#entirely unimportant gripes for anyone but

[torao-chan]

[sharonccrter]

I saw this really interesting video, which talked about my two biggest gripes with challengers' discourse. Which are that everyone keeps saying Art is the heart of this movie, and secondly, the insistence that Patrick doesn't love Tashi, only Art. The creator pushes back against these two narratives, and I wholeheartedly agree. Patrick is arguably the heart of this movie.

Two of the most important scenes in the movie are the churro scene and the scene between p/t out in the storm, and they both centre around Patrick.

The entire movie is about passion and purpose in life, and Patrick is the passion.

I mean, a lot of people assume Patrick didn't really have feelings for Tashi, but the only person who says that is Art. Who is vying for Tashi and is his biggest competitor. The reason I empathise with Patrick is that he is genuine and loving to Art; he does love him. However, we are shown no evidence to suggest that Patrick is this shitty boyfriend, apart from what Art says when he's trying to get into Tashi's head because his jealous. We find out that they're talking every week while he's on tour (normal relationship shit). It's Art who insinuates that Patrick is cheating while on tour. The only person in this movie who says Patrick doesn't love Tashi is Art, and it's obviously very intentional.

I think the reason both Tashi and Art push Patrick out of their lives is because he forces them to comfort parts of themselves they are not yet comfortable with. I mean, it's obvious why Tashi would react that way to Patrick; she's just lost the most important thing in her life. However, I think it's tragic from Patrick's point of view as well. I mean, what did Patrick really do? He got into a fight with his girlfriend because she hurt his feelings.

And no, he's hurt was not about Art. The fight made him feel unimportant, which made him feel like she didn't actually care about him. And that's where Art comes in, because who was going around telling Patrick Tashi didn't give a shit? You bet ya. Art. Art absolutely got into his head. And even if he clocked it, in that moment, he still allowed it to get to him because he was emotional and upset. And because he was too hurt to support her, he was thrown out of Tashi and Art's lives.

And here's the thing, Patrick never saw Tashi as an idea. He saw her as a real person, unlike Art kinda did. Patrick wasn't going to let Tashi treat him like shit just because she was special. And, tbh, if Tashi hadn't gotten injured, I think it's something she would have eventually been grateful for. But instead, she got hurt; she pushed Patrick away, and Art slid into his place, telling her that she could be his entire world and the star. That's not healthy, and sorry to stay a little manipulative.

And let's talk about Art. Patrick and him were literally fire and ice. They always had this underlying desire. They were perfect opposites. Let's face it: Art could never replicate what he had on the court (and off) with anyone else. But instead of confronting his feelings, he took the first chance he had to get Patrick out of his life.

The girl I was watching said it perfectly, "Art and Tashi allowed themselves to find consolation prizes in each other and allowed them to run from parts of themselves they didn't want to comfort and in turn enable each other's worst habits."

Art tries to become a tennis superstar so Tashi can live through him, and Tashi gives him a family so he can finally be confident in who he is. But is there any passion? I don't know; I think at some point, it drained; nothing about what I saw on screen apart from their initial get-together screams passion.

Cue Patrick walking back into their life and showing them how they can feel. Art was always going to let Tashi live through him, but that was never going to be satisfying for her. Tashi needs to find a way to create an identity for herself, separate from him. And I believe it'll be the only way she'll live a satisfying life. That's why they need Patrick: to make them realise that and to help them rediscover their passion.

I think people think that Art is the heart because Patrick admits to being a piece of shit. But the truth is, they're all dicks; Patrick was just the only one who was willing to admit it.

[thisisryderinjapan]

May 30 - Last day of the trip! - Independent excursion - academic reflection: Hiroshima

Today was our last day together as a class for the entire trip. Tomorrow, I will wake up early to say goodbye to all my friends as they leave the hotel to catch their various busses, planes, and Shinkansen on their ways back to the United States. I can’t believe it’s been a month; the time has really flown by. Reflecting back on the trip, I would say my top five experiences were easily Team Labs Planets, Monkeys, Tokyo Skytree, Nara, and the Shinkansen. The Team Labs Planets experience was simply transcendent and I think anyone that visits Japan would be remise if they didn’t go; it really was a novel experience that I don’t think I will likely ever have again. The monkeys and the deer were also just completely new to me as I had never seen monkeys in the wild ever and my experience with wild deer was limited to the few that roam around my grandpa’s house in Jacksonville that aren’t nearly as social and unafraid as the ones at Nara. I loved Skytree because it was the first observation tower that we did so the experience was still original, but I also think it was one of the coolest; either that or Shibuya Sky, I can’t decide which one was better. I loved being able to see the massive metropolis that is Tokyo from such a distance that everything seems insignificant and you can really understand just how unimportant you and your problems are. When it comes to the Shinkansen, I knew that was one of the things I absolutely wanted to do in Japan and, as I have mentioned, was one of the original things that got me interested in Japan in the first place, so getting to ride the engineering marvel was very rewarding to me. Honorable mention goes to the rice planting, which, again, was just something I had never done before and probably won’t ever do again, but I’m glad I can casually drop into conversation my background as a Japanese rice farmer for the rest of my life. My biggest gripe over the course of the entire trip was the fact that for many of our excursions we ventured into areas that had plenty of restaurants, but we often found that nearly all the restaurants were reservation only and/or that it was nearly impossible to accommodate more than two people. This sucked because it meant my group spent a lot of time wandering aimlessly looking for a place to eat and getting annoyed, so I wish on these days it would have been clearly communicated to us that we were going to be in such an area and to perhaps think about making reservations in advance. I also wish I had known that we were going to get pocket WiFi’s distributed to us; I would not have spent $100 on my own if I had know this was the case, perhaps this is on me and I just wasn’t listening. Another big wish of mine is that we might have focused a little bit more on slightly more modern issues towards the end of the trip as we prepared to depart such as Japan’s involvement in world conflicts, which brings me to the main topic of this blog post and my final independent excursion of the trip on our last free day in Japan: Our trip to Hiroshima.

We started the day by waking up early so that we could get ourselves over to Kyoto Station in time to catch the Shinkansen so that we could have enough time in Hiroshima to enjoy ourselves before needing to be back at the hotel to regroup for our farewell dinner. The train ride to Hiroshima is nearly three hours once you factor in walking to the subway, transferring at Kyoto station, and buying the Shinkansen tickets, and this is a best case scenario time too because we’re basically pros at riding the Shinkansen now and can buy our tickets in thirty seconds. We have come a long way since the first time we attempted to go to Hiroshima and didn’t make it out of Kyoto Station! The Shinkansen trip to Hiroshima wasn’t bad, but we timed it just right because I literally bought the last reserved seat on the entire train so the two friends I was with had to buy non-reserved tickets and no telling how many of those were left given how full the train was. On the way there, I got the window seat but unfortunately after riding one stop an obese Italian man took the middle seat so I found myself shoved into the window for the remainder of the train ride as I wrote my media reflection blog post. Once we got to Hiroshima, we saw signs to ride a streetcar, which we had no idea about but figured would be cool. I’m glad we got on it, but I totally understand why we don’t really build streetcars anymore because it was super slow, pretty loud, took up a lot of space above ground, was subject to traffic, and seemed to not save that much time at all, but we were able to take in the vistas of Hiroshima which was literally to the whole point of being there so it worked out. By the time we got there, we only had about three hours to walk around, see the sights, and eat before we needed to head back to Hiroshima Station to catch the Shinkansen out. We disembarked the streetcar right outside the peace park and wandered around until we found the memorial museum, which had a very heavy gravity about it and was virtually silent inside out of respect for all of those that perished. My main goal with wanting to visit Hiroshima was to see how the Japanese were choosing to remember the event, if they were blaming anyone in particular, and what message they were trying to convey to the world with their memorials. On the train, I did some research on the memorial museum to see how people interpreted the messages conveyed by the museum.

Academic Reflection

The article that I found was very interesting because it offered a completely unique perspective on not just the memorial but also the atomic bomb: It explained how the memorial museum is actually quite problematic and detailed how the museum doesn’t blame Americans for the massacre, but conveniently also does not mention any of the atrocities that Japanese government had committed that had led to the dropping of the bomb, not to mention the atrocities they would have continued committing had the bomb not been dropped. Just to name a few, the Japanese government essentially brainwashed and forced teenagers into becoming kamikaze pilots, practiced internment of prisoners of war (essentially a form of slavery), and blatantly spread misinformation and propaganda regarding the nature of the country’s participation and involvement in the war, with some of these things continuing to this day. For example, the article details how the Hiroshima Peace Park as well as the Memorial Museum focus so much attention on the physical atrocities of the bomb that it becomes very easy to characterize Japan entirely as a victim of the war. Indeed, the Japanese government has utilized the bombing and subsequent defense-only military as tools to paint Japan as a pacifist country that shouldn’t be seen as evil or as having committed serious wrongs. This rebranding is actually something that we have already seen with the “Japanese cute” we discussed towards the beginning of the trip, where Japan seemed to have consciously and communally moved away from its image of Samurai’s and warriors to a more America-centric (which also meant globally-appealing) image of hard-working citizens and cute culture decorated with rainbows and laughter and fun and smiles and definitely not war crimes and definitely not shoving teenagers onto boats and telling them to go blow themselves up. The article explains how the emphasis on the physical tragedy of the bomb, and not the context that led up to it allows both sides to claim they were better than they were, with America being able to posture itself as the one who just had to do this one single tragic thing to end the war and Japan as being the unfortunate victim. However, the bombing of Hiroshima killed around 300,000 people, which is an insane number, but it is really easy to get distracted by this number and forget about all the other numbers of the war that are also extremely relevant. For example, prior to the Hiroshima atomic bombing, the United States carpet bombed Tokyo with napalm and literally boiled approximately 100,000 people to death. I had never even heard of this until I read it in the article. Indeed, virtually all of my American education pertaining to Japan’s participation in the war had been about either the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with little to no talk of any other events or even why Pearl Harbor happened and why we chose to drop the first two and only atomic bombs ever deployed in history. In short, the article’s essential point was that the museum is mute about the cause and context of the atomic bomb, instead focusing solely on the physical horrors of the event so that Japan can be postured as the victim and push all of the other events and history of the war under the rug.

My experience when I visited the museum absolutely corroborated the author’s claim that the monument takes little to no stand when it comes to the blame or reason for the bombing. Our experience with the museum started with the memorial to all that had died, which itself started with a ten minute video that detailed how young Japanese boys were drafted into the army as well as how they were responsible for the cleanup operation after the bomb detonated. It was a tragic video to watch and certainly enhanced my understanding of the gore and suffering that took place as a result of the bomb, but the video took no stand on whether the bombing was right or wrong and conveniently left out any sort of rationale for why the bomb had been dropped. I thought it was very fascinating that the video chose to focus on the teenage soldiers in the army, with the youngest they mentioned being only fifteen years old, especially considering the fact that the video was talking about the Kamikaze unit, where these young boys had essentially been drafted and brainwashed into devaluing their lives and preparing for death. One boy explained that they would be required to watch long videos three times a week that addressed nothing but dying and convincing yourself to be okay with it. By the end of the course, multiple boys in the video explained that they were fully prepared to die, which is something I think we could spend a lot more time analyzing in another conversation: A country’s own government brainwashing its children to blow themselves up is something that shouldn’t soon be forgotten, but a lot of us are taught in school something along the lines of “oh that’s what they wanted they were just filled with so much honor that they all wanted to blow themselves up and dying was nothing to them.” Indeed, by the time they were carrying-out a suicide bombing, they had been so brainwashed by their government that it wasn’t a big deal, but nobody actually wants to die naturally so the idea that these young boys walked out of their houses one day ready to die for their country is absolutely ludicrous and I honestly can’t believe I ever believed that, but it’s so easy to become distracted by the horrors of the bomb that learning about these more nuanced aspects of the war as a whole seem trivial and maybe even disrespectful to dedicate time to in the face of all of those that tragically died at Hiroshima. This isn’t to say that those who died at Hiroshima weren’t victims and that they didn’t suffer gruesome and horrible deaths that they absolutely in no way deserved, but it seems that education of the event as a whole is very quick to sweep the details under the rug—on both sides—and focus solely on the death and destruction so neither side really has to admit why they did what they did or explain themselves. The Hiroshima Pace Park and Memorial Museum certainly don’t do anything to educate anyone about these intricacies, and are guilty of focusing our attention solely on the human death and suffering. While it is absolutely paramount that this death and destruction be understood, education about such aspects of the bombing must also be accompanied by other discussions of what brought the bombing and how both sides were complicit in creating an untenable situation with such a tragic outcome, otherwise it will never be possible to understand and learn from the tragic event.

Giamo, Benedict. “The Myth of the Vanquished: The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.” American Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 4, 2003, pp. 703–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30042004. Accessed 30 May 2024.

[im-fairly-whitty]

Can I be a bit selfish and ask for a 🌟and your commentary on Dr. Facilier's emotional attack on Ernesto in the PAFT oneshot you did?

You got it.

From Dealing With Shadows, a PATF x Coco crossover:

First off, I was super excited to write this scene because Dr. Facilier and Ernesto De la Cruz are my two favorite Disney villains of all time and I was eager to see how similar but different their kinds of villainy are when put side by side. 

A similarity that they both have is that they’re very blunt about what they want. Other villains are usually interested in their evil quests because of a dark backstory that drives them to want revenge or pull elaborate heists to get the object they desire (a coat of dalmatian fur, revenge for not being invited to a baby shower, a genie, peter pan’s head in exchange for a severed hand), but Facilier and De la Cruz are so much more straight forward than that.

What do they want? Money, fame, and power. Why do they want it? Just...because. What on-screen explanation do we get for why they’ll go to such lengths for it? 

Not really any to speak of actually. 

They just want it, they reaaaaaally want it, and they want it NOW. 

No lengthy monologues about being disgraced by the scientific community and needing a bird skeleton to redeem themselves, no griping about being mistreated as the emperor's overlooked elderly advisor, not even a single word about being left on a shelf in a collector’s edition box for their entire lives. 

They want money and they want power. Which at the end of the day, are the most basic selfish desires humans all have. We want control of our lives and the ability to live it comfortably in whatever manner we choose while enjoying what we do. Facilier and Ernesto end up being very stark representations of these simple desires when taken too far, but without lengthy explanation, which makes them the most fun to headcanon for in my opinion. 

But even though they have the same desires they differ in how they seek to get it. A key difference between them is that Facilier plays the long game with elaborate planned schemes and twisted deals and unhealthy alliances to get what he wants, and he doesn't care that his lifestyle makes him a visibly shady individual. He knows he’s made deals with devils and loves it. 

Ernesto, on the other hand, is far more impulsive and desperately wants to be loved and admired, meaning everything he does is carefully hidden and rationalized and sanitized. Why does he poison Hector? He panicked. Why did he throw Miguel off a building? He panicked. Where Facilier knows he’s scraped his way into every good thing he’s ever stolen, Ernesto instead believes he deserves the power and wealth and fame he gets, and instead lashes out at anyone or anything that he perceives to be threatening what’s his. Whether that’s Hector’s time and talent, or his established reputation and fame in the LOTD.

So when these two get together it’s not really two villains in one place who are evenly matched in badness, it’s actually one very evil and crafty man who is able to manipulate the fears and self-consciousness of one very proud and entitled man. In fact Facilier’s weakness (the over-confident belief that his next big success is right around the corner, meaning that it’s fine for him to go deeper into debt in an eternally higher stakes game of catch-up) makes him even more powerful over Ernesto, who craves and seeks to project his own missing sense of self confidence. 

It’s honestly too easy for Facilier to get Ernesto right where he wants him, cornering him right into his own selfish plan as easily as you might trap a spider under a glass cup.

(Also I really really enjoyed writing the visuals of the playing card illustrations, I watched the PATF tarot card song a million times while writing the oneshot and could see the cards for the oneshot in my mind’s ye really clearly. Also also I adore writing dark magic so it was a treat to write Undead!Facilier in his full spooky glory.)

🌟 Hmmmmmmm...How about:

Taken - A Frozen Oneshot that tells the story of Kristoff being taken by trolls as a child.

I really enjoyed writing the opening scene of Kristoff’s parents Henrick and Ida arguing over whether Kristoff should go ice harvesting with his father. In musical movies especially there’s a tendancy for background characters to be glossed over as unimportant chorus singers at best, even the main characters sometimes getting airbrushed as realistic details are sanded down to make the plot smoother and the songs jauntier. Being able to turn around and take two characters from the frozen universe and make them feel achingly real and multifaceted instead was a treat. 

The best part about the scene is that even as you’re getting to know the parents and understanding Henrick’s stubborn belief that trolls aren't real, you of course know the truth about what’s about to happen to Kristoff which lends the scene a special irony laden looming sense of doom. Added to that is the fact that you’ve known what’s about to happen for years (Kristoff being adopted by trolls) but have likely never once thought about his parents and the special brand of cursed fae hell that they were put through while their son was off being adorable with Svenn and the trolls. 

It puts the reader in the very seat of irony as they realize that the details beneath the musical airbrushed facade are anything but cheerful and happy. In fact it’s a real horror story.

(Also this was another case of me loving to write dark magic too not to mention getting to weave in a bunch of real changling lore so bonus points there.)

[loofiedee]

This is probably going to get long because I might go into some detail, but I also might have forgotten a few things or decided not to mention them. This isn’t going to be an exhaustive list of things Snaji has “done”, and has a lot of personal opinion.

Spoilers, Snaji negativity, and a little bit of crude language under the cut so be warned!

      Snaji was never on my list of favorites. He’s the kind of character that rubs me the wrong way, but despite that he was able to fluctuate between tolerable and lovable in his own way for most of the pre-timeskip part of the series.       I didn’t hate Snaji, he just wasn’t my favorite Strawhat and that was it.

      My biggest problem with him was always his creepy and invasive behavior towards women and the fact that he thinks he’s a gentleman when he’s not.       I think the biggest thing pre-timeskip is the fight with Creep Lion where what really gets Snaji to snap is not the fact that Creep Lion has put his entire crew through hell and was going to forcibly marry Nami, no. It was the fact that Creep Lion got the peeping tom devil fruit before he did.

      But even then, most of his screen time was spent on other things. He had things he did, he had wants and needs and a personality other than being horny.       But much like most of the female characters, his personality imploded in on itself and all that’s left now is tits.

      I will not be talking about parts of the writing that happen to have Snaji in them that I think were handled poorly (the entire wedding with Pudding, for example) but more on actions that specifically Snaji has carried out that make me dislike him/how he was written.

      A lot of this stuff is personal opinion and not things he has done objectively “wrong”, so to speak.       This isn’t me trying to shame anyone for liking him or me trying to tell anyone “your husbando is shit”. I like plenty of characters who other people dislike or find to be “bad characters”.           It’s just that you asked a question, and I want to answer it honestly!

The Fishman Island Arc

      We’re going to come back to something else that happened in this arc later, but we’re just going to start by going through a few of the things he’s done that really rub me the wrong way:

Just thinking about the mermaids gave him a nosebleed so bad that Chopper was concerned for his life. Chopper proceeded to tell him to AVOID the mermaids.

He went directly against Chopper’s orders and he he saw the mermaids he got a nosebleed so bad he needed a goddamn blood transfusion

During this blood transfusion he was given blood from two gay men/crossdressers and he went into a rage because he’d rather die than get blood from gay people. (which is Holy Shit levels of gross. I know Oda is Japanese, but this is still a really unfortunate choice given in the United States it’s still illegal for gay and bisexual men to give blood)

His horniness was repeatedly a major hindrance to the entire crew during this arc. It was different when it was a passing joke about how he gets all starry eyed because Nami and Robin are pretty.

His boner influenced the plot and created problems for the entire crew. This happens over and over again, and he never learns from or improves because of it.

Dresrossa Arc

Pretty minor drop in the bucket all things considered, but the entire thing with Viola. Not the fact that he wouldn’t fight her, but the fact that once again his boner put his life at risk.

I am aware that in the end through the power of Snaji being Snaji he managed to make Viola come to their side but overall just. HUFF.

** Side note I took a glance at the wiki bc I wanted to make sure I was getting things right and even the author of the wiki seems lowkey tired of Snaji ex machina [screenshot from Viola’s page on the One Piece Wikia] [”Somehow touched by these words, Viola decided to help S//anji”]

“somehow” vfdnhjgbfdjh

Whole Cake Island Arc

A very minor one is Snaji’s instant willingness to marry Pudding and abandon the Strawhats and only rethinking it once things became dire.

More a personal gripe but Snaji didn’t develop. He didn’t change, he didn’t improve, nothing about him is different. He didn’t learn anything from Pudding, he didn’t become a better person. He was just made to suffer for an arc and then he was fine again and there’s no long term consequences to anything. Other characters who got similar arcs developed and changed. He didn’t.

The moment he wasn’t at risk anymore he was back to having exactly 1 (one) personality trait and that personality trait was being a pervert. And the entire thing just. Made me sad.

Generally,

He lost a lot of his interesting and sympathetic traits

It feels like he nolonger gives a shit about any of the other crew members except for the female ones. I miss his relationships with the other crew members a lot.

      I mentioned that we were going to come back to Fishman Island, and now’s the time. This part is purely personal and not necessarily something Snaji “did”, but I’ve been wanting to talk about it for a while and this gives me a reason.

      There’s one particular scene that gets to me more than any other and cemented how much I dislike Snaji. Compared to some other stuff it might seem unimportant but it really, really bothers me.

         At some point during the arc, Jinbei comes to Nami having heard of what Arlong did to her, her family, and her Island. And he comes to apologize and take responsibility both for what Arlong did and also for not preventing it, even though there’s really nothing Jinbei could have done.

Before Nami even got a chance to speak, without even asking her, without even looking at her, without even paying a single speck of attention to her reactions, Sa/nji jumps in.

      He jumps in and tells Jinbei to kill himself in atonement for what happened. He tells this man he doesn’t deserve forgiveness for a crime he didn’t commit, without even considering the person who was actually had to live through what Arlong did.

      He spoke over Nami, he spoke without a single concern for what she would want, he spoke over a victim and a survivor who actually has to live with the suffering these things caused.

      And not only that, but he did all of this after he showed no actual interest in hearing about what happened to Nami and her island. In the original Arlong arc when Nojiko is telling the Strawhats about what happened, about all that Nami has suffered through, when she finishes Sa/nji doesn’t even care.       He doesn’t actually care about what Nami went through because he was too busy thinking about how cute Nami would have been as a child.

      And then he feels the right to speak over her. He feels the right to speak for her, without considering her or her opinion on the matter, on whether or not she forgives Jinbei.

      He didn’t care what Nami thought, he just wanted to be a white knight.

      And when Nami tells him to stop? He tells her, the one who had to go through all of it, to think about what they did to her. As if she doesn’t know, as if she didn’t have to live it.

Nothing Sa/nji has ever done will ever piss me off as much as that did.

      What bothers me about Snaji is that he’s a creep who thinks he’s a gentleman, and who the narrative treats as a gentleman.

      Snaji is never really punished for his actions. You’re not supposed to think he’s a creep, you’re supposed to like him. You’re supposed to find it funny but charming when he objectifies women and treats them simultaneously as untouchable angels and helpless children who can’t do anything for themselves.

      What post-timeskip Snaji did is that he’s every single thing that made me dislike Snaji and almost nothing of what made him a character I could care about.

Once again, I want to say this isn’t an attack on anyone or saying it’s bad to like Snaji, I’m also not trying to say Snaji is the only character that has done bad things or things I dislike. I just wanted to explain why I didn’t care for him and what bothered me about how his character was handled post timeskip.

[salty-ironstrange-shipper]

no hate meant or anything, but i just wanna know why you're anti steve?? your posts are illegally funny tho

I wouldn’t say that I’m anti-Steve honestly. Most of the stuff that other people hate about him I can explain or look past. Like, how he spoke to Tony in the first Avengers movie is a combination of stress, misinformation, and the mindstone. And I totally understand why he would want to defend Bucky. I’m more on Tony’s side as to the Accords, but I can see why someone would be against them (besides, CA:CW pretty much stopped actually being about those halfway through). [His bringing the fight to Wakanda to save Vision is fucking awful, but IMO it’s something we ought to lay at the screenwriters’ feet; yes, the audience knows that they’re just extras and unimportant as characters, but the characters themselves are not supposed to act like that, and someone really should have done something to fix that; but all the characters have moments where bad writing fucks them up somehow (see Age of Ultron), so I let it go.]

My main gripe with him is that he lied to Tony for two years about his parents’ deaths. IMO, his letter at the end of CA:CW was not an adequate apology for that, regardless of Tony’s issues with his parents. And this is kind of a tangent, but it really doesn’t make me think better of him that he thought Tony would want to hurt Bucky once he found out he was brainwashed (and before anyone points to the fight scene at the ends of CA:CW, I would like to point out that Tony actually attacks Steve, not Bucky, because Steve is the one the betrayal came from; Bucky jumped into the fight to help Steve, and things spiraled out of control from there). Really, that entire movie just spoiled the stony ship for me. But I still would not say that I am definitively anti-cap, even though I disagree with some of his views and actions, especially in regards to Tony. 

It’s really fun to pick on him, though. 

[darthcontusion]

okay here’s the thing about tri.

I’m really mad, and if me being mad at tri. will make you upset at me, I’m sorry. I’m really glad you enjoyed the show. I did not. Please do not waste your time subjecting yourself to my profanity-laden griping.

i don’t want a sequel, i want it not to have been a waste of my god damned time.

I know that sounds angry, and believe me i don’t wish anyone any bad will for making the show or anyone any bad will for enjoying it, even though it frustrates me.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of stuff I liked! I just decided i would rather post about the stuff I hate.

It’s just... god. how do i put this. how about a list?

1. our first villain, alphamon, goes uncharacterized, undefeated, and is ultimately unimportant. Our introduction to this show’s rogue’s gallery is a nobody. He interestingly saves the kids from the kuwagamon, and noticeably spares their partners in his battle against them, but it’s not even acknowledged. He was never even defeated, he’s just fucking gone.

2. Meiko. Everything about Meiko. What is her arc? what does she learn? Nothing. She is the same at the end as she was at the beginning, just sadder. Her development doesn’t result in an evolution, it doesn’t result in overcoming the tension between her and her father, we don’t even learn why her father is so distant. She just goes back home, back to where she was. Tai doesn’t tell her about the stupid crush he has on her for no reason. Her relationship with Mimi is completely forgotten and Mimi’s crush on her is brushed aside. Mimi fucking kisses her. (i change my mind let’s not get into this bit)

3. The core conflict dragged on for 4 god damned movies. It wasn’t a discussion, it wasn’t complex, it wasn’t slowly spiraling to a point, it was the same two points bouncing back and forth for 5 hours. We can’t kill a friend, there has to be another way vs. it is the right thing to do to put down our friend who we have just met and is bringing about the apocalypse. nothing new is added to the discussion. It just goes on and on until Omegamon “Merciful” Mode activates the newtype destroyer system and kills Meicoomon. This pisses me off because it means that homeostasis was right in trying to kill her in movie 5, and, in addition, we have the same set of arguments AGAIN and arrive at the same conclusion AGAIN so we gained nothing except the time izzy needed to pull everyone’s memories out of his ass.

4. the bit about the demiurge in the beginning meant nothing. all the pretentious rambling in the show meant absolutely nothing and added absolutely nothing.

5. hackmon. who the fuck was he talking to during the climax of movie 3? Homeostasis itself? Okay, fine. I don’t like that he shows up to have completely pointless conversations with people instead of, y’know... the kids? He seems like a good dude. He could probably reason with them better than an entirely alien entity like Homeostasis itself could. He tells Meiko the reboot isn’t his true intention, but he never says what his true intention actually is. And we never find out. TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO-

6. the fucking dark ocean again. DON’T BRING IT UP IF IT DOESN’T MATTER DAMMIT. Himekawa just vanishes into cthulhu land. A major antagonist just disappears from the story! She’s just fucking gone! What was her relationship to Meiko and Meicoomon? All this implied depth and complexity is just flushed down the toilet after she spends a movie hunting her amnesiac partner with a fucking elephant gun.

7. the prophecy from movie 2 means nothing. It was a pointless prophecy. we didn’t need a prophecy.

8. Gennai. I have to admit I loved his acting in this one. But really what the fuck even is his deal. I hate him. Why does he keep dressing up as the Kaiser? It doesn’t make sense. WHY DOES HE KIDNAP THE 02 KIDS INSTEAD OF JUST KILLING THEM? WHY DOESN’T HE JUST KILL TAI AND DAIGO? WHY IS DAIGO THAT BADLY HURT BUT NOT TAI? WHY WRITE IT THAT WAY IF YOU’RE JUST GOING TO BULLSHIT YOUR WAY OUT OF IT?

I could go on for hours and hours and hours and i would make myself angrier and more frustrated, but really... I’m just mad that they set all this up so they could sell us a sequel.

At the end of the day, it was a business decision.

They decided that the numbers were good enough that they could strip out all the answers to the interesting questions and put them in another series.

That’s why I consider it a waste of my time.That’s what I was staying for.

I don’t care about tragedy, I don’t care about sad kids being sad. I don’t enjoy suffering. I don’t care about long silences, I don’t care about flashbacks. I don’t care about pregnant pauses.

I didn’t get answers and now they tell me I’ve gotta wait even longer to know what the fuck is going on. I don’t even know what I’m waiting for. I don’t want to watch anymore fucking tri.

The way I see it, this is show is horrifically bloated and yet somehow empty. If a show strings you along on the basis of potentially getting answers and then when you get to the end it asks you to buy the next show instead of telling you, it’s a load of horse’s shit.