things that was popular for a bit and the bot was supposed to be the Kristin character. I asked if she had a pet and she said she has a gecko named Tim. The entire server instantly decided they would die for Tim and he's now an emote. The general chat is also named Tim Time Fucker. A mermaid AU that was made that the majority of the server contributed a lot of lore to we named it the Communist Mermaid AU because the server collectively owns it now. Many good moments there

Q: Beyond the Phistin Palace, are there any large community events that you remember/took part in, or did you mostly stick to your friend group?

A: I remember The Penis SMP of course. I never really took part in large community events but I did watch them happen. I read the Passerine chapter where Tommy died becasue my dash flipped out when that dropped. I'd also try to watch Sad-ist animatics live when I could. At most, Id make a meme during a stream that would rack up a couple hundred notes or one thousand if I was lucky A thousand was like once or twice I think

Q: You mentioned that you were also a Technoblade fan before you became more focused on Phistin-- was your experience in that side of the fandom any different?

A: It certainly had more content than Phistin did lol. I was never really in any Technoblade discords or anything but back in the day it was focused on emerald duo and being funny. or angsty. Nowadays, it's way less lively unfortunately. It's not as bad as in 2022 but Technoblade fancontent seems to be less foucsed on the character and more on memorials/remembrance. At some point, you run out of things to say and not a lot of people wanted to stay in a fandom that just felt weighed down by it all. I did leave so things could perk up someday but I don't think that's likely

Q: We've talked about the fandom and how it responds to content-- let's talk about the content itself. What were some of your favorite moments from the Dream SMP as a whole?

A: The Red Festival Technoblade stream was the first one I ever watched live so that's a good one. The stream where L'manberg getting blown up at the end of The Manberg Arc is iconic for an underrated reason. I don't know how many people remember but Phil was highly speculated to be on the Dream SMP someday. On the day of that stream, he started on his hardcore world, then stopped his stream and did his dramatic switch surprise entrance to enter the Dream SMP for the first time. Also Technoblade escaping the anvil and then killing Quackity with a toothpick was great. I've never liked watching Twitch streams on my Ipad so most of my favorite moments come from YouTube

Q: Were you sad that Phistin wasn't a more popular ship, or did you enjoy the tight-knit community?

A: I was sad Kristin kept friggin dying, the poor woman lol. Sometimes I wish it was a bit more popular but the community was nice. The main issue is Phistin stuff started tanking hard on Ao3 in terms of numbers and tended to get misstagged quite a bit

Q: You've brought up a few times that Kristin was often fridged, disregarded, or replaced (on several notable occasions, by an actual Samsung fridge). How did you feel about it? Do you think there was any particular reason for it?

A: I mean, I really don't like it but I understand it. A lot of people loved that SBI angst but also wanted to write all the SBI. So the obvious solution is to kill off Kristin for free angst and keep all the SBI in the story. Passerine is a fic i respect a lot but it also kickstarted this trend to be honest. Kristin herself also didn't physically show up in the lore a lot so it was really tricky to write her. When I first wrote her, it was intimidating because I didn't have many fics to look at as good examples.

Was it shitty and a bit sexist? Yes but I don't think sexism was the only reason. Kristin's character was in a unique situation compared to the others. I have no problem with Kristin dying in a fic. The main issue is that often came with her personality being reduced to good mom and that's it. I'm not gonna call a bunch of probably first time writers evil sexists when I know what it's like to not know how to write her and being scared you'll get her completely wrong.

Q: Since it's come up, would you mind giving a quick rundown of what exactly the fanfic "Passerine" is? (As well as any memories you have relating to it!)

A: If i'm being honest, I only read the chapter where Tommy got murked. What I know from osmosis is it's an SBI royalty AU that had some kind of meta twist at the end and it was very sad. It also got a sad-ist animatic made out of it which jesus christ I'd give for that. I tried it but the writing style was too wordy for my liking. It's mainly important for Phistin history even though Kristin wasn't in it. No, The Fridge died in it but everyone just kinda assumed it was Kristin for long enough it got the ball rolling. Also I think Niki read it on a stream

Q: Before we wrap up, is there anything else you remember about MCYTblr/the DSMP that you'd like to talk about?

A: The DSMP sure was the minecraft server of all time that is defined as a server that was doomed from the start. Whoever makes a video essay on it is gonna have a hell of a job. 10/10 experience would not recommenced. Hello to the Phistin Palace if any of you read this :D

Mcytblr is getting more chill with shipping from what I've seen. Thank God, keeping making Philza Minecraft kiss those men and his wife.

Also SUBSCRIBE TO TECHNOBLADE

[channeleven]

LTA: Todd McFarlane’s Spawn

I'll be blunt, I don't have the best relationship with comic book cartoons. I'm able to appreciate some of them these days like the Incredible Hulk cartoons, but I feel a lot of them fall into the same series of tropes and cliches that basically make them as run of the mill as an animated sitcom, I feel like I'm the only one who noticed this. Now, comic book adaptations, familiarities aside, are enjoyable if you're into that scene, though it's hard to deny most of them have some serious issues. They could be forgivable if they came out at a time long before a gold standard is set like the old Marvel cartoons, but for stuff like She-Hulk Attorney at Law and DC Superhero Girls...

At your own risk.

But when it comes to shows like those, either I avoid it knowing I'd have little good to say about it, or I give it a shot after seeing some clips and I'll see how I feel about it from there, and here we are now.

Background

Spawn is a comic book character created by Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane, and one of many Image properties that received a hell of a lot of interest. In the mid-90s, Spawn received a massive marketing push, from video games, to toys, to movies and a television series, and for better or worse they saw the light of day. Though I imagine it was through marketing people became familiar with Spawn, I know I was.

My first exposure to Spawn was through a trailer for the 1997 film that turned up on an old VHS tape I had. I was unfamiliar with the character and assumed this was some B movie tribute, Spawn was a mutant and Clown was an evil wacky political figure or something. If you want my opinion on the film, I can understand why some things about it were changed compared to the comics, like changing Terry Fitzgerald's race and removing Chapel, but whether it was Todd's influence or not, it feels like people actually cared during its production, as nearly everything else is done to properly replicate elements of the comics, Michael Jai White did a good job as Spawn and John Leguizamo absolutely nailed Clown. You can certainly do a lot worse when it comes to superhero films, especially New Line Cinema titles released during that period. After all, 97 was the year of Annihilation.

As for the series it's another interesting coincidence. I left a comment praising the animation in the music video for Korn's Freak on a Leash, and I said yeah, I want to see a cartoon animated like this. Someone recommended Todd MacFarlane's Spawn to me, and after a few years I got around to checking it out... just to find context for a scene I saw on YouTube. Although going through it, it seemed more familiar than I expected, like I watched this long ago in reruns, or my folks actually let me watch it, I know they let me watch The Sopranos with them.

Let's just get into the series proper.

Plot and Characters

This won't be a plot summary, but just to get you into the loop, Spawn centers on Al Simmons, a government assassin who is betrayed by his partner and killed. He bargains with Satan stand-in Malebolgia in order to return to earth and reunite with his wife Wanda, but as his death was arson-based he is rendered disfigured, and now sent to recruit souls to join Malebolgia's army, in this case, souls of those who have done wrong and would be destined for hell.

This is made clear early on, so even if you haven't read the comics you can at least jump right in without needing that much knowledge of the character. An adaptation works best when you don't need to be immediately familiar with the initial source material. With so many adaptations taking on radically different directions with little connection to the sources that originated them, it's a huge mess. However, that doesn't mean you'd be losing some context if you're new to the series, and it shows for a lot of the characters. I'm not aware of their allegiances, motivations or overall relevance to the plot, so admittedly I had to look them up so I have some idea to what to expect, especially when each are well written characters in their own right. Firstly, Angela. She had only made one appearance in the animated series proper. I had assumed she would be a bounty hunter sent to kill Spawn, and I was kinda right. At least somewhere in the comics she was initially sent by heaven to destroy Spawn, it fails but not on black and white terms. The role was kinda switched by the end of the series, where Jade was given the role. I heard this was due to legal issues between Todd and Neil Gaiman and if the latter had no role in the series that could've spelt trouble, although Angela would've appeared in the show's fourth season had the series kept going.

But when it comes to Spawn characters outside of those immediately connected to Spawn, I've gotta talk about Sam and Twitch. Now, on the surface they appear to either be corrupt cops or those who would become a thorn in Spawn's side, but basic research and getting through the series revealed that wasn't so. In truth, Sam and Twitch are poised as being good cops in a precinct riddled with corruption, that point being made especially clear in the show's last season, when beforehand they were just investigating incidents Spawn either had a hand in or happened to be at the right place at the right time for. People like to immediately depict cops as outright corrupt, whether it comments on police brutality or just pokes fun at them, so it's nice to see something not only serve as antithesis to that, but maintain its commentary on corruption in the police force. Even when said commentary is on the nose, it's at least relevant to the plot and key characters and carried out in a way that makes either character shine, from reflecting Sam's genuine care for justice beyond his more loutish nature, to Twitch's bravery, determination and analytical nature.

I certainly thought they were great, and so did everyone else. They not only got a cameo in the 1997 film, but they even got a spin-off comic series.

Clown, aka the Violator, marks the perfect balance between entertaining and sadistic, or just one who delights in fucking with people's minds. He was summoned to ensure Spawn kills those with souls to be damned to be recruited into Malebolgia's army. The film portrays him as more comedic but otherwise in line with his comic depiction, while the animated series is the latter in full force, either works for the material they are given. On the opposite extreme, Cogliostro, once the Black Knight who had managed to escape Malebolgia's grasp, seeks to help Spawn avoid a similar fate. Regretfully in the comics he becomes a villain, but hey as long as it wasn't so he could get into the pants of a deviantArt OC so be it. This seems to be a later occurrence in the comics so the animated series was spared from one of the most desperate attempts at drama since ever.

Of course there're people who're relevant to Spawn's former life as Al Simmons, and this series does not take those details for granted. He wants desperately to see his Wanda one last time and he takes the opportunities, only for her to be appropriately disturbed by what is now at his disposal. His best friend Terry married her and had a child, and though Spawn was appropriately angry that he got further than he did, he realized it wasn't out of malice and at least found closure on that. Spawn was even able to confront his physical killer, Chapel, and of course he wouldn't show any mercy, having him live with the guilt, but having the strength to not have his soul claimed by Malebolgia. Finally, Jason Wynn, basically the whole reason things fell into place. Spawn indirectly served as a key to unlocking Wynn's corrupt practices, including black market trading. Whenever he strikes, he sends others to do so and is determined to keep his conquests in check. However, after becoming severely burned from a mythical mask, apparently the unmade fourth season would've had him seek redemption... either apologizing to Spawn or trying to have his soul be made pure so he can go to heaven, though the latter seems to be the case as he feared his actions against Al Simmons would catch up to him.

The seasons can be summed up like this.

The first season exists to establish Spawn and his motivations, as well as him settling into Rat City, an alleyway serving as a sanctuary for the homeless, and one where a number of shady dealings take place no doubt thanks to Wynn and for the first season, Tony Twist, who is promptly dealt with after Spawn makes quick work of Overt-kill, whom Twist sends to deal with a stake in their affairs.

The second season sees Spawn confronting Chapel and Terry finding himself scrutinized by Wynn after learning of his black market dealings, while Spawn is seen as a protector of Rat City. This also sees the introduction of Washington Post reporter Lisa Wu, who is soon revealed to be Jade, which the third season would confirm. As for the third season, Spawn realizes he can no longer get back to his old life as Wanda outright rejects him out of pure fear, a series of events would help clear Terry and expose Wynn, Twitch would survive an attempted assassination by his and Sam's superior officer and confirm his connection to Wynn, Jade willingly gives up after discovering Spawn's humanity is stronger than prior hellspawns she was sent to kill, and by dying a warrior's death she can maintain a place in heaven, and the series ends with Spawn wanting his humanity back. To some, this seems like a bad end, but this can be seen a number of ways, like how he is willing to be dead, knowing he's now a burden to those he cares about and can never live the life that was yanked from him, while realizing those who have wronged him were dealt with

Acting

Keith David as Spawn is complicated, because it isn’t Keith David playing Spawn, just Keith David. All that changes role to role is the script and the direction. Play his Spawn with his Goliath (Gargoyles) and I’m sure you’d find some similarities. Of course that isn’t to say it’s a bad performance by any stretch, but I can’t say the voice is necessarily unique. About the only time it seemed sorta different was when he played Atlas in Teen Titans.

But to be fair, let's bring up another example of an actor who is well recognized for one role, even though it's a similar performance across the board. Mike Pollock is the current voice of Doctor Eggman. While he has owned the role, his voice ins't particularly unique, a keen ear can easily pick that up when watching other 4Kids shows. However, the voice became synonymous with Eggman, as it fit the character. Mike Pollock is Eggman as much as Keith David is Spawn, having voices that suit the characters well and serve to truly define them.

Then there's one of the more interesting actors for Tony Twist, interesting in that he's played by the same guy, James Keane, who played Mr. Green on Hey Arnold!, and I say it that way because Hey Arnold! came before Spawn's animated adaptation. Keane also played Sam in this show, so it turns out he has more range than I'd expect of him.

And there’s not a single piece of Tara Strong or Grey DeLisle to be heard, it’s a breath of fresh air. We do however get Kath Soucie, sure, I'm okay with that, I know little of her personal life and her voice isn't as obnoxiously stale and repetitive as Grey DeLisle's, and she isn't a raging bitch like Tara Strong. Bite me.

But that's not all. We got the voice of Mulan playing Jade, James Hong; guy from the Seinfeld episode The Chinese Restaurant doing a role, Jennifer Jason Leigh got to play a character one time too, and there's a rule that says if it exists, Eric Roberts has to lend his voice one time. Inherently, it's a mixture of actors either not entirely in the loop of traditional voice acting or already are, and it can work, I know it did here.

Layers

There is some hidden complexity within even the smallest of things. Take for instance Spawn's encounter with that bad cop in the fifth episode. He threatens Gareb, but his anger was due to the stress of seeing one of his right hand cops and others literally blown up by a deranged priest who turns out to be Clown. Of course you wouldn't root for the cop but you kinda understand what led him to go bad, even get some irony of Spawn making him a message board, and after getting killed by Clown he gets the message about Spawn's presence to Sam and Twitch. This actually helps to give more weight and motivation to later scenes, for instance, Twitch's encounter with Spawn. Spawn has already determined cops to be outright crooked, but Twitch manages to demonstrate a stronger moral compass, and bravery in the name of learning the truth, and Spawn returns the favor with a warning, which really is him being nice.

You can even see such strong motivations with the other characters. Wynn is a uniformly corrupt individual, but he fears for his life upon realizing what he had created in Spawn, and he becomes determined to destroy him to save his own ass. Clown can seem like a hardass, but it's kind of his job, he wants to make sure Spawn fulfills his obligations. Terry married Wanda, but he never meant to infringe on foreign territory, and Chapel seemed to express repressed guilt over killing Al, before it drove him insane. Then Sam and Twitch, throughout the entire series leading up to a hell of a finish, and of course Jade which not only put her through an arc but helped better establish Spawn's humanity.

A great show is more than the sum of its parts, and I feel Spawn went above and beyond in that regard. It's really something you have to see for yourself.

The Animation

I was directed to this series because I loved the animation in the Freak on a Leash video, and I was not disappointed here. The animation was produced in house at HBO, and they also worked on Hot City which came out around the same time. MadHouse are credited to producing the show's title sequence. MadHouse is a prevalent anime production company, but they've had a hand in some American productions. For instance, they produced the animation for the second season of Street Fighter: The Animated Series.

However, MadHouse merely served as a contractor for other companies. In the first season, animation was split between KoKo Enterprises, Sheen Production and Sung Production. Koko were involved in quite a bit, producing the animation for the first season of Static Shock, Superman The Animated Series and took on animation services for Men in Black: The Series after the first season. For the second season it looks like MadHouse took on a more direct role in animation production alongside DR Movie. DR Movie also happened to produce the animation for Men in Black: The Series, but also produced the third season for Avatar: The Last Airbender, episodes of The Batman including The Batman Vs. Dracula, one episode of Teen Titans, they helped produce the Death Tome segment in The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXXIII, DC Superhero Girls, Justice League/Unlimited, they did one episode of Street Fighter, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, oh, they even did Loonatics Unleashed and High Guardian Spice.

It's important I highlight the more anime type shows and lesser stuff to demonstrate how subtle their work is on a visual basis in Spawn, but soon.

Okay, back on track, the last season was handled through Mook Co., who produced the first season of Men in Black: The Series, Swat Katz: Radical Squadron and the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video films from Zombie Island to Cyber Chase. At first I thought they were the ones behind the entire series, but I was wrong.

With Todd McFarlane playing a major role in the series' development, either he'd have plenty of freedom to take advantage of, or he's just there to make people happy. Okay this isn't going anywhere, what I'm trying to say is that things are drawn and animated to act like a direct translation of the comics. It's a huge contrast to the overt anime aesthetics and overtones present in other comic book adaptations. Now, it seems like most comic book adaptations outsource their work to Japan or equivalent studios in Korea in order to better replicate the action, but somewhere along the line people cut the middleman and decided to bank on the growing popularity of anime in the states.

Or maybe I'm overthinking it.

Spawn's animation is great, but far from perfect. They tend to take shortcuts and reuse animations, but most shows do and they're not as blatant as say... The Real Ghostbusters in its twilight seasons. Of course it's of no hinderance to the constant action going on, it isn't too complex, but it isn't too simple either. The art design provides a gritty appearance that compliments Spawn quite nicely, if it was overtly anime-esque, it would lose its punch, its grit, and just be a faceless series.

Senseless Comparisons

In a way, I feel that Spawn set a good standard for comic book shows that seek to be dark, well Batman: TAS aside. There're a lot of shows I can compare Spawn with, so let's begin with another series adapted from an Image Comics series, Invincible.

The differences are night and day. Spawn employs a more grounded comic translated appearance, while Invincible embraces the anime schtick wholeheartedly. It feels like a Cartoon Network action show from the mid-late 2000s but with blood and cursing, and of course their brand of humor. It can be enjoyed on a surface level, but when someone comes along and does it better, it's hard to really deny that.

Take the introductions of Monster Girl there and Angela here. With the introduction of Angela, you get a quick hint to her hero appearance, and when she goes into the alley you expect her to show her powers, but she just uses melee and anything subtle. You’d expect her to go full hero, but they don’t play into it, all you’d expect is for those creeps to get their asses handed to them, just no way of knowing how.

With Monster Girl, it's like this. There's a character who looks like she doesn't belong there. She is provoked into showing her power, this has been done. Now, it can be done right, don't get me wrong. Take Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes' introduction to She-Hulk in the sure. Yes, she is shown at the start of the episode, but you know who we don't see right away? Jennifer Walters. Hence, it's possible to be surprised by its reveal for those who haven't read the comics, and yeah, the series features somewhat different takes on existing Marvel characters so there is a chance to be surprised. Not to mention, they didn't mention her name, like Invincible did with Monster Girl, thus eliminating any sense of surprise and dragging it out to make it look like a huge reveal. I'm just saying.

Next up, let's resurrect an old punching bag of mine for some extra blows, Teen Titans. Spawn did an episode that tackled racism, but handled it in the best possible way, show, don't tell. You would think they would make it where Terry or Spawn are maligned for being African American, but no, they have a psychopath who kills African Americans for dark intent, and the racist motivation behind it isn't stated outright. This episode has enough faith in its viewers to let them connect the dots, whereas Teen Titans spoonfeeds the message, pussyfoots around directly focusing on those who would face prejudice, because Tamaranians don't exist, and above all, rather than take the opportunity to incorporate lore from the comics, they make up a character that exists solely to push the message.

And yes, Static Shock tackled racism direct, but they handled it better by committing to the kind of racism people are the most aware of, and I'm happy that episode is getting more and more recognition for it, while Troq isn't as much. Consider this a segway into the next section.

Getting Away With It

Spawn was able to get away with a lot of stuff, though some would argue it was because it aired on a premium cable network and at a time when kids would likely be asleep, midnight to be exact. That's a good argument, but I feel that any show, anywhere could get away with stuff, well, beyond overt gruesomeness and gratuity, whether it's premium or basic cable, network television or syndication. To better explain my point, let's refer to Stripperella, Static Shock and Swat Katz.

Stripperella aired on a basic cable channel, and if you didn't get the idea from the title, it's a show about a superhero who happens to be a stripper, and yes, that profession is shown full stop. In spite of that, there's more to the show than it. Stripperella feels like it's trying to pay tribute to silver age comic stories, or just parody the genre, or maybe Stan Lee was clearing his desk drawers, I dunno. What I'm trying to say is that they got away with showing T&A on basic cable, lest the copy I saw was sourced from a DVD, but hey, they were wiling. For syndication, let's turn to Swat Katz. This show got a way with quite a bit, especially for stuff I bashed Teen Titans for skimping on, like characters going insane for whatever reason, even death, with some gruesome killings shown, shadow or not. Now yes, syndication lacks the standards network television does, hence producers were able to get away with a hell of a lot more, but what about that network example? Networks are ones that crack down on no-no stuff the most often.

Well... Static Shock.

Racism focused episode aside, Static Shock went dark a decent amount of times, and they never held back for anything. They made it clear Virgil's mom died under harsh circumstances, they highlight her death and the impact on the family, they put one character in critical condition as a wake-up call for Virgil to take his heroic obligations seriously, the first episode featured a gang war, hell, need I remind you of Jimmy, where a gun is blatantly shown, well, again, in a straight up depiction of a potential school shooting, oh, need I forget how the weapon is fired and someone gets hurt, on network television.

But wait, isn't The WB technically a cable network, same with Cartoon Network, beyond Kids WB shows airing on WB affiliates in syndication? I mean Teen Titans was also in the same boat as Static Shock, but you could argue Static Shock did a hell of a lot more than Teen Titans did in highlighting serious issues, and above all committing to genuinely dark stories. I'd argue that Static Shock serves as a kids equivalent to Spawn for going above and beyond, showing writers genuinely cared about making engaging content, and Spawn just helped inspire me to see just how it could be done, or how it has been.

Now, if you really want to see the differences in impact an episode could have, compare Teen Titans' Haunted to Spawn's Home, Bitter Home.

Relationship

As far as how I feel about the show, I have the same relationship with it that I do with Koala Man. Both of them are great shows and vouching for their quality is a hill I'd be happy to die on. The issue is that I don't like to participate in discussions of either, because I know where they'd lead. Spawn got cancelled too soon, Koala Man was created by the same guy behind Smiling Friends, do the math. I still like the shows, but I know it can go south if I encounter the wrong people.

Not only did I bring up Koala Man for that, but because both represent the best of two sides of a superhero show. Koala Man is a well written comedy with glimpses of character complexity and motivations made clear, all in series about a man coping with his past and a midlife crisis, I guess. Meanwhile, Spawn is a well written horror drama with clever dialog helping to provide some relief every once in a while. Bringing back Teen Titans just to get this out, Koala Man is set in an absurdist world so you can take the weird things happening as a given and they let the jokes flow without resorting to tropisms to get a laugh out, and Spawn has every right to commit to more gruesome acts, both because of its midnight slot on a premium network and already being based on a gruesome comic book series.I don't know how else to end this, so let's go on.

Do I Want to see More?

So, seeing what I've said, do I want Spawn to get another season? Well the answer to that, is no. I don't. You're probably confused, lest you've seen my philosophy before. The thing about continuing, what if the ending turns out to be a letdown? A journey is only as good as the destination, if the end sucks it will drag down the experience of the rest of the series because you know that’s how it will end and there is nothing you can do about it, Camp Lazlo and Star Vs. beckon. There's also the matter if one more season is gonna be enough, will people be fine with that, or will they just keep asking for more? Ask for an inch, but take a mile. And of course people can indirectly kill the good will in seeing things continue. I never want to see Infinity Train or Glitch Techs with how clingy people are to those.

Then there's the matter of unintentional cockiness, had with shows like Sonic SatAM and Teen Titans, where they immediately end with either a cliffhanger, or a downer, something to gaslight people into thinking they want more. My philosophy on television shows go like this, treat every season finale like it's your series finale, leave off on a note that you can pick up the pieces on or satisfying enough to accept, which is something Spawn did, by having Spawn reaffirm his want to be human. You may say he hardly evolved, I'd say you're confused. Spawn wanting his humanity suggests he knows he can't get his old life back, but also won't be the leader of Malebolja's army, he is willing to die, but we don't see it. It could've been worse.

Okay yes, there's the matter of Spawn impregnating Wanda with a child that would serve as a decider for the fate of the world, but it would take a long time before the baby would be able to make a conscious decision and act on it. There's another element to the fourth season, but I'm not gonna bring it up, knowing how people on Twitter would lose their minds and that's another series thoroughly ruined by total goons.

Final Thoughts

Spawn is an underrated gem, for sure, but given the climate of cartoon culture, maybe it's for the best not that many people know about it, let this be like a secluded spot a select few people know about, a well kept secret not tainted by idiots, like Mission Odyssey.

I would say HBO turning away from animation after Spawn and Hot City concluded ironically predicted the state of HBO Max, but then you realize stuff like The Life and Times of Tim and The Ricky Gervais Show existed.

[faroreswinds]

I read your post with the interview additions from renisfan and my mind is BOGGLED. I simply cannot understand it in any way. Outside of a few fans who only care about the lions and don’t want to play the other routes (and dislike byleth i guess), or (eugh) the ones who unironically cheer on imperialism-chan and her clone, not to mention hating the cabbage patch church, i don’t see how anyone is 100% satisfied with the decisions the devs made. And from the interview, it’s because nothing makes any damn sense.

For starters, musou is supposed to be purely a silly fanservice vehicle for players to hack and slash their way through enemies, plot be damned. But this musou was chosen, for some reason, as the way for kt/intsys to add all the things they wanted to put in houses but couldn’t? Why is a musou game part of the canon? I already told you about my acquaintance with the burning hatred for aoc and how he said it made him feel like it completely invalidated botw if all it took for things to be solved was The Stupid Fucking Egg (per his acronym in Spanish) doing timey wimey shit. And I can now totally understand his feelings plus the anons you got about houses fans saying that their experience was invalidated.

Why add all this to a musou game? Why didn’t they just pull a botw and delay longer to let the original houses bake properly in the oven? The demo footage for the next mainline Zelda game was announced in like, 2013, and it was delayed for years until botw showed up with a radically different look and style, and it became a smash hit. So why the rush to push out houses? Would the devs still have wanted to add all the stuff that was cut out back then if it houses didn’t become as popular as it did?

And even so, with the added time (and funds and the added benefit of the explosion in popularity houses had after its debut), how was it possible that kt/intsys still managed to make another mess?

How did houses show edelgard as the clear villain and aggressor in 3 out of 4 routes (cf notwithstanding) but nopes now whitewashes her, plays her rhetoric straight, and gives her a moral high ground? And still removes her agency?

Why was monica given the personality a disguised kronya used in houses when characters in houses commented it was strange of her to act that way? And why turn monica into another sycophant for edelgard?

How did the devs acknowledge that vw was copy pasted from ss (and i say this as a claude and golden deer fan), yet not only lied about gw being focused on almyra, but basically turned it into a copy of sb? To say nothing of how contradictory Claude’s entire character turned out (and that’s me putting it nicely)?

How is it that two routes of out three spend a significant amount of time shitting on faerghus, and even in ag there are moments where the kingdom is castigated for responding rationally to an invading force trying to conquer it?

Or that, again, in 3/4 houses routes the church is shown as a victim of the evil mole people and the empire…but nopes, despite showing the church as being clearly good people, also does nothing to contradict the constant shit lobbed their way? Why do even devout characters like Judith go along with this when stuff like dialogue in gw shows the central church is not seen as a major concern by many, much less a threat? Or that all that talk about cutting room floor content they wanted to use for lore somehow doesn’t extend to the church? Hell, they’re not even playable outside ng+! And the way Rhea dies in sb/gw is just plain insulting!

Why does sothis have all her memories in nopes yet refuses to explain anything when she gets screen time? Why was she changed from a sassy and snappy but ultimately caring head gremlin to a mean, gaslighting, controlling little tulpa? And why doesn’t she speak up about her family???

Are the devs aware of all the fuckery pulled by the localisation team in houses, like adding blatantly untrue clauses to the book of seiros tenets to make the church look bad, and how that continued in nopes? (Judging from the way the church is treated in nopes, i don’t think they care, which is very oof)

How do the evil mole people (except cornelia/cleobulus, because ag dodged the idiot ball) still look dumb even though their existence and moustache twirling antics are out in the open in nopes? How is it that the devs still didn’t know what to do with them in sb, or just forgot about them entirely in gw? Why do their actions still benefit the empire even though they’re not working together in nopes?

Why were the dads shown but not patricia, who was a principal contributor to the violence that plagued faerghus before the events of houses/nopes? Why was ionius straight up erased and details about the insurrection fudged further? Edelgard’s siblings???

Why were so many characters changed for the worse? Granted, Petra does shine in nopes and i love her, but Caspar? He kept harping on about justice when he wasn’t talking about fighting and training in houses, but hopes Caspar is a bloodthirsty and patriotic little empire soldier. Linhardt is completely apathetic, Ferdinand toes edelgard’s line, the deer seem to be eager to invade faerghus etc.

Why is Shez’s backstory constantly teased at but never explained, if this game is supposed to be lore-heavy? Or why was that plot thread just tossed out the window entirely in gw?

And as for byleth…oof. “Oh we didn’t want to make fans of byleth and houses to feel sad and invalidated” so then what, devs?? I say this with the added context of me being a byleth (both versions) fan:

If the devs acknowledged that byleth is popular, why does nopes sideline them so hard to the point of irrelevance? Why is it possible for shez to not only kill them in an ultimately anticlimactic fight, but to also twist the knife further by stripping away part of their agency when sothis forcibly pilots their bodies, have jeralt die if they’re not recruited, AND also have them murder two highly regarded side characters (idgaf about Randolph and flèche) which turns them into enemies of the rest of the cast?

Why are they needed to unlock the fight against arval if that extra chapter doesn’t even affect the main plot and is totally optional?

Why are they and shez the biggest parts of the box art and played a huge part in the game’s marketing if their so called rivalry was ultimately meaningless?

Were shez and arval (and i also dgaf about arval, they’re interesting only vis a vis their friendship with shez) only designed with being not!Byleth and not!Sothis in mind instead of the plot…instead of the devs actually doing something different?

Why was arval turned into a cop-out by having them be the nice snarky personality while epimenides the butthurt agarthan barely even affected the plot despite all the flags pointing to arval as suspicious in the first place?

Hell, even the game’s timeline is suspicious…announced in march and released in late june…

I’m sorry for this LONG ass message and for sounding like a broken record, but i simply cannot wrap my head around all the stuff I’ve seen so far in nopes along with what renisfan translated. What was even the point of nopes existing (outside of money ofc) in light of all this messiness???

And regardless of people’s opinions on the game, the one thing i can say confidently is that the mere existence of nopes has done irreparable damage to the already bad state of the discourse surrounding fódlan.

Forgot to add this to my last ask: if the devs “didn’t want to invalidate houses” then what was the point????? Devs??? Explain????

This is quite the message, haha.

And I don't really have a proportional response for you either. Because these are all questions I have as well. And I'm still... processing most of them even now.

I need more time to digest before I can give a full response to everything you said here. Because I share some of your rage.

I can say this though.

The point was to make money.

[serpenteve]

king of scars rant 💅🏽

cw: spoilers for king of scars

Honestly, I hated this book.

The Lore

I definitely hated how this book pretty much retconned the original trilogy and made it all but pointless. So Alina had to lose her powers because there are comic limits to Grisha power but Zoya can turn into a fucking dragon and become the avatar now?

The Shadow Fold had to be destroyed because it made Ravka weak but now it's open season on Ravka without the Fold holding their enemies back and every other week, there's some new assassination attempt from Shu Han or an open declaration of war from Fjerda or blackmailing debt-collectors from Kerch? How is Ravka still functioning, honestly?

Nikolai

I'm sorry, Nikolai, but this book actually made me low-key hate you. Like, the narrative wants so badly to prove me to me that he isn't like other imperialist monarchs! He....remembers people's names and fights alongside them!!!

Another character in this book (Isaak) spends the majority of his narrative idolizing Nikolai and trying to be like him and talking about how amazing he was to his family and then when he dies........Nikolai barely even gives a fuck? I got the sense this friendship was entirely one-sided.

Also, why is this marketed as a Nikolai duology and named after him when he's barely the main character and has to share the narration with 3 other characters---one of which is literally occupying the same locations as him? 🤨

Zoya

Oof, where to even begin with this one.

Listen, I would have been 100% on board with this book being entirely focused on Zoya. She's the real protagonist in my opinion so the fact that had to share the narrative with 3 other people (including one person who doesn't even influence the main plot and another who gets discarded by the end) was really bringing down the potential of her story.

Because there wasn't enough room for her character development, everything about her arc is completely rushed. Like, she can fire-bend and bee-bend in the span of 3 hours? WELL OKAY THEN. Oh, she can just turn into a fucking dragon now because she opened some random ass door in her mind? WELL OKAY THEN.

I hate hate hate it when female characters get accused of being Mary Sues but there's something to be said when we're jumping heads and everyone is just like "Wow, Zoya is so pretty, Zoya is so badass, Zoya is so cool" while not really having any real consequences for her flaw. Like, we all know Zoya can be bitchy and mean (and we love that about her 😌) but....she pretty much gets away it with and doesn't face any backlash for it. Add this to the fact that she becomes the Grisha avatar with very little training on her part and voila. The entire world of the Grishaverse bends its rules and reality around her in typical Sue fashion.

Nina

Girl, what was even the point of your story? I kept waiting and waiting and waiting, stupidly assuming that her story would somehow merge with the main one but it never came.

We learn that things are still shit for Grisha. The Shu are kidnapping them and making them into crazy supersoldiers and Fjerda are getting them addicted to some parem variant to create their own Grisha slave army from birth?

Why on earth would being a Grisha at the Little Palace be a choice in this world? It's either you become a soldier in the Second Army or....you get a fate worse than death. Wouldn't the atrocities committed against Grisha radicalize most Grisha anyway? Like, sign me the fuck up, I want to kick some ass against people trying to literally experiment on me???

Nina's necromancer powers were pretty badass though, not gonna lie 🙌🏽

Isaak

Isaak was honestly the best part of this whole dumpster book and then he gets killed for no reason. And Nikolai doesn't even give a fuck?

Why introduce this new character if we're just going to use and discard him? I kept wondering why we were getting palace updates from a new character instead of just using Genya or Tamar's perspective.

Also, the whole thing with princess Ehri was a bit racist to me? Like we have a Chinese-coded character being a deceptive backstabber (or front-stabber in this case lol) and nearly dies while giving off some serious dragon lady vibes. I get the sense she did die in the original draft and some editor was probably like "Hmm, well maybe we shouldn't have another dead POC" so she survives. At least she didn't speak in broken English like Botkin 🤷🏽‍♀️

The (Anti) Climax

This was easily the most anti-climactic ending to a Grishaverse book I've read. It's a shame because it has all the elements that could have made it badass? Like we've got saints with god-like powers but Zoya easily defeats Elizaveta by suddenly unlocking fire-bending, bee-bending, and transforming into a fucking dragon. I just can't take it seriously.

Elizaveta herself was too easily distracted as a villain. What the hell even happens to the saints when they die in this place? Do all their miracles that affect the rest of the world just disappear? Who knows. The book ends with Fjerda declaring war and a failed assassination attempt by a Shu Han princess.

Yuri & the Darkling

And finally this brings me whatever mess is going on with Yuri and the Darkling. I get the sense Leigh was super pissed with Darkling stans and created this weird strawman with Yuri's character. Honestly, I thought he was kinda funny because I'm sure even without real-world fans simping for the Darkling, there would certainly be people in the Grishaverse who would gravitate towards the Darkling and see him as a savior of sorts, especially with the world's Grisha being arguably worse after his death and the destruction of the Fold.

What bothered me was the bizarre preachiness of the other characters. Like Yuri literally only exists so that Zoya and Nikolai can take turns being like "Actually, Yuri aka Darklina stan placeholder, the Darkling was the VILLAIN of the series and you were just too stupid to see it, etc"

...Like, girl, we know he's the villain 🤦🏽‍♀️ If we're going to create a character just to preach to Darkling stans, then why does the entire plot revolve around trying to bring him back into the story? It's like Leigh has a weird love-hate relationship with the Darkling. She hates him and she hates his fan club but she still needs him because otherwise there's no magical plot conflict.

Fridge Logic

If there is no limit to Grisha power and you can just take however much you want from the heart at the making of the world, why the hell did Alina get punished for the amplifier nonsense in the original trilogy?

If the saint's powers are limited to the edges of the Fold, how are they able to manipulate stuff outside of it?

Juris claims when you properly possess an amplifier, you become a living amplifier in return. So is how the Darkling and Baghra became living amplifiers? Or is that just still some unexplained merzost nonsense from Illya Morozova?

What the hell even considered merzost now with all this retcon?

If the Darkling can possess Yuri and magically transform his features to be his own, then why did he need his own body?

And if he can change people's features by possessing them, why did Nikolai get to keep his?

Why did the obisbaya ritual fail in the first place?

Prose

The only positive is that the prose is like a million times better than the original trilogy, but considering how terrible the original is, I suppose that's not really saying much.

[keikakudori]

as both an aizen/shinji and kisuke/shinji fan, i have had this in my mind since a while so i shall ask :

how do you believe aizen would react if he ever finds out that after the tbtp divorce, shinji and kisuke as they got closer, started being very intimate ?

random asks | always accepting

i would suggest finding a reinforced bomb shelter, honestly--

jokes(?) aside, it would not go well. i mean, it’s not like aizen would expect shinji to be celibate after the divorce ( though it’s hard to say if shinji would be, if he and aizen had been having a shared intimacy of that nature with one another and then aizen blindsides him with the divorce where he gets custody of the kid, takes over the job, and keeps the house. ) and he certainly wasn’t once gin became a captain b u t. but the thing is -- aizen’s just. uhm. NOT FOND of kisuke. intensely so.

there is a difference between shinji picking some random human to have a fling with, though, and picking urahara fucking kisuke. aizen despises that man with an almost holy intensity because of how much of a hypocrite kisuke is. aizen sees that hypocrisy and it makes him so angry. i mean, for fun thought projects, i like to imagine what would have happened if aizen and kisuke had worked together or if they’d teamed up or any number of things. a lot of the events in bleach would have gone radically different. i even have a fun little verse idea of what would have happened if events had played out as they did in canon, by and large, because aizen knows what’s coming and he and kisuke actually work together. he still hates him in this verse, but ... not AS much. but as far as things are in general? mmmm no that’s not a good thing.

so -- yeah. if it ever came out that shinji and kisuke had had a thing while shinji was in exile, aizen would gladly rip kisuke’s spine out - if he could find it - and beat him to death with it. don’t get me wrong i love kisuke he does such INTERESTING THINGS TO AIZEN’S TEMPER but oh man. it’s -- it just would not be pretty which is why i suggest the reinforced bomb shelter as a viable option here, simply for the fact that aizen really is that kind of dangerous persona who, once inspired into that kind of fury, won’t stop until he’s MADE to stop. and given there’s very few people who could stop aizen at that point? uuuuhhhhhh yeah --

uhm. nuclear threshold, anyone?

oh man this would just be so ugly so fast. aizen would be some kind of offended and angry and just a whole bunch of other stuff. like, of  aLL th E PEOPLE SHINJI COULD GO MESS WITH, IT HAS TO BE THE ONE MAN THAT AIZEN DISDAINS SO PASSIONATELY? yeah. yeah, uh. i think blood would be involved. and bones and uhhhhhh -- hey, who wants a full-chant kurohitsugi with aizen’s power level after the blood war? i imagine that would be one of the LESS lethal options that aizen could produce here. there’d be blood either way.

a lot of blood.

gratuitous amounts of violence --

you know how sometimes the news has stuff they have to censor because it’s too graphic? yeah.

[kureis-writing-hell]

Cleaning

First || Previous

Nao figures out that normal counsoling he was taught wasn't going to work woth Chisaki. He's changing his aproach. And Kai seems to do so as well. Prompt taken from this list.

In which Chisaki Kai goes through therapy!

When Nao came for his meeting with Chisaki he was stopped and told to wait. It worried him at first but then he was told that it was a cleaning day and he came while Chisaki’s cell was still undone. Not having much to do he went to the observation room, curious of how the process was executed in a prison like Tartarus. Having a permit and already being recognized by most of the guards, Nao entered the room.

And almost took a step back.

It wasn’t the fact that on one of the screens he could see an inmate being held down on long, metal rods. It wasn’t even the fact that he could see another inmate being stripped in their cell for god knows what reason. It was the fact that his patient, Chisaki, was cornered by two guards and looked detached while the third aggressively changed his sheets. Nao held back the urge to turn around and storm there, to yell at them for treating Chisaki like that. It took Nao over a month for the man to finally start opening, it was a huge progress and now Chisaki looked like he was going to shut down again.

"Nao! Hi!"

Nao flinched and looked at the guard that greeted him. He smiled at the other man and made a little wave of his hand.

"Hi. Sorry, I was told to wait."

"Yeah but they're finishing. I think you can go now." The guard waved at him and Nao nodded. Without a word he left the room.

If it wasn't for the confidentiality agreement the first thing Nao would do after leaving the Tartarus was spill everything he saw till now. The terrible treatment of the inmates, irregular meals, showers and how violent guards could be. How most of those people needed help from professionals, how broken and sick they were. Nao understood they were horrible criminals, he knew their cases from TV and couldn't fathom doing most of their crimes, yet he could see humans in them. Contrary to most of the guards here.

And most of the people outside - he reminded himself. Even if he broke the agreement and spoke about the inside of Tartarus he knew no one would really care. All they cared about was themselves and their safety. Understandable, but nonetheless annoying.

With a growing lump in his throat Nao went down the corridor, nodding to the guards that passed him. He forced his thoughts to think about Chisaki, how to approach him now. Nao was sure he's going to be difficult again.

A guard standing under Chisaki’s cell greeted him with a scowl. After a routine check of his belongings, the last one from plenty he got on the way here, Nao was let inside.

Chisaki was standing in the same corner that Nao saw him on the camera. He flinched when the door opened but didn’t do anything else.

“Hi, Chisaki.” Nao smiled at him.

The other, younger man took a moment to look up. Then he took another moment to recognize Nao and it was obvious. His wide eyes relaxed and he breathed visibly.

“How long…” he started but then trailed off.

“Two days, like always.” Nao kept smiling. He didn’t want Chisaki to notice his previous anger.

“There were… guards here.”

“Yeah, they just left. They changed your sheets.”

Chisaki looked at the bed, cringed and then visibly relaxed. He leaned heavily on the wall. He nodded at Nao and the hero took it as his cue to start their routine. With a huge relief.

“Do you want to talk about something today?” asked Nao when they were done, with Chisaki sitting under a wall. He readjusted the new sheet the way the former villain asked him to and was sitting on the bed.

And Chisaki made a pause. Normally he immediately answered, with a no. Normally Nao had to nudge him to have a simple conversation about his likes and dislikes and even that didn’t always work.

“I want to leave this place,” finally said Kai. “I want to see the boss. But I don’t, I don’t know how.”

Nao considered his hunched position, the way he didn’t look at him. Chisaki was a big man, muscular and for sure strong. They were probably the same height and Nao usually stuck out in the crowd in Japan himself. Yet right now that big, strong man looked small and lost.

“Do you understand why you are here in the first place?” asked the hero. They didn’t talk about this before and he wanted to know what Chisaki thinks about his situation. He needed to know where he should start.

“Of course!” There was a click in the walls and Chisaki stiffened. Nao waved at the camera to let the guards know he had the situation under control. After a moment he looked at Chisaki and the former villain continued, quieter. “I’m not an idiot, I know why I’m here.”

“I didn’t say you’re an idiot, you’re not,” agreed Nao. “But I still want you to tell me.”

Kai chewed on his lower lip not looking at Nao. He obviously thought hard about his answer for a bit. His jaw tensed, he licked over the bruise he made on his lower lip and Nao wondered why he struggled so much with the answer.

Then, he realized Chisaki could be thinking what Nao wanted to hear. He wanted to believe in the man, but at the same time he knew Chisaki just wanted to get out to see his former boss. And the word “manipulative” from his files became uncomfortably obvious for the hero. He still waited in silence.

“I- Because of… Eri. And the league.” Chisaki still didn’t look up at Nao.

Nao sighed and brushed his forearms, even though they were covered with his turtleneck. It was a tick he never managed to get rid of, a nervous one. This was going to be a difficult discussion.

“Can you elaborate on that? What do you mean it was because of Eri?”

Chisaki looked uncomfortable. To the point Nao wondered if he should change the topic. But before he could propose it Kai answered.

“If she didn’t run… that kid, no one would find out. Till now everything would be done, boss would be fine, my plan would work, my arms-” he looked at his stumps and cringed, shook his head and started brushing his shoulder against his chin. Nao quickly realized it was his mysophobia kicking in. “She just couldn’t sit down for a little bit longer to make it better for everyone.”

Nao wanted to bite his nail but the glove that he wore stopped him. Instead he brushed his chin and scratched his ear. He knew he’s not a good person to do this and couldn’t understand why Rei, his boss, wanted him to lead Chisaki so badly. He was still a newbie and Chisaki obviously had some real issues he didn’t know how to handle. Also Nao didn’t have the most… therapeutic approach. All he wanted to do after hearing shit like that was to stand up and shake Chisaki till he realized what he was saying. Rei always seemed so composed when dealing with criminals and he just couldn’t do the same, he was salty, hot headed and most of the time spoke without thinking.

He sighed, already hearing Rei’s scolding once he was going to call her at the end of the week.

“Is this what you really think?”

“...yes.”

“Let’s think about it then.” Nao’s smile got sharper, he heard his inner voice whispering to him to yes, tell this man everything, make him feel like shit. He shushed it away. “You experimented on your boss’ granddaughter while he was under coma, induced by you. You planned, no, you started to sell drugs that would greatly mess up the world. Not mentioning organized crime. Did that girl make you do all this stuff?”

For a long moment Chisaki was looking at Nao as if he didn’t recognize the hero. When Nao started questioning himself and scolding himself for his long tongue, the former villain spoke.

“She didn’t…” he said slowly. “But, but she couldn’t understand, she- This is bullshit!” Even Nao jumped at the sudden outburst. This time the clicking in the walls didn’t follow. “Why are you even talking about this?!”

“Why?” Nao sighed. “Because I want you to realize you won’t get anywhere with that attitude.” He watched how Chisaki’s anger shifts into despair. “This is not ‘helping prisoners get out of prison’ program, nor ‘make a wish’. It’s a redemption program, where you’re supposed to understand the mistakes you did, come out with a way to better yourself in the eyes of society and be able to live a normal life. I’m here to provide you help, not lead you by a hand.” Kai was biting his lip again, not looking at Nao. He looked shaken, angry in some way and depressed. Nao brushed his face, unhappy for yelling at his patient.

“This is why I was opposed to Rei’s decision to put me as your counselor. Your case angers me. You’re too proud and honestly, I’m surprised it took me so long to snap. But then we didn’t really talk about this before, right?” Nao laughed, to relieve his own tension, and noticed that Chisaki looked at him. “Anyway, I enjoyed meeting with you, I really did. You can be enjoyable, honestly, when you’re not like that.” He waved his hand in the direction of Chisaki. He wasn’t giving up, he didn’t want to give up. But he stepped over the line and assumed that was what he was supposed to do. “But it’s obviously not working. I’ll call Rei and tell her to send someone else. Unless you want to end this here-”

“No!” Kai jolted up, straightening his hunched position against the wall and cringing at his arms. He looked back at surprised Nao. “I don’t want anyone else and I don’t want you to stop coming. This is- you’re right. You know I decided on this only to get out of here, I need to see my boss. I don’t care about Eri, about what happens later to me I just, I need to apologize to him.”

Manipulative, full of himself, with anger issues and radical world views. Hopeless case. Nao had the words before his eyes. He didn’t have to know this beforehand to quickly realize it on his own. But, what he saw now, was a broken, desperate man in need of help. And he wanted to help him so badly. Not only to lessen his guilt against the old Shie Hassaikai boss. He wanted to find him a purpose to continue living.

He didn’t want to think about how much he could relate to Chisaki right now.

“Okay.”

“...okay?”

“If you don’t mind then sure. But it’s gonna work on different rules now.” Rei was going to kill him. “I’m not gonna be your nice therapist anymore. I’ll visit you as myself from now on.”

“Did you visit me as someone else before?”

“Yes and no,” chuckled Nao. “Let’s say… Nao is more professional and has a better approach. Nikodem is going to slap your head for saying dumb shit.”

“Ni...kodem?”

“That’s my real name. You can keep calling me Nao though, it’s shorter.”

Chisaki nodded, said Nao’s name again to himself and looked down. Nao tilted his head lightly.

“Why do you even want to come here?” he asked, not looking up.

“Because you asked me to.” Nao shrugged. “And, eh, Rei’s gonna kill me. I can relate to you. A little bit.”

“What?” Now Chisaki was the surprised one. He lifted his head.

“She got to me when I was in jail. I did some shit before, too. Looking at you right now… I can imagine myself if she didn’t get involved. Assuming I would still be alive.”

“In jail…” Kai blinked, frowned and looked to the side. “But you’re a hero now.”

“Sure, because I went through the redemption program. And it was different for me too, to be honest.” Nao scratched his chin but quickly shrugged. “It took me almost two years to be able to leave the jail.”

“What did you do?”

Nao blinked, finally catching Chisaki’s eyes, then smiled. He leaned back on the bed, supporting himself with his hands.

“You really want to know?” Oh, Rei was totally going to kill him.

“Yes.”

“Well.” Nao looked at a watch he had hidden under one of long sleeves. He still had some time till his hour with Chisaki passed. “This… is kind of a love story, to be honest.”

[natromanxoff]

Freddie Mercury and the Wade Deacon/Halewood Connection (by Mike Royden)

...Freddie lived for music, and in August 1969 he seized upon the opportunity he’d been waiting for – to sing in a band. Too impatient to form one of his own, he did the next best thing and found himself a ready-made outfit. His quarry was Ibex, a Merseyside-base trio comprising Mike Bersin (guitar and vocals.) and John ‘Tupp’ Taylor (bass and vocals) and a drummer by the name of Mike ‘Miffer’ Smith.

...“We met the members of Smile at a pub called the Kensington,” recalls ‘Tupp’ Taylor. “We saw them play a couple of times and they were really good. They had a great vocal-harmony thing going. Tim Staffell, their bass player, was a really good singer, and Freddie was a mate of theirs. We’d all sit around and have amazing vocal sessions singing Bee Gees, Beach Boys and Beatles songs. We could do great harmonies because there was three of them in Smile, myself, Mike Bersin, who’d chip in, and Freddie, of course.”

At this point, it was common knowledge among the Smile crowd that Freddie was desperate to get into Brian and Roger’s band. Perhaps joining Ibex might be a way in.

“Freddie hadn’t quite persuaded Smile to take him on as a vocalist,” confirms Mike Bersin. “They thought they were doing OK as they were. So, he said, “You know what you guys need, and that’s a vocalist.’ He was right, too, as John Taylor recalls: “I wasn’t the world’s greatest singer by any stretch of the imagination.” And as Ken Testi reveals “Mike had never been confident about his singing, but had been pushed into it.”

Freddie first met Ibex on 13th August 1969. Such was his enthusiasm, that just ten days later, he’d learned the bands’ set, brought in a few new songs, and had travelled up to Bolton, Lancashire, for a gig with them – his debut public performance. The date was 23rd August, and the occasion was one of Bolton’s regular afternoon ‘Bluesology’ sessions, held at the town’s Octagon theatre. For Ibex and friends, it was the event of the summer. No fewer than 15 bodies, including Freddie, Ken Testi, and the band’s other roadie Geoff Higgins, Paul Humberstone, assorted friends and girlfriends, plus Ibex’s instruments were squeezed into a transit van borrowed from Richard Thompson, a mate of Freddie’s who’d previously drummed in ‘1984’ with Brian May and Tim Staffell.

...The following day, Ibex appeared in the first ‘Bluesology pop-in’, an open-air event on the bandstand in Bolton’s Queen’s Park. On the bill were local band Back, another called Birth, Spyrogyra, Gum Boot Smith, The White Myth, Stuart Butterworth, Phil Renwick and, of course, Ibex. In a report published the day before the Bolton Evening News wrote ‘The last -named act make a journey from London especially for the concert. The climax of the whole affair will be a supergroup, in which all the performers will play together. If the weather is fine the noise should be terrific”.

Remarkably, for such a relatively inauspicious event, Freddie’s first-ever public performance was extremely well documented. There were at least three photographers present, and the proceedings were covered in Bolton’s Evening News for the second time on 25th August. This even featured an uncredited photograph of Freddie, with the caption: ‘One of the performers gets into his stride’ If Freddie wanted to be a star, he was going about it the right way.” 

“Freddie really loved going up to Bolton to play with Ibex,” remembers Paul Humberstone. “He was really on form. The band was very basic, but good. They did very reasonable cover versions, and were very loud. That was his very first outing with the band, but Fred struck his pose. Remember him doing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’? He was like that only without the eye makeup.”

“Freddie was shy offstage,” recalls Ken Testi, “but he knew how to front a show. It was his way of expressing that side of his personality. Everything on stage later in Queen, he was doing with Ibex at his first gig: marching from one end of the stage to another, from left to right and back again. Stomping about. He brought dynamics, freshness and presentation to the band that had been completely lacking previously.”

Mike Bersin agrees: “As a three piece, we’d thought it was sufficient to play fairly basic music and not worry too much about stage craft. Freddie was much better at putting on a show and entertaining people. That was pretty radical for us. I thought that’s what the light show was for, you know, we make the music and the audience can watch the pretty coloured bubbles behind us, but Freddie was different. He was so wonderfully camp in that beautifully English foppish way. With hindsight, I recognise the determination to succeed that he had in spades. He demanded to be treated as a star before he was one. His talent and ambition made people react in very different ways, but it wasn't an unpleasant thing.

As the rest of us would wear jeans and trench coats, he was the fur-and-satin man and all the moves and poses he had with Queen, were already there with Ibex, he never imitated anybody, Freddie was Freddie from day one, he was entirely his own creation and a culture shock. He worked extremely hard to be something worth to look at and to listen to. He only had one pair of boots, one t-shirt, one pair of trousers, one belt and one jacket. Still he remained immaculate. We had some gigs in Bolton which were very significant to the band. While we were getting ready, Freddie had been backcombing his long hair to make it stand out more and twitching himself in the mirror for ages. I eventually yelled at him: 'For God's sake, stop messing with your hair, Freddie!', to which he responded: 'But I'm a star, dear boy!'. There is not a lot you can say to that. In many ways, you felt Freddie almost wasn't real.”

“I don’t think Freddie developed,” reckons John ‘Tupp’ Taylor. “The first day he stood in front of that crowd, he had it all going. It seemed as if he’d been practicing for years to be ready. We’d only ever sang together as mates before that. We’d never done anything by way of trying it out. He was going to be in the band and everyone was happy with that. Once Freddie was in, we changed in loads of different directions. We began to play ‘Jailhouse Rock’, for a start! I think that was the first thing we did with him on stage.”

Back in London, a revitalised Ibex began to make plans. “Freddie and the band very quickly became inseparable,” remembers Ken Testi. “They were spending large parts of their time together, working out a new set which included different covers and some original stuff.”

Mike Bersin: “Freddie was the most musical of all of us. He was trained on the piano, and he could write on the black notes. He said ‘We’re never going to get anywhere playing all this three-chord blues crap, we’ll have to write some songs.’ A couple of things came out of it, but they’ve all vanished now. I can’t imagine they would be very satisfactory anyway – largely because he was working with me, and my understanding of music was incredibly rudimentary. We used to argue about whether we should put in key changes. I’d say ‘What do you want a key change for?’ And he’d say that it made a song more interesting, it gave it a lift. I’d think ‘Why has he got this thing about gratuitous key changes?’ The idea of changing the key of a song just because it made it more interesting to listen to was really alien to me.That said, Geoff Higgins remembers at least one decent Bulsara-Bersin tune: “ They did a great song called ‘Lover; the lyrics used to go, ‘Lover, you never believe me’ and Fred later turned it into ‘Liar, you never believe me’ It was almost the same tune, but not quite. In fact, it was similar to ‘Communication Breakdown’, they used to rip off Led Zeppelin a lot.”

That said, Geoff Higgins remembers at least one decent Bulsara-Bersin tune: “ They did a great song called ‘Lover; the lyrics used to go, ‘Lover, you never believe me’ and Fred later turned it into ‘Liar, you never believe me’ It was almost the same tune, but not quite. In fact, it was similar to ‘Communication Breakdown’, they used to rip off Led Zeppelin a lot.”

Before they knew it, however, the summer was over and it was September. Mike Bersin returned to Liverpool to begin his pre-diploma years at the local art college, at what is now John Moores University. With nothing better to celebrate than the new term, the pre-dip freshers threw a party, and who better to provide the entertainment than Mike’s band, Ibex? Subsequently Ibex’s third and final gig took place on 9th September 1969 at the Sink Club in Liverpool, a former soul-blue hang out in the basement of the Rumbling Tum – a place Ken Testi remembers as a “pretty dodgy, post beatnik café”.

...Geoff has a further revelation, which called to mind Paul McCartney’s presence in the audience at the first-ever recording of John Lennon with the Quarry Men back in 1957. “Smile were in Liverpool that night… playing another club, possibly the Green Door. And because we were at the Sink, they came down to see us.” The rest of the story is almost too good to be true. Brimming with encouragement for their flamboyant friend Brian May and Roger Taylor wasted no time in joining Freddie on stage (or as near as they could get.) They probably bashed out a few Smile numbers and this occasion marked the first time the three of them played together in front of an audience. “We virtually had Queen in there,” remarks Ken Testi, “although of course we didn’t know it then.” However, here’s the sting: although Geoff Higgins’ tape recorder was still only yards away at the time, the tape ran out before the three musicians had the chance to play a note together.

Wreckage

Sometime between 9th September and the end of October 1969, probably while Freddie was staying with Geoff Higgins in Liverpool, [flat above Dovedale Towers, Penny Lane], Ibex underwent a mini upheaval – at Freddie’s instigation. “I recall him canvassing the idea of calling the band Wreckage, but nobody was enthusiastic,” reveals Mike Bersin. “Then he phoned me one night and said, ‘the others don’t mind. How do you feel?’ I said. ‘If they agree then fine’. So, we went along to the next rehearsal and all the gear had been sprayed ‘Wreckage’. When I spoke to the others about it, Freddie had phoned them all up and had the same conversation”. 

The name-change went hand-in-hand with the departure of drummer Mike ‘Miffer’ Smith as Freddie documented in a letter to Celine Daley. Dated 26th October the letter bears the address 40, Ferry Road, Barnes SW13 – another flat rented that summer by members of Ibex, Smile and various associates.

‘Miffer’ is not with us anymore,” wrote Freddie, “cause the bastard just got up and left one morning saying he was going to be a milkman back in Widnes. (he meant it too).” He goes on to boast that Roger and he go ‘poncing and ultrablagging just about everywhere,” which led to the pair “being termed as a couple of queens.” Interestingly, this word doesn’t seem to imply any of its more modern connotations. There was another term for that, as Ibex’s former drummer was well aware. “Miffer, the sod,” wrote Freddie, “went and told everyone down here that I had seriously turned into a fully-fledged queer.” 

“You can see he was exploring the concept there, can’t you?” interjects Mike Bersin, “to see how many people felt about it and how comfortable he was with it. He was always very camp, but when I knew him, he was living with Mary Austin, and I certainly knew at least one other girlfriend he knew at the time. So, he was kind of straight then, but if he hadn’t come out of the closet, he was certainly looking through the keyhole.” 

Crucially, as far as Queen’s pre-history is concerned, Freddie pinpoints the date when Ibex became Wreckage: “Our first booking as Wreckage is on Friday, 31st October at Ealing College,” he wrote. He also names Richard Thompson, the former drummer in Brian May’s 1984, as Miffer’s replacement. 

“I’d known Freddie for years,” Richard recalls. “I first met him in 1966. I used to go round his house to listen to Beatles records. Then we’d go and watch Smile play, before he joined Ibex. I knew all of Ibex’s songs, as I’d watch them perform, so there was no point auditioning anyone else.” 

With Wreckage’s first (and Freddie’s forth) concert appearance just five days away, the band set about rehearsing a new set. “Mike came down today,” wrote Freddie to Celine, “for a five-hour live marathon practise. Richard collapsed halfway through and I’ve really gone and lost my voice (no kidding). It hurts just to breathe. Hope I’m OK for this Friday, ‘cause I’m going to out-ponce everybody in sight. (it shall be easy.)” Freddie ended the letter with this hitherto unpublished information: “We’ve written a few new numbers: 1) ‘Green’; 2) ‘Without You’, 3) ‘Blag-a-blues’, 4) ‘Cancer on My Mind’ (originally called ‘Priestess’.) 

“Freddie always had very unusual titles at that stage.” Recalls Mike Bersin. “I can’t remember what ‘Green’ was about. It might be the one with the intro which went, E, A, D, G, D, A, E, A, D, G, D, A in guitar chords”. As neither Ibex nor Wreckage went within striking distance of a recording studio, none of these songs was ever recorded officially. Miraculously, however one of them has survived – and it’s the one that stuck in Mike Bersin’s mind, ‘Green’.

...“We also played somewhere in Richmond, at a rugby club,” recalls John Taylor. “A friend of Brian May’s arranged it, and Brian came along. He thought our image was ‘savage’. He thought we were really good. ‘Oh Savage’ he said.”

[daeneryswhitehorse]

Dany hate throughout the years.

( This is base on a reply I made in post create by @yendany . I also want to precise that it is only my perspective of the fandom as a dany stan, other people probably have a different opinion of what was going on. )

I came in the asoiaf/got fandom in 2011, when the show first came out. I fell in love with dany on my first watch and still like her after reading the books. I started to get involved in the fandom because I wanted to learn more about her.

I didn't know tumblr at the time so I was on westeros.org. The mad queen dany theory was already a thing, mostly for the persons who didn't like that dany could be azor ahai and not one of the male character. But the forum still liked her for her baddass moments in asos or her portrayal in the first season of got.

Everything changed when adwd came out. The incels in this site really didn't liked dany having sex with daario after rejecting jorah/quentyn. They also didn't understood her plot, were tired of her staying in Essos or not interacting with main pov character. It was enough for them to think she was boring.

From then on, there were a lot of bad take of her character. Grrm wanting to talk about the consequences of her mistakes and her decision of staying in meereen was understood as dany being dumb and incompetent as a queen. People made fun of her long list of titles and thought it make her look arrogant. They claimed she was nothing without her dragon, in contrast to male character like stannis. Or not a true warrior because she spend her battle hiding in her tent, unlike stannis or jon who fight with swords. Or that she didn't car about the common people, because she try to negociate with the meereeness nobles. Most of those claimed exist to prove why character like Jon or Stannis would be azor ahai or the true king of Westeros.

After season 3 of the show came out, a lot of people were rightfully offended by the final scene with daenerys where she surf on a sea of brown people. A lot of fans start seeing Dany as a white savior in both books and show, and a lot of essay were about how how her storyline was rooted in racist orientalist ideas. If you were a person of color and still stan her, it was probably because of internalized racism.

Before this season, feminist critized the butchering of most of dany storyline, like they did with other female characters. But none was as talk about then Sansa's, because the most popular female character like Dany, Arya and Brienne were seen as the cash grab of the show. It was considered more important to defend her in particular, and liking Sansa over them was seen as resistance act against D&D misogyny.

The intellectual part of the fandom really went out of their way in defending her. They liked her because she was a gateway to the political part of the story in King's Landing and the Vale. They didn't like how some fans victim-blamed her for the abuse she suffered with the Lannister, and praised the fact she didn't end up with stockolm syndrome like Dany or Theon. "Not everyone can be an Arya" did they said, as they wanted people to acknowledged she was the more relatable point of view and how her traditional feminity shouldn't be put down. They emphasis a lot on her kindness, her emphatie, or her observational skills but and said those qualities were unique to her and are what separate her of the rest of the cast. She was the representation of humanity in this crapsack world. And after outsmarting Littlefinger would probably be rewarded with an important political position and would be one of the builder of the new world after the apocalypse.

All of this probably wasn't meant to be interprete as hate toward other female and some of the male characters, but it sure did for the Sansa stan! Who would then create their entire defense meta around putting down any character they found and upliftting her above them. Their favorite target was Arya, but you could found from time to time one on Dany. I remember someone defending Sansa innocence in trusting Cersei in the first book, by emphasing on her age and naivety, and putting down dany for not knowing mirri maz durr would get revenge on her khalassar.

Talking about Dany, the intellectual part of the fandom didn't really like her. I mean they didn't hate her, and didn't diminish her importance in the story, but she clearly wasn't a fan favorite.

There was two angle in their analysis of daenerys: the political leader and the messiah.

For the first part, they were trying to define daenerys position in the story, and came to the conclusion she was the destroyer of the old world. In their point of view, dany didn't free the slaves in asos for pure reason but because she couldn't pay for an army, and then didn't know how to build a new economy, leading to the horrors in astapor in adwd and her failure in maintaining peace in meereen. For them, Dany is unable to control her emotion and confuse revenge with justice. They also think she is an incompetent queen who make decision on a whim and never listen to her adviser. Her relationship with Daario represent her want for easy solution through war, wich she embrace at the end of adwd. When she can't remember Hazzea name, it meant innocent would die in her violent path in twow. Because of this, the expression "the path of hell is paved with good intention" became popular to define her arc from asos to beyond.

For the second part, they were clearly interressed by the mystical part of her story. Dany has a lot of prophecy around her that can be used to determined the next plotlines post adwd. For some reason, they pushed their own obssession with it on Daenerys, who they now believed is blinded by her own destiny. They claimed she think she is the hero of story and is unable to see when she does something wrong. This until she will blow up King's Landing in ados. This would push her toward her true destiny in the fight against the others where she will sacrifice herself for the greater good.

And lets not talk about the weird part of the fandom who are obssessed with deconstruction and who would only acknowledge dany as azor ahai reborn if it meant the hero is actually the true villain of the story, and the Others misunderstood victims.

2015 arrive as well as season 5 of got. This season was so controversial it manage to divided the fandom in three.

The first one were book purist who were disguted by the total butchering of affc/adwd plotline to replace them with offensive mess, and decided to stop watching the show and focus on the books. While some of them were dany friendly, they all seem to favor character like Sansa, Stannis, Brienne, the Lannisters, or the Martells. A lot of effort were put into their metas to uplift their book plotline and personality above their show counterpart.

The second part is similar to the first one, exept they didn't stop watching the show but decided to view each season through critical lense to try to understand the sexism and racism of D&D. They were mostly Sansa and Martell stan.

Both of those point of view were seen as too radical and annoying by the dudebro show apologist. Being a Martell and Sansa stan also become a sign of being a woke feminist, a book purist and a show anti.

The third part of the fandom decided that the failure of season 5 was the responsability of Grrm for not finishing his books in time, and that the show writer had run out of material and were forced to improvised. Plus the book plots were too complex and boring to be adapted, they had to simplify them. And they were also given futur plot point by Grrm that could explain some of the controversial decision this season. Like Sansa wedding with Ramsay, it was probably made because the character would end up in the North in one of the next books.

Thoses three point of view are important to understand why when the theory saying dany is a villain not a hero became more popular, dany stan were pretty isolated.

And why did this theory became more popular? Well it's a mix of all thoses perception of daenerys that I mention above but mostly because of the peoples who decided that dany in season 5 was Joffrey.02. Like I say there were people who thought that D&D were now working with futur plot point given by Grrm. And since dany storyline was read as one of a white savior, and the fandom believed Grrm can't do no wrong, and dany did some stuff this season they disapproved of, they decided it meant dany should be seen as a villain. And in a way, it manage to reconciliate the feminist anti racist and the pro D&D point of view , now united in hating daenerys. It allowed them to still trust the show, because it meant it was not D&D and grrm who were racist but dany, and it made them feel smart for having figured out this big plot point. Plus a chunk of the show!jon stan decide the parallel between them this season meant he would become the true hero of the story. Because they thought janos execution was more honorable than mossador's, and jon fight against the wight walker to defend his brothers and the free folks was contrast with dany running away on drogon.

But there were people who didn't like dany and didn't think she would become a villain. Thoses people were feminist who thought daenerys, as the face of the show, was the embodiement of D&D fake feminism responsible of the ruined of character like Sansa or the Martells. Sansa in particular because they felt the show hated traditional feminity which is something Dany was not, which was what allegedly gave her more priviledge and love by the writer and fandom. When season 6 came out, they criticized the double standard between Cersei and Dany, where the former was demonized for burning a Church and the later was celebrate for burning the khals in their holy place. Obviously, the criticism of orientalism and racism within her story didn't make her very popular with feminist.

Season 6 end, and the sansa fandom decide to ship their fav with Jon Snow. But unfortunalty for them, it was obvious that jonerys would become a thing in later season.

Now Sansa was pretty well beloved by the fandom. Like I said earlier, the intellectual part of the fandom and the sansa defense squad really went out of their way to give a better image of the character, wich was fairly popular now that show sansa had a more active role. Plus the feminist adore her!

On the other hand, daenerys was seen as either a villain in the making, or the representation of the show fake feminism and racism. At this point dany stan were considered the dumbass of the fandom.

So, what happen when the jonerys vs jonsa shipping war happen? Well the jonerys shipper were seen as the big bully who victimized the poor sansa stan. Since in their point of view, dany stan were racist people who can't read, and the sansa stan were the woke book purist. Since Sansa was the underdog unfairly hated by the dudebro of the fandom, but beloved by the intellectuals. And Dany was the popular girl who got dumb stan and is only loved by pop feminism. People were naturally more incline into believing jonsa shippers as the victime of this war.

Even when the sansa stan were saying the most heinous things about dany and other female character to prop her up. Even when they were using the villain dany theory, the dark!dany theory, the white savior theory that had now become about dany being a colonizer and imperialist, or the ableist mad queen dany theory wich they backed up by diagnosis her with all the real life disorder they hated. It was seen as normal and dany stan just can't handle criticism. Even when multiple blog were created on tumblr to hate on daenerys which had almost no equivalent for the sansa/jonsa fandom, the jonerys shippers were the bad guys.

Jonerys was made canon in season 7. The intellectual part of the fandom either accept it but thought it was a cliche uninspiring ship, or they defend it for the themes but didn't see it as a complex relationship like jaime with cersei or brienne. The feminist, particulary the one who hated house targaryen, were shocked that grrm could romantize incest. And obviously, the jonsa hated it, and there ugliness started to be notice more with the weird theory they builted, like political!jon. The Jonerys fandom were finally getting some justice.

Plus more big name essayists in the fandom started debunking of the baseless incel hate dany receive post adwd. Dany had now the right to sleep with Daario, Jorah was a creep, Dany rejected Quentyn for peace, and Drogo being Dany rapist was getting more believed by the fandom.

During the hiatus before season season 8, @rainhadaenerys wrote down a lot of meta as a defense against the worst claimed that the fandom made about Dany. It gave hoped to dany stan, but it was crushed by season 8 with D&D deciding to make the mad queen theory canon the worst way possible.

Now the feminist and the intellectual part of the fandom are both defending daenerys. But there is the dominant idea that certain event of the last season could happen in the books, like dany burning King's Landing. And the possibility of her going insane should be accepted by the dany stan, and if not, it mean we are not real asoiaf fans.

[psyga315]

Prelude

With Volume 7 just beyond the horizon, I figured to look back at my thoughts for Volume 5 and, through more cooled down eyes, boil down why I consider it to be the worst volume of RWBY. When I wrote my review of Volume 5, it was literally the night the episode premiered, so I was boiling. But now? I’m going to look through the review with fresher eyes and clarify what sort of problems I had with RWBY.

First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least…

Shorts

The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did.

Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Ilia talks about her backstory as it is contrasted with a chase between Blake and a random dude we never see again. Assuming you’ve never watched the trailer, you’d just get the truncated version of “MUH PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAD!” and not the bits where she was forced to resent her own race because it was easier to blend in to her surroundings, like a chameleon. It’s ironic, since RWBY would do the reverse problem with Adam, where his trailer isn’t mandatory but we barely get a backstory for him beyond “I got branded, but everyone will speculate that it’s because I did something bad and not that it drove me to do bad things”.

Lastly, there’s Yang’s short, which had the minor hiccup of contrasting what an interview said about running out of Aura means you can’t use your Semblance. The Aura thing is something that can be discussed for another day, but the basics you should take away from this is that, for some time, people didn’t know how running out of Aura is symbolized. Most people take the flickering as the signal as the next hit on those guys are usually the one that does them in. As such, you had this huge debate on what kind of flickering means Aura broken and what just meant Aura is low, which, personally, could have been avoided if the writers and/or animators just utilized that Aura dust thing (seen prominently in the Bumblebee vs Adam fight) as their definitive “aura broken” animation instead of just using it some of the time.

First Episode

The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos.

And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here.

But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength.

Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action.

As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom.

The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there.

Episode 2

A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists?

Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do.

But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many.

And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all.

I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser.

But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan?

All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam.

It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character.

Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes.

Episode 3

Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight.

Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point?

We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt?

Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc.

Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth.

Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like:

“Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!”

Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him.

You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes.

Episode 4 and Episode 5

I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst.

But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential.

Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head.

It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?”

Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general.

You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water.

If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them?

Episode 6

Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like.

Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”.

What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!”

And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG!

Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid.

It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing.

Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this:

What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic?

You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing?

The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!?

“But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way.

Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video.

Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!”

Episodes 7-10

Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that.

Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid.

While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”.

Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”.

However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen.

The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake.

In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was…

Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send.

Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides.

Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing.

Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands.

In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched.

But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion.

No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted?

The Battle of Haven

But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him…

So let me cut it simply:

The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch.

We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it.

And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist.

And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle…

But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst.

I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him.

They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh.

The Point in All of This

Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age.

Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads.

And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume.

But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have.

Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane.

To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

[remember-no-more]

Hey ho ho ho!! Santa most extreme here! - Throws snow dust all over the place and dances- How are you today, my little amazing friends! I had a lot of fun reading yesterday's story! Dnd can certainly be amazing like that! When i take off the hat, maybe i can tell you some of my crazy shenanigans! But for today... Let's get spicy~ Who was Mimi's first love? Who was her last?? Is she currently in love? Share the spice with this Santa!

// Hey Snowdown buddy! It’s always so nice to hear from you ♥ I do hope we’ll remain in touch after the event ends! And of course, you must tell me about your own DnD adventures when you get the chance, I’m very curious about those~

I just hope you’ll forgive me for answering walls of text to every ask you send, but you have no idea of how excited I get to receive from you quq Thanks for making this Snowdown so special!  (I’ll put a TL;DR at the end, I’m really sorry!)

Things are proceeding calmly here. Long threads are mostly on hold on the blog but I returned to have some nice quick fun with fun-fact-asks and stuff, you might have seen some on the dash cx 

About me, welp, I kinda caught a cold, whoopsie! It’s not exactly fun to cough and have all the eyes on you, but I checked things and it’s not the virus, it’s just me being an irresponsible kid when it comes to clothing. I usually avoid taking medicine when I can, but I guess it’s time to start curing it before I get closed up in a room and the key gets thrown away! (Ahahah, jk. I don’t want others to worry for nothing.)

But enough about that, let’s give a little premise before answering the questions uvu

---VERY LONG ASS STORY

Mimi has a hella long story that was revolutioned by the canon lore updates. Most of what happened before that became nonsensical, especially after Noxus turned out to actually value mages a lot and Veigar never being imprisoned. The only way to not start over with her completely and not throw to the fire years of roleplay and character building was to actually consider the lore changes like an event that happened at some point in the timeline - see it like the movie Return to the Future :o something happens at some point and the future changes radically. 

The catch is that she is actually aware that she’s missing certain puzzle pieces about her past, many memories just disappeared or feel somehow wrong but there’s no way to solve the mystery without causing another paradox/reaching a dead end and a consequent reset of her timeline. However, there’s a reason if she’s not searching for answers anymore... and all of this deals with her first and last loves. Now we get to the juicy details~

Her first love was the Master of Evil himself. After fleeing Noxus when she was little more than a child, she learnt how to survive and took years to develop her magical skills on her own, then she tracked down the mage and offered him her unconditional support. She needed a guide and she wanted him to be it: old lore Veigar inspired her to act because he evaded from the prisons of Noxus, which were a far worse deal than just running away from home, and her idea of him was all she had left to hold onto when the rest was left behind. She was ready to do anything to achieve that, and none of the ones I roleplayed with rejected a free pawn. 

What happened with the one I ended up choosing as Mimi’s canon Veigar (the-primordialbust) was developed through years of roleplay. She earned his trust, he began to teach her things, he took her under her wing and eventually opened up to her, and she couldn’t be more happy about that. He even gifted her a soulstone to enhance her power at some point, the same kind of jewel he had on his staff - the one that justified the AP growth in-game according to his headcanons. At that point, she was so in love with him that she didn’t care about the price she had to pay to obtain it.

Then the changes happened, Veigar-mun actually abandoned the blog, so I reinvented Mimi to keep her alive. She still had the stone, she had no idea about how she got it or about what she did after she ran away from Noxus, and even the reasons that made her decide for that first life-changing event don’t feel exactly right according to history.

She began looking for answers. On the way, she met an ex Noxian soldier, a mercenary, and they spent a year knowing each other, fighting together and so on. He was one of the few that got to know her full name and see her actual human form after she polymorphed into a yordle for so long (something that, again, she kept doing because of unmotivated habit). They became friends with benefits, but he never knew she actually had feelings for him (and the mun actually found out just a few weeks ago, hah). 

When he found out about her quest to find out about a past that gave more and more hints about how dark it was and realized what the stone she kept actually was, he offered her his help to destroy the stone and free her from this burden, so that she could move on and live freely. She wouldn’t have accepted if it wasn’t him asking. 

Succeeding was risky and they both had to pay a toll for it. He sacrificed his runic attunement while her own spirit was lost in the process, but they both survived. About her, she’s still surviving without her own soul because undoing the tie to black magic allowed her runic attunement to flourish, especially making her able to dab the power of Life itself. Taking away her magic would turn her into a husk. This also makes her life expectancy on Runeterra much longer than she can imagine, but she has no idea about that yet. The downside of this is that her fate when she finally leaves this world is actually very unsure - she cannot exactly get to the Spirit World without an actual spirit, can she? 

But let’s return to love affairs!... he left right after they fixed this. She hasn’t forgotten him yet, but she is getting to know more people now. We shall see how things evolve~

---TL;DR

Canon lore changes messed everything up, so Mimi doesn’t remember about her first love being Veigar from the old lore universe! She abandoned the nation and her previous life to follow him after he escaped from the Noxian prisons, they bonded over the years, then everything went poof because suddenly Veigar never set foot in modern days Noxus! (And modern day Noxus doesn’t look down on mages anymore, but oh well *shrug*)

Her last love was a Noxian mercenary that helped her to get rid of the soulstone Veigar gifted her before the lore changes! He never realized she was in love with him and he left after he convinced her to abandon her memory holes/dark past and move on with life.

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Even Tales Have Happy Endings (Jaskier x reader, Part 7.)

Description: Geralt of Rivia isn’t always there to watch over Jaskier, his best, yet incapable bard friend. Sometimes, when the Witcher knows that there is bad blood between the bard and someone else, he writes a contract and offers a job - silently watching over Jaskier traveling the roads.

Part Summary: Some time has passed from the moment you've decided to stay by Jaskier's side - and everything looked unrealistic good. So that had to simply completely fuck up one day.

Warnings: Just fluff and a happy ending for once. 

A/N: Thank you for sticking with me and mister Jaskier until the very end! I already have another series (modern AU this time! Nice!) and a one-shot for @onlyhopebensolo​ planned, so be ready! ♥

Word count: 3.3 K

Tagging: @nemodoren​ @marioverthere​

Series master list: H E R E

Three months have gone by since the moment you and Jaskier had in the inn. From that moment, you have joined their two men party, following the two everywhere they went. You looked into the great city of Cintra, played Gwent with various merchants on the road and learned to speak some common elvish. You had fun and you were happy with that idiot, which simply radiated out of you. 

And you just fell in love with Jaskier’s way of making love - you loved to have sex and laugh during it, not keeping that serious face all the time. Plus, that man was just good with toys, which you kind of didn't understand, since Geralt told you how incapable he was with pick up lines. Where did he try those things? With who? No matter, you couldn't really choose better.

That night, Jaskier couldn't let his stare off of one woman, who was with him in the room. He just couldn't bring himself take his eyes off when he was playing his lute on various balls he took her and Geralt on. Well, it was more like Geralt took them on a ball as his guests of honor.

And most of the time, people clapped and cheered for Jaskier to play for them so much, that he was practically forced to. He was the famous traveling bard who befriended the most famous Witcher of Kaer Morhen after all.  But even if he was willing to play a song or two for them, as he marched through the halls with his lute, he never looked away from you. Not even for a second.

When he played a song, it was only to make you smile and happy. When he couldn't archive that, he didn't want to play. But when you enjoyed Jaskier's shrieks, you danced with literally anyone who wanted to dance with you. Nobles, villagers, knights, princesses, lords - you didn't care. When you danced, you and your dancing partner were only two human beings. Sometimes, when Geralt got drunk enough, you made him dance as well.

"If you like that woman, you should tell her." - Countess de Stael, Jaskier's ex-love interest, leaned to him with her hand in a pretty nasty place. Jaskier nervously chuckled and moved further from away from her. He didn't wish to be touched, yet he still didn't want her to be offended. - "What's wrong with you, Jaskier? We haven't seen each other for months, if not years... Aren't you excited to see me? Not a single bit?"

De Stael was a smart and beautiful woman, that was for sure. She also was a heartbreaker, that needed to be said as well. Jaskier thought many, many times that she's his only true love and even more times he told to Geralt that he shall die a brokenhearted man. She always came back to Jaskier when she was bored, up for some fun and mingling. Normally, he always fell under her spell once again.

But at the moment, Jaskier had a girlfriend and a blossoming relationship.

His girl was a badass per se. She would rip off de Stael's wig out of her hair, maybe even with the hair Countess had in the process and punched countess right into her teeth.

Y/N was in secret a serious sucker for Jaskier, but she couldn't be messed around with, no matter how much she fell in love with him. And if de Steal was about to tempt his girlfriend, he knew that countess would most probably end up with a few bruises, smudged make-up, ripped dress and hair ripped off from her head.

The truth was that he was a sucker for Y/N as well. No matter how hard he tried not to fall under her spell as fast as he did, the longer he knew her, the stronger the feelings were. That thing kind of terrified Jaskier, since Y\N was an epitome of Geralt - if Geralt was a woman.

Y/N was a killing machine when it had to be put nicely, who knew all the assassination techniques by heart but was also good at torturing. When she and Jaskier had a conversation, it was mostly him talking and she responding with hums and completely uninterested face. But she could do something Geralt never did - she was radically helping Jaskier with his panic attacks.

Most of the time, she slapped him out of the blue when he was yelling and widening his eyes, while she was able to still looking completely uninterested. Then she usually asked him if they can finally do something helpful? The worst part about all of that was that Geralt approved her with every finger he had. They became friends instantly - and Y/N could sometimes even make the Witcher laugh when it was one of the better days.

Sometimes Jaskier wondered whose girlfriend she even is since she was mostly non-affectionate in the public with the bard. Most of the time, he could find her admiring some new swords or gear with Geralt, other times they two of them were sitting on a bench in an inn and giggled about something she was whispering to him. Geralt even took her on his monster hunts - because she can protect her damn ass, Jaskier, it's not personal, Geralt usually told Jaskier calmly when he snapped at the Witcher for being with his girlfriend more than the bard himself. And really, there was nothing than a simple friendship of two professional killers between you and Geralt.

At the end of the day, the door to Jaskier's room always opened and Y/N stood there with a small smile, watching Jaskier doing his stuff while he pretended that he's mad at her. After that, she usually persuaded him not to be mad at her with a bunch of kisses, leading him to the bed.

Jesus, she was everything he ever wished for but didn't know about any of that until the very day he met Y/N. It was almost like the law of surprise.

"I'm fine, Countess. And that girl? She's going to be my wife, yet she doesn't know about it. She's my muse, walking grace and beauty." - Jaskier smiled at de Stael and looked at Y/N again, slowly grazing over her silver dress and stylist hairstyle full of braids and flowers. You were just whispering something to Geralt and then you laughed out loud, while Geralt only hid his chuckle into a pint of ale before his humming voice responded quietly.

"She doesn't seem too interested, baby boy." - De Stael whispered and moved back to Jaskier again, her body touching his as she leaned to kiss his cheek. De Stael was also older than Jaskier a few good years. - "But I'm here, right next to you, and I'm almost burning up. You have a new jacket and I'm wondering... How would it look on the floor of my room? What do you say?"

"He doesn't exactly accept offers from whores, you know?" - All of a sudden, you appeared next to the two of them. Countess gasped at your words, not being able to form any response. You were giving Jaskier a lot of space to flirt, a serious lot, but you wouldn't let anyone touch your man in ways only you could. - "Now swim away, sailor, or I'll kick your ass. And as for you..."

"Excuse you! I am a Countess while you're... You're a peasant and maybe even less than that! I want you to apologize, now." - Countess stood up and straightened up as she tried to scare you. But you just giggled and looked at Jaskier, not taking a single bit of her shit seriously.

"So you're practically sucking his cock and I have to apologize. A funny world it is these days, isn't that right? And Jaskier... I just want you to play for me. Pretty please?" - You smiled and made those pretty doll eyes Jaskier was a fool for. Also, he could clearly say that you're drunk at that point. But Jaskier just smiled gently and nodded at your request. As a response, you leaned your hands to the table and leaned in towards Jaskier to take his jaw in your palm and kissed him with a giggle.

You behaved like a normal human being when you were drunk, just as Geralt did. But at least, he was a lightweight compared to you. That was caused by the trials he endured - he was more resistant towards illnesses and other things, but his body just couldn't handle alcohol well. So to get this drunk, you needed to drink at least a half barrel of ale. Or combine ale with wine, champagne or beer.

And you kissed him in front of everyone, just like that, out of the blue. And he couldn't but smile into that kiss. Your kisses were always the sweetest, tasting like honey and alcohol. When you leaned away, Countess was stunned and wordless. So, apparently, you really did know each other. And apparently, you had the implied relationship.

Before you moved to the dancefloor, you gave de Stael a victorious look that told her to stay away from your fucking man. Also, it gave her a clear warning. But after that, you smiled at Jaskier once again before your steps lead to the dancefloor.

Geralt was just speaking with the noble who invited all of you to the ball when some man took your hands as he listened to the fast rhythm of Jaskier and his band. You were excited to hear such a fast and energetic song since, at that moment, you wanted nothing more than to dance.

You were spinning around, laughing, until more and more people actually joined in, forming two rows. You went from arms to arms, from man to another one, once you even spun around a very nice lady, as you needed to point out.

It almost made you freak out when even Geralt joined the party and asked you for a dance as well. You felt completely fine when you spun and moved, you weren't dizzy... You were doing just fine. It was just after Geralt let go of you when you bent forward and puked the hell out your stomach. Everything went out m, all the food, all the ale you've drunk throughout the night.

The looks were just insane and the silence in the hall felt almost deafening. Everyone was almost disgusted, but Geralt just took you and led you on the balcony so you could catch some fresh, cold air. You felt very sober all of a sudden.

"What the fuck happened back there?" - You freaked out, asking yourself more than the Witcher. Your palms circled around the stone which was the balcony made of and exhaled out loud, accepting a tumbler of water which Geralt was giving you. The maids already started to clean up the things which came out of you - and it looked nasty.

"It makes sense now." - Geralt said simply without explaining to you, watching the city below you. You didn't ask what he was thinking about - you knew Geralt will gladly tell you by himself. - "Your hormonal trail change. To put it nicely... You smell different. And your moods change like the weather. I saw you crying yesterday. And kissing Jaskier just like that? That isn't you either."

"If you're implying that I'm pregnant, it can be anything, really. Maybe the food was poisoned. I have a lot of enemies. Or my stomach couldn't handle the alcohol. Maybe I'm just ill." - You shook your shoulders and laughed nervously to Geralt's ear. Could he be right though?

"I don't really think so. I'm usually right at those things." - Geralt smiled at you sadly. Of course, he was sure - he was a Witcher witch enhanced hearing, vision better than everyone else's and his smell couldn't be compared to anything. That was the moment when Jaskier made it on the balcony as well.

"Is everything alright? Is my dear one possessed by a demon or cursed, poisoned... What's wrong?" - Well, Jaskier was surely panicking more than you. Without hesitation, you snapped at the bard, slapping the ass off of him. Your eyes widened dangerously when you pointed at him.

"How dare you asking me?" - You stuttered. You and a child. Jaskier and a child. Holy shit, you two were fucked. That almost made you puke again. Jaskier looked at Geralt with confusion and saw the amusement on his friend's face. Then the Witcher left, leaving you two all alone, giving you the space to talk.

"I sure don't know what have I done or if I brought you some ailing, my love." - Jaskier smoothed your hand, slowly and gently, with affection. - "I'm sorry in advance."

"How about you doing a small baby? Hm? How can you excuse that in advance?" - You looked right at him. For a moment, Jaskier was still quiet, but his hand didn't move away from yours, still holding it. He looked too calm, or you just thought so, when you were completely freaking out.

"I will simply say sorry and..." - His lips slowly kissed your knuckles with a slight smile while he still thought about his next words. - "And I'll stay for the other ten or twenty years. Would you count that as an excuse in advance?"

Those words genuinely surprised you. You expected that Jaskier will tell you that you should find a healer to have an abortion potion or something. This bard had crawled under almost every noble skin on the Continent. Maybe he had a few brats here and there already.

You just fucking knew that you will be bad parents - or at least you had the feeling that you won't be the good ones. The baby was in mortal danger when it was conceived by you two. Jaskier was irresponsible, charming and traveling bard while you two... Well...

"You motherfucker." - You muttered out. Well. You should be freaking out like crazy. You should be yelling, most likely furious. But somehow, his words made you calm. This maybe wasn't such a one night stand after all.

"I sure am one now, ma'am." - Jaskier kissed your cheek before grinning a bit, pointing to the water. You did as he told you and drank a bit. - "Hey. We'll make it work... Somehow. It will be bloody hard, but we managed so far, didn't we? How hard can raise a child to be, hm? It is too late to propose?"

With that, the bard sealed his destiny. Just as he told you, he proposed to you on the ball. Even if you puked the whole floor, the people were pretty much surprised and the ladies almost cried when Jaskier had his speech about you being the brightest point of his life that came by thanks to his very best friend. You cried as well - but blamed it on the clear hormonal change. Geralt didn't say anything, just grinned.

The wedding was quite small - but you insisted on it since you were always taught that children should come into a complete family. And you didn't want them to end up like you. To be honest, there was only you, Jaskier and Geralt, since it was that five-minute thing in a chapel down the road. Nonetheless, you were truly happy at that moment. You even got a beautiful, big ring with a magical stone - you still thought that Geralt stole it from some bandit's chest. It was just perfect and you even took his surname, becoming a Pankratz in the end.

Abramka was born six months after that moment. You didn't exactly believe that you will ever be good parents, but something just... Struck you when the midwife put that little baby covered in a blanket to your arms, you just broke down in tears as you kissed the baby on its cheek. You were shaking - and Jaskier was acting just crazy. She looked just like you, having his eyes - which didn't change a bit throughout the years. She was your beautiful baby girl all the way - she wasn't as artsy as her father and she definitely did not incline to the role of women at that age.

The girl wasn't inclined to ballads, pretty stories, paintings, dresses, and make-up or playing with dolls as the girls her age did. She completely fell in love with swords and bows, just like mommy did when she was at her age. And uncle Geralt was a great practice dummy when mummy taught her how to kill with the smallest amount of moves. Another Witcher uncle, uncle Vesemir, completely adored that child. She wanted to become Witcher so hard, but overall you would say, time at Kaer Morhen, especially during winter, was the happiest of your life. 

That was also where you gave birth the second time - and let's just say that you yelling at a bunch of Witchers who were terrified, pretending to be the midwives before Geralt actually came back with one, that was one of the funniest things that ever happened at the School of the Wolf.

The second child was really redemption for Jaskier since his little baby girl was a bloodthirsting beast just as his best friend and his wife - even if you yelled that there won't be another baby when the first was coming out. Warsz was born when Abramka was six years old, with the help of the Witchers. And this boy was an extremely talented artist. He loved to tell tales and play lute alongside his father. That boy was the most artistic person you've ever seen. It didn't strike you that much when you found out that he is inclined to fall in love with men. He got his first boyfriend when he was only fifteen years old.

The last child you had was named Radovan and that boy wanted to be a knight since he was very young. He wanted it so bad. But that boy, oh dear, he was not very clever. He really tried his best to pass every challenge that was put in front of him. Over time, he truly became one, but that boy still was dumb. Yet, you still loved him and supported him, since you were his mother.

Your family never exactly was in one place for too long - Jaskier was still a best friend to Geralt of Rivia, or at least he was telling that he was one, and he was a traveling bard. The longest you’ve ever stayed somewhere was when you lived on Kaer Morhen for two years.

In the end, when you took a good look back at your life, it was truly a beautiful one. You never dreamed about having so much adventure and fun. You truly lived your fullest, sometimes you drank your ass off, sometimes you laid all day in bed, surrounded by your beloved children, next to your husband while sometimes you hiked and slain monsters with Geralt.

So when you got old, you knew that your life was leaving a huge legacy behind. As time passed, your hair got grey and there were wrinkles in your face. You and Julian found a small cabin not too far from the sea and there you settled down when you couldn't exactly take any more contracts or travel big distances. But you still were mad at Geralt, since he was still as young as he was when you met him.

FIN

[arlingtonpark]

Frozen 2 Review

You know, I’m starting to notice a trend with me and these Disney kid’s movies: I don’t like them.

And not because I’m not a kid, but because they really are badly written.

I’ll start with what I liked.

The animation was great, like in all Disney movies. Animation for Disney is like John Williams’ music in Star Wars - it’s good no matter what movie it is.

The song sequences, taken on their own, were show stopping. The action was grand, the singing was commanding, and the visuals were gorgeous.

…OK, now on to the stuff I didn’t like.

The movie starts off with Anna and Elsa playing together as kids. You know, before Elsa almost killed Anna. I don’t think this is bad per se, but I do think it undermines the gay subtext people read into Elsa’s character, and I’m sure lot of people will see that as bad, so I’m putting this in the “bad” section of this post.

Why do people read Elsa as a lesbian? Because she has to hide her powers, the thing that makes her different, like how gay people have to hide their gayness.

This has always been the case, but this movie really reinforces it: Elsa was only forced to hide her powers after she showed the capacity to harm others with them.

In other stories, people with superpowers have to hide those powers because they have powers, not because they can harm people with them. It’s about the power itself, not the burden of having them. This is a good metaphor for things like homosexuality.

In Frozen, things are kind of a mess. Elsa was forced “into the closet” because of the demonstrable harm she posed to others, not because she had the powers to begin with. Frozen 2 emphasizes this point: Elsa’s parents were accepting of her powers up until she showed they could be used to harm others.

Gay people are forced to hide themselves because people in polite society are expected to conform to certain standards. There is an element of rejecting nonconformity in Frozen. In that movie, people see Elsa using her powers and dub it witchcraft.

So there are some elements to the movie that support an LGBT metaphor, but other elements contradict that reading, so it all ends up being a big mess.

Frozen 2 is about how different groups need to get along and how past wrongs need to be made right.

The story opens with some storytime by Elsa and Anna’s dad:

Anna and Elsa’s granddad made contact with an indigenous group of people called the Northuldra. These Northuldra were not magical, but they were able to harness the magic that was endemic to their land.

Granddaddy had a dam built in the Northuldra’s territory as a peace offering. But during a celebration of its completion, a fight broke out and grandad was killed. Why the fight happened is unknown, but the forest spirits were angered and a mist overcast the whole region, locking it away.

And that is how Elsa and Anna’s dad became the king.

Seriously. That’s the payoff to the king’s story. Interethnic conflict and it’s all setup for how he got his cool hat.

I think that was smart!

Lots of awful historical events are glossed over for the sake of relatively trivial bullshit. I mean, I’m writing this on Thanksgiving. A holiday about being thankful is great! But the peace between colonists and natives that this holiday is built around is negated by…how there was no peace in the end. We all understand that on some level, right?

So I think this is a cool nod to how historical events, even historical atrocities, are mythologized.

The motivator for our heroes is uncovering the true history of Arendelle so the angry forest spirits can be calmed.

The true history is this:

Grandad actually hated the Northuldra. He built the dam to make them a vassal of his kingdom…somehow.

The ceremony was just a way for him to size up the Northuldra and determine their strength. He was the one who started the fight.

So…

Why did grandad use the ceremony to size up the Northuldra if that same ceremony was a trap to…kill them all, I guess?

Grandad uses the ceremony to learn of their numbers and strength, the same ceremony he uses to kill their leader and incite a conflict. You’d think the king would have learned the Northuldra’s numbers and strength before this. Just, you know, in the course of interacting with them and coordinating construction of the dam.

And why did King Grandad go to all the trouble of building the dam if he was just going to start a war with the Northuldra?

That’s a big ass dam! The king had it built and for what? Was he going to enslave them? That hardly seems worth it.

I guess the king was just a greedy bastard, but…he’s barely a character at all, so it’s just bad writing.

The point, though, is that the past!Arendellites did something awful and this needs to be set right. The dam still stands and its existence angers the forest spirits. But if the dam is destroyed, the water behind it will flood the area and destroy Arendelle.

So……

Arendellites of the past are big meanie heads.

This has repercussions through to the present.

This has to be made right.

That means destroying Arendelle.

Is this supposed to be applicable to our world?

White people of the past are big meanie heads.

This has repercussions through to the present.

This has to be made right.

That means…destroying white people?

Yes, the institution of racism still exists, and yes, that has to be made right. But no one is saying white people have to lose their homes. What is this movie even talking about?

Radical leftists, the ones who aren’t shitheads, want to sweep away the current order, but that’s because they want to replace it with a new one.

Reparative action means destroying the old order to replace it with a better one. This movie casts reparative action as just destructive.

I like to think of this as being like global warming. Many people think that to fight global warming we have to basically ruin our lives and sacrifice economic growth. We need to give up all our environmentally harmful practices and this basically means living Extreme Paleo. It’s that or a world with no ice caps.

But that’s not true. We don’t have to make that choice. We can have an environmentally sustainable economy and be just as prosperous as we’ve always been.

This movie seems to believe that making amends for the past requires some sacrifice by the descendants of the perpetrators.

If the racial hierarchy were destroyed, white people would no longer benefit from it, so in that sense they would lose out, but that’s not the same thing as losing your home!

The movie is clearly a commentary. It tries soooo hard to be topical and relevant; it only succeeds in being irreverent.

Why do the people at Disney keep trying to talk about racism? They suck at it! They have no idea what they’re talking about.

First Zootopia, now this. They keep trying and trying; I wish they’d stop.

Do they have any self-awareness? If they did, they’d realize they’re just confusing children with these badly designed messages.  

The movie tries to be a social commentary. It does so by elucidating a dilemma that doesn’t exist. There is no trade-off between righting the past and continuing our livelihoods.

Ah, but you see, this movie is multilayered in how bad it is.

In the end, Anna decides to destroy the dam, Arendelle be damned. The dam breaks and the kingdom is about to be swamped.

And then, in an almost literal deus ex machina, Elsa swoops in on a magical contraption and uses her powers to BS the tension away.

So………

On one level we have the silly trade-off the movie proposes. Do the next right thing and fix racism, but lose your home. (If this movie were a person, it’d be an old man yelling at clouds.)

On another level, if we take this proposal for granted, we’ve got a completely uninspired message about how doing what’s right will never backfire on you.

*vomits*

Returning to the social commentary level, this means the message is that we need magic to solve the dilemma that doesn’t actually exist.

We need a special, almost magical someone who can BS away all the BS sacrifices white people need to make to right the sins of their ancestors.

(It’s not just the politics, this movie is poorly thought out in general.)

This movie has a very unsubtle theme about change. It’s so horribly done, I can’t believe it’s real.

By the end of the movie, Anna is queen now and Elsa decides to live with the Northuldra. That’s the only meaningful change and the implications of it are not shown to us.

The movie ignores the burdens of statecraft, so how much being queen now affects Anna’s life isn’t important to the narrative.

And we don’t see much of Elsa’s new life either. All we see is her frolicking on horseback through a field with a wide smile on her face. Really.

Elsa struggles with alienation in this movie, except we don’t really see it. We are told that she feels out of place, but there’s nothing in the movie to suggest a fundamental disconnect between Elsa and everyone else.

I mean, I get that Elsa’s magical and Arendelle isn’t, but Elsa doesn’t seem unhappy when the film picks up. Whatever angst she has in the first act is because of the voice she’s hearing. If she feels that Arendelle is a poor fit for her, it wasn’t communicated well.

This is to say that Frozen 2 is only tepidly about the dynamism of life. There’s no change for the worse, and what change for the better there is lacks gravitas.

Elsa’s decision to live amongst the Northuldra is another example of the writers not paying attention.

Another attempted example of change occurring is the unification of the Northuldra and Arendelle. A statue of Elsa and Anna’s parents, who it turns out were each from one of the groups, is erected to commemorate this newfound unity. Anna remarks that the races have “finally” been united.

Unfortunately, the implications of this unity are not shown, so it’s all meaningless.

You would think there would be an exchange of ideas between the two groups. Things like music, food, ideals, etc. We don’t see that. So the change that this movie talks a lot about just isn’t there.

Back to Elsa living with the Northuldra, I take it as implying that there won’t be much real coexistence between the Arendellites and the Northuldra. Because if there were a real cultural exchange, I don’t think Elsa would’ve made the move.

She felt she had to live with the Northuldra to feel more at home. This implies there will continue to be a meaningful disconnect between the two groups.

Instead of Elsa moving, why can’t the people of Arendelle integrate magic into their daily lives like the Northuldra?

Are human settlements just inherently anti-magical?

That’s problematic, because the Northuldra in general smack of being noble savages.

The noble savage trope is a stereotypical depiction of native peoples. The stereotype is that natives have a primitive way of life that lets them be one with nature. It romanticizes native culture.

Frozen 2 leans very heavily on the noble savage trope to communicate its ideas. The Northuldra are one with nature, but this is disrupted when the dam is built. Human civilization is a taint upon the Northuldra’s communion with nature, as represented by the forest spirits.

The whole point behind the noble savage trope is that the native way of life is uncorrupted by human civilization.

Exactly how the dam’s existence is a blight is never explained; the movie uses the noble savage trope as a cheat to get across why the dam is a bad thing.

“Why is the dam bad?”

“Uh, er, well, it’s civilization!”

The movie tries to be about how the races need to coexist, even as it sets one side up as being superior to the other, while showing no sharing of ideas or even goods.

In Frozen 2, “coexistence” means separate but equal.

This movie tries to do a lot.

There’s an arc for Anna about doing the next right thing, an arc for Kristoff and Anna about getting married, the social commentary about uncovering the true history and atoning for past misdeeds, and two major arcs for Elsa. One about her feeling alienated and another about her having this savior complex. She thinks she has to be the one to save everyone.

Subsequently, many plot beats feel half-baked and rushed. Elsa’s alienation wasn’t really established. Anna’s decision to destroy the dam wasn’t dwelled upon, so it didn’t have the emotional weight it could have.

Elsa’s arc about trying to go it alone is very badly handled.

The point of the arc is that teamwork is golden and relying on your powers is as valuable as a shiny penny.

But once again, it is clear the writers aren’t paying attention. One scene in particular was a galaxy brain fuck up.

A forest fire breaks out and Elsa tries to put it out. Anna jumps in because it looks like Elsa is going to be overwhelmed. You would think that Anna will get Elsa to drop putting the fire out and save herself.

But nope.

Anna is the one who needs to be bailed out. Elsa successfully puts the fire out.

Just, ugggghhhh.

Then later on, some rock giants are lumbering about and everyone has to avoid their notice. But Elsa tries to go off on her own again and follow them.

Because she thinks she can tame them.

Huh???

Elsa’s arc here is about teamwork, but trying to tame these things is just a stupid idea. With following the voice, it’s clear they have to do it if they want to get things to normal. It’s their mission.

Why tame rock giants?

The problem with this moment is that Elsa isn’t just being arrogant, she’s being an idiot.

Then we get to the finale and Elsa’s arc about teamwork just peters out and isn’t a factor in it. Everyone has a role to play in the climax, but it’s all serendipitous.

The kind of teamwork the movie tries to uphold up to this point entails not just trusting other people, but actually working together.  

They learn they have to venture into the unknown. Elsa tries to go alone, but relents when Anna argues she should go too.

Later, Elsa tries to go alone to the mystery river and sends Anna away against her will. This is presented as a bad thing.

The lesson, so far, seemed to be that you can’t go it alone.

In the finale, they all go it alone while still working with each other. The finale emphasizes trust, while the rest of the movie emphasizes actual teamwork.  

It’s not that they’re all a team working together, it’s more like they’re all playing off each other and making it up as they go.

Elsa learns the true history and communicates it to Anna.

Anna takes it upon herself to go dambusting.

Kristoff helps, but he doesn’t know what’s going on. Teamwork implies everyone is of the same mind. That’s not the case here.

The guards try to stop Anna, but they eventually choose to trust that this is the right thing to do. They don’t really know what’s going on either.

Then, just to really drive home how much they don’t care, at the very end Elsa uses her powers to save everyone singlehandedly.

Because you can’t go it alone.

You can’t just rely on your own power.

Every bridge has two sides, so even Elsa needs help from others.

(That bridge metaphor is the dumbest line in the whole movie.)

The people behind this movie obviously didn’t care. They put no thought in this. See Kristoff’s in-movie MTV music video.

Yes, really, that happened. In it, Kristoff laments being unable to really connect with Anna.

I’m about to sing a song lamenting the future of this franchise.

[ackbang]

tea time for eruriweek ‘18. prompt: enemies to lovers

they had met for the first time on a friday night--erwin’s typical raid night. it had gone like any ordinary night--hange scrambling to find fill ins as some players dropped out last minute. it had been like any other night, except levi had joined and fucking ruined it all.

erwin had learned then to never trust rogues again. 

he yelled at hange after the raid, had to leave the house and go for a drive to blow off steam. how could he have made such a mockery out of this? playing was his release. his activity. his way of dealing with things. and then this fucking night elf rogue piece of shit fucking twat ass mother fucker just stomps on through and doesn’t at all... AT ALL... follow their plans.

fuck rogues.

apparently levi hadn’t been delivered the message that following friday. he appeared again in their group, and erwin whispered angrily at hange asking what the fuck he was doing there. “he’s going through some shit right now man just chill,” hange wrote back.

erwin festered. he quipped snarky messages at levi the entire night whenever he messed anything up to the point that hange had to tell him to cut the shit or they’d kick him out. he tried to behave, until levi started to whisper lines of backstreet boys songs at him, and consequently, being a thorn in the raid’s side once again.

erwin was kicked out.

the weeks continued until finally levi was invited to their discord channel. apparently the rogue had solidified a place within their ranks, and with it, a seat among the commune of online friends. erwin was in the voice chat when he heard the harsh barking of a laugh coming from a screenname he didn’t recognize.

“who’s grabasnickers?” erwin asked.

“i dunno, but i might run and hide if you scream my name.”

erwin was kicked out of the voice chat.

levi was an annoyance, a nuisance, but then one day he did something remarkable. he played right, and he played well. he saved erwin during a critical moment in battle, allowing him to heal the tank that, in the end, saved all their asses. it was the first completely successful raid in weeks with this makeshift group of misfits, and erwin, being the bigger man, whispered at levi to thank him.

levi: np

erwin: no seriously, thank you. maybe i have misjudged you.

levi: it’s just a game, weirdo.

the self imposed tension started to alleviate after that. erwin responded to levi in the chats, even struck conversation with levi in the voice chats, and they quickly became the pair that stole and derailed the conversations from the rest of the group.

erwin sent the friend invite first.

erwin: hey. thanks for accepting my request.

levi: whatever. you aren’t as uptight as i thought you were. still p uptight tho

erwin: hahah. well, thank you.

talking to levi became a regular thing. erwin asked levi if he wanted to quest together when the new expansion dropped, and levi agreed. they spent the entire weekend void of sleep and beat the expansion in record time. erwin’s voice was hoarse from laughing and talking for so long, and he went to bed that night afraid that he might actually feel something for that little rogue night elf.

work was just a way to pay the bills now. getting home to spend the night talking to levi gave him a new purpose outside of his routine. they stayed up until the early morning talking, even after they had logged off the game. levi gave him his phone number. they started texting. erwin got the courage to send him a selfie at a very particular angle, one that showed just his shoulders and up and made his nose look reasonably sized. levi returned with a darkly cropped selfie where erwin could only see a pair of tired eyes in a sea of black.

erwin definitely, completely, and totally had a crush.

the discord chat’s secret santa came around, and erwin managed to get paired with levi. he spent three times as long shopping for levi as he did the rest of his friends and family, despite it having to be restricted to twenty dollars. he waited anxiously for levi to receive the package, until he finally got a text message three days before christmas.

levi: wth

erwin: what’s up?

levi: why did you send me a candy pooping unicorn?

erwin: do you not like it?

levi: you’re disgusting

erwin: you love it.

levi: sure we’ll go with that

a few minutes pass.

levi: thank you

several months pass, and memorial day hits. erwin hasn’t taken a vacation in almost two years--or at least one that didn’t involve leaving the state. erwin got the wild idea some time ago of visiting levi. he staved off of asking--he’d never met anyone from online before, and levi wasn’t particularly the type of person to hang out with much of anybody from what he had told erwin. but talking to levi hurt his heart too much, not being able to see or touch him, see him smile, watch the way he eats, how he would tuck the hair behind his ear... he wanted to see it. to be there.

“i don’t know if this is weird...”

“oi, just spit it out, dumbass.”

erwin chuckled, rubbed his eye with his index finger and shook his head at his screen. “i have some vacation time coming up. i’m not sure what to do--would i be able to maybe... would you...” the words caught, and normally he was so composed. “can i...”

“erwin.”

“can i visit you?”

the silence was deafening, and erwin kept his eyes on the clock. only a minute passed, but it felt like an eternity. “i live with my mom.”

erwin breathed out a laugh. “oh.”

“i mean...”

“i can just...”

“i don’t think she’d care.”

“i can stay at a hotel nearby.”

“that’s dumb. i’ll ask if you can stay here.”

erwin rubbed at his forehead, tried to dash away radical fantasies of kissing levi, touching him, making love to him. they were just friends, what the fuck was he thinking those things anyway? “only if you want...”

“i don’t see why not.”

they solidify the plans. levi’s mom doesn’t care, as he had said. erwin loaded the car and embarked on the longest roadtrip he’d ever taken alone--five hours and three states away. he made it to levi’s house and parked in the driveway next to levi’s mother’s car. he rested his forehead on the steering wheel and curbed a panic attack that he hadn’t had since he started talking to levi. he was about to start the car again and turn right back around, until he heard a knock on his car window. he startled and looked out the window, wide-eyed and terrified like a deer in headlights.

levi waved at him.

erwin gasped in.

he was much shorter than he thought he’d be.

“you comin’ in or...”

erwin sealed his lips, smiled, and nodded. it was now or never. “yeah,” he shouted through the window.

he regretted everything. sending the friend invite. talking to levi all these months. sending him that stupid fucking unicorn. he hated his crush, he hated how levi, in all his hobbit-sized glory, was exactly what he never knew he wanted.

and levi was going to be disgusted in him.

he stepped out of the car and kept his right side close to the car.

“do you need help with your stuff?” levi asked.

“n-no, i can handle it. i--”

“oh.” erwin looked down at levi who was staring at the empty sleeve of his right arm. the damned secret that erwin never told anybody online; one he definitely didn’t want to tell levi, and now he felt like a damn fool for being too afraid to. levi seemed to be moving through many thoughts before finally landing on: “you’re a lot taller than i thought you’d be.”

and that was the moment erwin fell in love with levi.

the long weekend with levi and his mother was a treat. levi showed erwin around his hometown, even paid for their movie that he had jokingly called a “date”, and erwin so badly wanted it not to be. levi filled the space on his right side like he was always meant to be there. he tried to burn the feeling in his mind along with the soft smiles and the hiccuping laugh and the way that he always smelled like fresh detergent.

the last night, they spent on the couch, like a pair of teenagers despite being in their early thirties. levi leaned into erwin’s left side, and erwin lifted his arm and wrapped it around levi’s shoulders.

“i hate this movie,” levi mused.

erwin chuckled. “we don’t need to keep watching it.”

levi snuggled deeper into erwin’s side. “nah.”

erwin smiled and squeezed his hand against levi’s bicep.

the next day, erwin packed up his car and stood before levi, a heavy weight dragging his heart into the pit of his stomach. he couldn’t remember the last time he had this much fun, and he knew, without a doubt, he was going to miss the fuck out of levi.

“thank you for having me.”

“thanks for coming.”

awkward silence.

“i--” they say at the same time.

“we can--” they say again, like a terrible sitcom.

“let me know when you get home,” levi said, bringing the string of his hoodie to his mouth, as he did when he was nervous, erwin had discovered.

“yes, of course,” erwin said, edging his fingers under the car door handle.

“and uh,” levi swayed and moved in toward erwin. “it was... nice having you.” 

“maybe i can do it again sometime?” erwin smiled softly.

levi’s voice was low. he nodded once. “that’d be cool.”

erwin opened the car door and stepped one foot in before levi took his arm and tugged. “i... wait.”

erwin paused. “what is it, levi?”

“i...” levi looked away, his neck shrinking more into his hoodie, a dusting of pink capturing his cheeks. “i dunno... what... i just... fuck.” he breathed out. erwin stood straight. “i’ve never liked anybody before.” levi said so quietly it was nearly inaudible. but erwin caught every word, and felt them in his own throat. “and i think... i...”

erwin put his hand on levi’s shoulder, bowed his head and pressed his lips firmly to levi’s cheek. he breathed in the cleanness of his hair, the smell of his shaving cream, the warmth of his skin. his heart railed in his chest and it nearly breakout and onto the ground to die like a fish. he couldn’t believe he was doing this... he couldn’t...

levi moved his head, looked hesitantly into erwin’s eyes, eyebrows upturned in fear, as he clumsily met his lips to erwin’s, puckered and nervous and quick. levi retreated, putting one hand up to his face, his whole body shaking as he breathed out. “sorry, i’m sorry. fuck. what the fuck.”

the feeling of levi had smacked erwin upside the head, and he tried to gather his own breath. “w.. what? for what?” erwin reached out and put his hand on levi’s shoulder again. “i like you too.” he smiled. “you’re fine. thank you.”

levi looked up at him, his oversized hoodie making him look smaller than he already was. “you sure?”

“i’ve never been more certain.”

“i’m not...”

“may i have another? for the road?” the grin hadn’t dissolved.

levi looked at erwin, then at his lips, and nodded. he leaned in and kissed again, still awkward, but they were softer now, and god, erwin was on cloud 9 even after it ended. “d... drive safe.”

“thank you,” erwin said, stepping one leg into the driver’s seat again. he looked up at levi once he was seated. “i’ll see you soon?”

“yeah,” levi nodded, smiling now, toothy and just criminally adorable. “yeah yeah. get the fuck outta here.”

“aye aye.” erwin closed the door, started the car, and backed out of the driveway. he stopped the car to safely wave at levi before driving off. 

and for five hours he relived every moment of his trip with a smile on his lips.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

No Comicstorian, Marvel DOESN’T need a reboot Part 2: Miles Morales isn’t the whole Marvel Universe

I continue to debunk the BS of this video about Spider-Man/Marvel needing a reboot as proven by Spidey PS4.

 This time out we handle the bulk of his points and learn that really this is all about how he feels about Miles Morales.

What is Comicstorian’s next point.

 “In Marvel’s rolling timeline they move the events of the pas forward in time and update stuff to it like how Flash Thompson was a bully like in the 1960s stories but it was now because of his Dad”

 That isn’t an update and that has nothing to do with a rolling timeline. That’s a flashback, a character reveal, a retcon, character development, whatever you want to call it.

 Claiming this is an example of how Marvel’s ‘timeline’ works is like saying that about Harry Osborn being revealed as having Daddy issues like the year after he was introduced.

 “Flash’s Daddy issues got turned into him becoming Agent Venom”

 No, Flash becoming Agent Venom was due to his history as a solider and his adoration of Spider-Man. his Daddy issues played into it kinda sorta yeah but that’s not an issue related to a rolling timeline, that’s just making use of a character’s established history.

  “Adding stuff into the Marvel timeline without removing stuff or rebooting makes it more convoluted because now everything happened even though it doesn’t make sense in the modern day’

 That isn’t how Marvel’s timeline works.

 Marvel’s timeline works off the premise everything happened and you just ignore anachronisms and/or generalize them.

 Flash Thompson being drafted into Vietnam where he met Vietnamese woman Sha Shan became Flash Thompson went into the military during college and over seas met Sha Shan.

 We don’t confirm he went to Vietnam but we do not contradict it either.

 And this has worked for *checks watch* over 55 years. Comiscstorian claims that it’s confusing and convoluted to have such a big history but...clearly it isn’t because they still make money and make a lot more money  than DC does with it’s frequent reboots.*

 Meanwhile DC has removed stuff in their history and replaced it with other stuff or rebooted it wholesale and whatever to modernize things and wound up with an even more convoluted fucked up mess than Marvel ever had because there are literally 9 different versions of Superman.

 And even specific versions of him ran into the exact same ‘problem’ Marvel had because the superman of 2002 who’d been around since 1986 would’ve still had anachronisms in his history from those 1980s stories.

 “DC have never done a true reboot outside of the Nu52”

 Yes they have. You can debate the meaning of ‘true reboot’ to an extent but if you are going to codify the Nu52 as an example of one then 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths would DEFINITELY be a true reboot.

 “Batman has never truly been rebooted”

 This is not true at all.

 Whilst it is accurate to say of all DC characters and franchises, Batman has changed the least from reboot to reboot, to say he’s not changed at all is ignorant.

 When originally conceived Bruce Wayne had no Butler or father figure. Alfred was introduced as a gag character who got in his way but morphed into a loyal butler.

 Then when Batman was rebooted in the 1980s Alfred and his history drastically altered. Now Bruce had a perennial father figure in Alfred who’d been there his whole life and helped him on his quest to becoming Batman from the outset.

 Whether Batman carried fire arms or not in his early career is also something that has altered from version to version.

 The circumstances under which he met Jason Todd have changed.

 How and when he revealed his identity to Catwoman has changed.

 Selinia’s entire backstory has been all over the place.

 Two-Face’s origin and Batman’s role within it has changed.

 The role of Jim Gordon and Batman’s relationship to him has radically changed, as he was originally not a father figure to the Dark Knight.

 There is so much more but I’ll stop here. Batman’s history is not AS fraught with contradictions as Superman’s or Wonder Woman’s but those major alterations still exist.

  “With rebooted characters (like in DC’s case) in terms of needing to understand what is currently happening in modern comics, like the Flash you only need to go back to 2011”

 Marvel still outsells DC most of the time in spite of their long continuity.

 Marvel for the longest time wrote their comics with the belief that every comic is someone’s first and should be accessible, meaning you never needed to go back at all if you didn’t want to, any issue was a jumping on point.

 I am a personal testament to this. My first Spider-Man comic was part 4 of a 4 part story wrapping up 28 months worth of incredibly convoluted plot lines. But because it was a good story in that issue and written accessibly I still loved it and became hooked.

 This mentality also gives no shits towards story integrity.

 If eventually any story is just going to be rebooted why bother emotionally investing at all?

 Why does any story matter if they can all just be changed or thrown out the window whenever for the sake of a new version.

  “Marvel tried to fix their continuity problem in 2000 when they did the Ultimate universe which allowed for fresh takes on the characters and a chance to remove the problematic elements and make them work better in this current timeline.”

 Yeah and then that universe lasted just 15 years and then died on it’s ass after hobbling along since 2008, with Ultimate Spider-Man itself becoming creatively impoverished before Miles Morales showed up.

 Also ‘removing the problematic elements’? You mean like Venom and Carnage having personalities? Because...having personalities was an idea that was dated in the 2000s?

  “The Ultimate universe needed to be shut down because things had gotten too convoluted like the main universe”

 If the Ult Universe was too convoluted to be allowed to continue why was the even more convoluted 616 universe continued and in fact selling more than it?

 It’s almost like the Ultimate Universe fell into decline not because of too much convoluted history but because the stories sucked shit and no one gave a damn because they weren’t the original characters anyway.

  “In modern continuity Steve Rogers is back to normal but he’s still HYDRA Steve Rogers, still Old man Rogers, still  so convoluted”

 That isn’t convoluted.

 That’s just a lot of stuff happening. It’d be convoluted if he was all those things at the same time, but in reality he was just one thing after the other.

 And whilst that does kinda suck because a lot of those things were trash, the idea of events occurring like that isn’t being convoluted. It’s just storytelling.

 All those things occurred within the last 10 years of Captain America meaning that had Cap been rebooted 10 years ago by Comicstorian’s logic he’d need a reboot by now.

 By his logic the Flash should be rebooted again soon because too much shit has happened.

 I’d love for this guy to like check out long running manga like One Piece or Sailor Moon which has even wackier stuff in even shorter spaces of time and all within the same continuity.

 “It’s all just a mess!!!!!!”

 Translation: Comicstorian, the guy who you would think would know and appreciate comic book history and is able to roll with it, is pissed off that things are too hard to follow.

 Like Jesus fucking Christ this loser is a weaksauce fan. MOST comic book fans know and can roll with the weird histories, even learning to love them.

 This guy’s name is literally riding against his fucking attitudes.

 “Spider-Man history is convoluted because he was married but then he sold it to the devil so now he isn’t”

 This is the most damning example of Comicstorian knowing jack shit.

 Because of all things in Marvel One More Day is the closest thing to a continuity reboot akin to DC’s.

 He is literally pointing at a continuity reboot and saying it makes things a confusing effed up mess and then tries to use that to justify us...doing more of the same???????????????????

 “its so convoluted because he keeps going back to collage”

 You mean like....real life people do?

  “Spider-Man history is so convoluted because there is a whole series of venom lethal protector”

Okay so first of all Lethal protector was a mini-series not a whole series.

 Second of all that is VENOM HISTORY not SPIDER-MAN history.

 What? EVERY SPIN OFF counts towards making a character more convoluted?

 “Miles morales in the 616 universe only works if you don’t question his origin”

 I mean that is true but whilst not strictly speaking a reboot Miles’ migration from one universe to the next is storywise more similar to the types of convoluted messes that occur when continuity reboots happen.

 Case in point Power Girl being taken from Earth 2 and incorporated into the newly rebooted post-crisis DC universe or the deal with all the Milestone comics characters.

 Miles however is UNIQUE in these problems among Marvel characters whereas it’s more similar to the deal with DC characters.

 And Comicstorian is so blind he can’t even see that.

 *Comicstorian explains Miles is already a part of PS4 Spider-Man’s universe thus avoiding the problems of him being convoluted and by extention proving Marvel needs to reboot stuff*

 Basically this whole mess of a video exists off the back of how this one video game fixed the story problems of this one character in the Marvel universe who’s situation is actually unique among Marvel characters and more comparable to DC ones.

 THAT is why Comicstorian thinks ALL OF MARVEL should be rebooted.

 “we need a linear timeline for these sueprheroes now!”

 Most of the marvel heroes alreadyhave a linear timeline and always did in the pre-internet age when marvel fans just picked up the latest issue and winged it.

  “I have a nephew and it’s so hard to just give him a comic book”

 Then maybe Comicstorian’s nephew just won’t find comic books to his taste because that’s literally how every comic book fan got indoctrinated.

 Just fucking give him ASM vol 5 #1 by Spencer and if the story is good enough for him he’s in. It’s incredibly accessible for the most part.

 “It’s so hard explaining Miles morales to my nephew”

 Yeah because Miles is UNIQUE in having that convoluted a backstory.

 “Marvel history is too convoluted for younger audience members”

 Again I jumped onboard literally at the end of the most convulted Spider-Man era of all time, I dealt with divergences from the cartoon Spider-Man I knew, I purchased info books detailing his long crazy history.

 I was fine.

 In fact those info books are still sold on the mass market so they clearly have an audience for that convoluted history.

 “We don’t want kids to be intimidated by the confusing history like we adults are”

 Kids don’t view that stuff the way adults to, they’re more accepting of shit and roll with it.

 “It’s a lot to try and get into Spider-Man”

 If only there were jumping on points peppered throughout Spider-Man’s history which are ways for you to get invested without going through everything before hand?

  “The PS4 game is the best version of Spider-Man ever!”

 Better in some respects not as great in others.

 “It’s the best version because it’s one straight path”

 Pretty sure it’s more to do with the characetrization and stuff.

[kylosrehn]

aos for the ask meme. or, if you've already gotten that (or you just wanna do both) the wider MCU.

the first character i ever fell in love with: Skye. Or Ward. I can’t really remember which came first. Probably Skye because she was so relatable and quirky and positive but I also loved grumpy pretending-not-to-care SO Ward. 

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: Skye… or Daisy I guess. I started losing interest around halfway through S2 with the whole Afterlife plot (and then just stopped watching the show altogether after the S2 finale lol) but S3 was the one that really left a bad taste in my mouth. And the start of S4 with emo vigilante Daisy. I don’t dislike her, but it’s a far cry from the love I had for her in the early days. Same with Jemma, actually. I really liked her in S1, this cute, quirky if slightly awkward scientist willing to bend the rules when she believes it’s the right thing to do. Afterwards things got… complicated. I like her more on her own, outside of FS scenes (which, when does that ever happen?) Can she/they ever have a storyline that doesn’t involve saving the other one? For science? No?

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: Hmm… I don’t think I have one? Once I decide I like something, I fall for it pretty hard. lol. I guess Daisy/Lincoln. That’s a funny one, because when they sort of started flirting in S2 I liked the idea of them together, and I thought they had a lot of potential. But once it actually happened I wasn’t into it at all. It felt kinda rushed and I just didn’t really see any chemistry between them. It was an ‘expectations vs. reality’ sort of thing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: Oh gosh… Fitz, I guess? I mean, obviously I’m trash for Ophelia but I actually wasn’t all that fond of the whole Aida arc at the beginning… I liked her more in the Framework, and all the potential she had as a human (or Inhuman, whatever.) It’s funny because he sort of grew on me. I admittedly didn’t pay much attention to him in S1 because I was so wrapped up in Skyeward, but once they killed that storyline and started developing his character from the nerdy sidekick/comic relief to an actual, fleshed-out character dealing with brain damage, then yes I became involved. Still mourned the untimely demise of Skyeward in S2 though.

prettiest character: Fitz or Ward if it’s more ‘handsome’ pretty. Out of the ladies… Daisy, I suppose? Also Stephanie Malick because personal bias - yes I’ve loved Bethany Joy Lenz since One Tree Hill and they totally should’ve let her stick around for longer than two episodes god damn it.

my most hated character: I’m not particularly fond of Jemma. Or what they’ve done with her, I suppose. But god damn it if there’s one character I hate it’s Ruby. Really glad that arc is over.

my OTP: This one’s pretty obvious. Skye/Ward and Fitz/Ophelia. Hehe. 

my NOTP: Fitzsimmons sorry not sorry.

favorite episode: (In no particular order): 5.14, 4.16 and 1.17. Self Control and, frankly, all the Framework episodes, are strong contenders, but that’s my podium. 

saddest death: I’ve got to say Fitz. Mostly because it was so sudden and I honestly wasn’t expecting it at all. I genuinely didn’t think they’d have the balls to kill off one half of FS, especially on-screen. I was literally expecting him to miraculously pull through and just have his legs amputated or something. It felt so surreal. Of course, then they brought CryoFitz back into play so really it was all just one big cop-out (figures) but the shock factor was definitely there. It was just the right amount of sad and downright distressing and even unsettling, with the way he didn’t fully comprehend what was happening and just…slipped away. I also really liked how they didn’t cheapen the moment by making it all about FS, which was… honestly such a nice surprise? I preferred the shocked and unaware approach they took, and how he spent his last moments with… kind of the two most unlikely people - May whom he hasn’t ever really bonded with, a relationship which is made especially awkward by their experience in the Framework and the ‘super villain interrogation’ in 5.15; and Mack, who literally told him days or even hours earlier that he needs ‘fixing.’ It was all very weird and bizarre and surprising, and definitely felt like a solid punch to the gut. At least, until they straight up announced they’re going to essentially retcon it… Eh. Also, Ophelia? Maybe less sad and more just downright disturbing and gratuitously violent and graphic. 

favorite season: If Season 1 and 4.16-20 and 5.14 could somehow be merged into one season… that would be it. lol. Overall, I have to say S1. Most people hate it and call it the weakest season and, sure, it felt very formulaic and had this predictable ‘monster of the week’ format at first but it was genuinely enjoyable to watch. Every other season after that I just found myself getting angry at something. lol. I actually liked pretty much every character in S1 to some degree and because nothing was set in stone or made explicitly canon yet, there was a lot more freedom shipping-wise. There was no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ship, or ‘no you can’t like this character because of X, Y, Z’ it was just whatever you were into. For a while it seemed like pretty much all combinations of the Bus Kids ships had a decent chance of sailing. That’s a pretty damn good feeling. 

least favorite season: Hands down Season 5. I wasn’t a fan of Season 3 either (though admittedly I did like certain episodes/aspects of it) and Season 2 could’ve done without that whole ‘Real SHIELD’ plot but Season 5 takes the cake. I mean… seriously. It was a let down, especially after the hugely successful Framework arc (the show’s strongest point so far imo.) So naturally there was a lot of expectation and it kind of fell flat. They had maybe 2 or 3 strong episodes. The rest was riddled with plot holes, blatant fan service, lines that sounded like they pulled straight from fanfic, radical and often inexplicable shifts in character behaviour from one episode to the next that could be classified as borderline character assassination, frequent lack of continuity, too much time spent on characters that ultimately turned out to be irrelevant/got quickly killed off, writers seemingly forgetting what had happened in literally the previous episode, etc. There’s really no excuse for that mess. lol. Not to mention the at times pretty obvious budget cuts and the lack of decent lighting which made the space pod downright unwatchable at times. Really feels like the weakest, most disjointed and confused season of all. Which is a shame. Because it could’ve been great. But it just really… wasn’t.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: I don’t want to say Jemma but… Jemma? I guess part of the problem is that I feel there tends to be a discrepancy between the actual canonic on-screen representation of Jemma and fanon Jemma, at least in my experience. She (and Daisy) seem to get put on this imaginary pedestal a lot of the time and given leeway and all these concessions that other characters aren’t allowed. Sometimes I think I hate fandom’s approach to and treatment of certain characters more than I hate the actual character. Also, Mack and Bobbi? I feel like they’re pretty massive fandom faves as well and I never really got invested in them. I don’t hate them, they’re just… Meh. 

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: Leopold, the ultimate trash fave. Hehe. He’s just so deliciously messed up and complex and it’s so much fun to explore all of that. He’s like the one villain AOS completely unintentionally got right. Magnetic, charismatic, complicated. Sure, he only ever really shows up in about five episodes but in those five or six episodes they build a really solid character. We’re not told or shown everything, but that’s the point. Sometimes the implication is enough - and it’s super fun to fill in those gaps. And those suits. I mean, c’mon. lol

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: Literally no one on this show is a cinnamon roll anymore. lol. I think Ophelia easily could’ve had a really satisfying redemption arc if the writers were actually willing to get into that instead of just shelving their more complex characters and turning to the safe option of ‘let’s kill the baddie.’ Ward could’ve possibly been redeemed too (up to a certain point at least) but I guess part of his appeal is that he didn’t want to be? Uh… and out of the still alive ones (kind of??), Fitz. He’s had a really tough time literally since S2. I also liked Mace and Radcliffe and I kind of wish they got to stick around for a bit longer.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: Fitz/Ophelia. Obviously. I guess one of the more weirder ones is Hive/Stephanie. That’s… not remotely canon (I mean, I guess they kissed? lol) but in my headcanon Framework verse it is. Let’s be honest, there’s probably tons more because I always latch on to the more obscure stuff, but I can’t really think of anything else at the moment.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: Philinda and Mackelena. I don’t ship either but I guess I can kind of see the appeal and I wish them all the best for the sake of the shippers because both of these pairings are frequently overshadowed by… well, the main ship. I can totally understand and sympathize with their frustration.