#everyone thinks it's some silly little show about crazy shit with crazy plotlines and pretty lighting and aesthetics but no substance—

[james-stark-the-writer]

feel like pure shit, just want her back

[erinwantstowrite]

ERIN i cannot believe you are a fan of twisted wonderland too, you have feed me once again with your beautiful art thank you so much 🛐🛐

But who are your favorite tw characters?? And how do you think other batfam members would do in yuu's situation?

i love Twisted Wonderland!! in a sense that I ignore the Mickey Mouse plotline because what even is going on there LMFAO

It's so hard to choose a fav cause they're all so stinky and I adore the idiots so much,,, but my rankings are: Ace and Deuce for 1st place, Grim for second, Ruggie for third, Epel and Kalim for fourth, and Malleus for fifth. And this is if I HAVE to choose. the rest of them are so silly that I can not be contained. I need to torment Azul and shake him around <3

Tim would thrive the MOST in Twisted Wonderland, but we know how I feel about that by now. As for the others... I'm assuming we're going with them but when they were the same age as the first years in Twisted Wonderland (cause it's a school). In all of these scenarios, Crowley does not stand a chance. Also they all steal Grim.

Bruce isn't Batman yet when he's that young, but he's certainly just as crazy as he'll be in his twenties-fourties, maybe even MORE so because he doesn't have the experience of training yet. After figuring out that this isn't a hallucination or weird altered state that he's in (coma, spell, etc), he'd be an unbending force that gives them all a run for their money. He's incredibly smart and I doubt he'd be willing to put up with any bullshit that gets pulled. He would manage to get himself home and refuse to make any friends... but he would probably grow soft for Grim, Ace, and Deuce. Grim because Yuu takes care of Grim, and we all know how Bruce is about adoption. Same for Ace and Deuce, they're so stupid that Bruce would end up worrying about them 24/7. His paranoia about keeping them safe would prevent Azul getting a contract with them, etc etc.

Dick when he was Robin? He's terrorizing Crowley the entire time, with a smile on his face. He's so strong willed that anytime Crowley tries to put him into a situation where Crowley gets to fake being nice and magnanimous without actually helping, Dick calls him out and forces him into actually doing something, lest everyone see how he really is. (They know already but Crowley would try to save face.) He'd make friends with everyone- he'd tame Grim pretty fast and probably see it as an exercise to teach him how to be more patient. Honestly, Grim's temperament would remind Dick of himself when he was just starting off as Robin. It'd be like having a little brother and when Dick isn't stuck angsting about some shit Bruce pulled when being emotionally stunted, he's a good big brother. He'd make friends, but he wouldn't tell them anything about himself, keeping it close to his chest. Secret identities, and all that. Dick would also get himself home very fast, not willing to make B wait long. Plus he really missed Alfred.

He would try to steal Grim though. He would probably succeed, actually. All he'd have to do is tell Grim about the world he's from and how he knows magic users far beyond the level of the teachers at this school who could use a new student, and Grim would likely accept.

For Jason, when he was Robin, he was the sunshine kid. This would be after he's mellowed out with Bruce, when he's started to accept his life with B and Alfred, and started to grow into his own as Robin. They would all mistake his willingness to help as weakness, but Jason can be just as stubborn and clever as any other Robin. It's in their blood. He wouldn't be willing to let them talk down to him- he's used to people looking down on him because of where he comes from. The big fancy schools at home think he's trash from the bad parts of Gotham, and here isn't really any different. They think he can't get by without magic? Boy, will Jason sure show them. He's Robin.

I have a feeling that this, combined with Jason's love of school, would mean that Jason gets a little sidetracked with learning about this world, magic, and history, etc. He and Grim butt heads a lot, but Jason would get protective over him. Jason took care of the kids younger than him before, and his Robin is known for the comfort and kindness he shows.

He, too, would not make B wait a long time for him to come back. He's not as much of a detective as Batman or Nightwing, but he's clever enough to get himself home because of what he's learned. He would also steal Grim. In this scenario, it'd been a long time since anyone had cared about Grim the way Jason does about him. He'd come even without the speech about magic in Jason's world.

Tim... is the only Robin who'd make Batman wait. Not even out of a sense of being an ass about it, Tim would just thrive in Twisted Wonderland. He'd play up a role of being a "damsel in distress" or being silly and carefree and clumsy, etc etc. All the while Tim has been picking apart this mystery in front of him and he's got it all figured out. He's having a blast. It's Batman that comes to get him, and Tim probably wasn't expecting that, but, hey! Batman came to get him!

Damian. Holy shit is he a force to be reckoned with. He gets under everyone's skins, he doesn't bother hiding in plain sight, he demands to be treated the way he deserves. He's the son of Talia al Ghul and Bruce fucking Wayne. You try to put him in Ramshackle and he'll gut you with his sword for the disrespect. I think it'd be funny if Damian was like "this distasteful chandelier was only worth a billion of your currency?" and ADeuce try to kill him. Eventually they get along in the most hilarious way, but they're constantly fighting. Damian takes charge of their group, naturally, but he finds himself on equal footing with ADeuce at some point because they're from Twisted Wonderland and help him fill in the gaps of his knowledge. He's also studious (the PhD thing) and Deuce would ask for his help. Ace would get roped into it.

The only one that he gets along with? Grim. Because he's a cat with fire powers. Damian would think he's so fucking cool, he basically has a fuzzy little dragon. That can fit in his bed and cuddle with him and can talk. Come on. What 14 year old like Damian wouldn't think that's the sickest shit ever? He'd demand only the best for Grim, but would also easily start shaping him up to be a better mage. No, not better- the best. Damian would understand Grim's desire to find his legacy.

And, like, here's the thing. Even with all of that... Damian is a very empathetic kid. If he's about freshman year-aged, he'd be, what, 14? I think? That's after he started letting himself be more empathetic. After he lost his dad for a year and learned to be Robin because of Dick. Literally no one would expect Damian to be understanding or listen to the prefects' insecurities or hurt, nor willing to talk to them about it. But he does. He also hands their asses to them when they fight, but while that's happening, Damian is talking to them.

He steals Grim whether he wants to or not. But Grim does want to go with him.

This got WAYYY longer than I expected it to but this got me to thinking and we know I love to yap. I'd add Stephanie, Duke, Cass, Babs, etc, but I don't want this to get too long.

[angelhummel]

If you could change one and only one thing about Glee, what would you choose?

Oh man one thing... I’ve kind of answered a question like this before so I’m just gonna steal my own answer but I guess go into a little more detail about it? Also gonna put it under a Read More bc I plan on rambling a looot so buckle up babey 

But I wish they had varied the characters’ ages a little more. I know hindsight is 20/20 and they didn’t know who would end up being a fan fave and who they’d run out of ideas for (or both) so they were just throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick, and giving people crazy plotlines and letting people overstay their welcome and whatever else 

So at the beginning of the show I think Quinn, Puck, Brittany, and Finn should’ve been juniors. In general, it’s kind of silly that they make such a big deal of being popular and being the most popular kids in school when they’re like... sophomores. And being head cheerleader and the quarterback? I mean I was as far away from jocks and cheerleaders as I could be in high school but I’m pretty sure no sophomore holds that much power lol

I think it makes the most sense for Quinn. Bc in s2 it’s like she forgets all her growth and forgets her baby and is just like fucking around and then s3 is when she goes full skank. Sooo she could have that little episode at the start of season 2 instead. And it lasts longer than 1.8 episodes and is taken seriously. And then after she’s a reformed skank, she can still have all her prom queen stuff with Finn but eventually make her turn around and get into Yale and she graduates and yay. Also she never gets hit by a fucking car

For Finn, I think it would make his and Rachel’s relationship make more sense. Meaning things would pretty much be the same but there would be more validity to Rachel’s insecurities since he’s the popular upperclassman and she’s scared of losing him to Quinn or some other senior girl or whatever. Do all the stuff with the recruiter and him feeling inadequate in s2, then he graduates. Get him out of McKinley but keep him close by having him take a year off, work at the tire shop, stay close to his family and still see Rachel in s3 and whatever else

Brittany, I swear it’s not personal. I mean they really did redo the same shit for her time after time. Gotta believe in some fantasy thing like Santa or leprechauns or the got dang Mayan apocalypse and have a whole episode about that. Gotta run for class president. Gotta have a relationship with a boy and Santana is jealous. Like... I get it. And it got stale. I have plenty of complaints about Brittany but the minimum thing they coulda done is got her out of there two seasons earlier and spared us all those retooled plots. And I mean everyone keeps popping up to mentor anyway so she could’ve made plenty of appearances in s3. Or she could’ve been like Sue’s assistant coach or something. That would’ve been interesting, I think 

For Puck, just... I don’t know. I like him but I don’t think they utilized him the best they could have so just get rid of him, too :P Have him move to LA or stay in Lima and keep his business going and hang out with Finn

Santana, Rachel, Mercedes, Kurt, and Mike are all sophomores at the start, like in canon. Rachel is just doing her thing, whatever. You know she’s never going to be at a loss for screen time so I won’t worry about her. But Santana and Mercedes (and Tina) can have much bigger parts to play in s3 and actually get the time they deserve, rather than an episode or two dedicated to them before they realize that it really is their duty to sway in the background and sing back up for every Rachel solo. Kurt goes through just a teensy bit less shit because this way he’d at least get the class president thing and they could actually do something with that plot instead of ignoring it until prom. And I guess Mike goes through his canon storyline and it’s all fine. 

That leaves Tina, Artie, and eventually Sam and Blaine. They’d all be their canon ages. And with graduations and people leaving in s2-3, they’d have to incorporate the newbies better. Like in s3 it felt like introducing the newbies happened organically, no matter what we thought of them as characters. Day one, here’s Sugar. Couple episodes later - Rory. Like halfway through the season, we meet Joe. It’s not just like “new season, who dis?” like idk you got rid of all my faves and threw these bland replacements at me, I don’t know who they are?? 

Maybe Jake could’ve been introduced early and had his stuff with Puck, while Puck was still hanging around. He could’ve taken him under his wing and they have all their brotherly bonding stuff. Then Kitty comes in bc the two blonde cheerleaders graduated and we need a new one or whatever. And Brittany immediately takes a shine to her bc she’s like “aww she’s like a mini Quinn” and Santana keeps trying to convince Britt that she’s just pure evil and so we get plenty of bitch offs between Kitty and Santana. Then I guess Marley and Ryder and Unique can come in in s4 like normal. And idk just add newer, better characters and introduce them more organically. Don’t just pile watered down versions of the old characters into a catapult and launch them at my face

So that’s like two things really but oh well. Actually it’s like forty-seven things under the guise of being two things. But it’s like an umbrella fix with all the little fixes underneath. Anyway it’s not perfect but neither is canon. Those are just my thoughts and something I’d do if I could go back in time with the knowledge I have now and change things for the better lmao 

[hopevalley]

Why was Mountie Nate sauntering when he heard Lucas was running towards trouble? He should've been galloping and then some. I'd love to know your analysis of why the drama didn't work. It felt forced and fake to me. Not believable.

I’ll give you a brief synopsis of why I think drama in general doesn’t work in this series.

1. Character relationships and/or motivations are weak.

2. They film in a patch of forest that feels like it’s the size of your average master bedroom and time/distance is meaningless. 

3. There are never any consequences.

All right, so let’s start with the first point: weak relationships and motivations. Depending on the drama in question, it’s usually one or the other, but occasionally you’ll find it’s both. I gave a good example in my write-up of the Frank plotline. We didn’t think anyone would die, but we also didn’t feel like everyone was safe, either. Jesse acted as a go-between enough that we knew he was being used; we knew Frank was being watched; we knew something could happen at any moment. Sure, the actual drama was little overall (rock through window, our boys converging on the enemy, Jesse rushing in to save Frank), but there was a build-up to it, Jesse got hurt, and when threats were made, they felt legitimate enough to be a real and honest concern. By courting Abigail, Frank inadvertently made her a target.

To contrast that, Nathan and Lucas barely have a relationship at all and in fact nobody really has a solid relationship with the new guys. The worry Fiona expressed to Elizabeth wasn’t detailed enough for my liking to start (I mean, if she was like, “Look she was panicked, you could tell, and the way he ran out of the saloon…it was something serious, I know it.” we’d have something more concrete to believe in; this is the problem we had in S5 when Abigail had Bill look into the widow–more info would have made it make sense). Then Elizabeth talks to Lucas but I really and truly didn’t feel like we’d SEEN them interact closely enough to justify her acting so worried about him, or at least the way she went to get help, if that makes sense. Why not go in there like “YO LUCAS GOT A GUN I’m worried he’s gonna go kill someone”? I mean, that’s the actual concern there, not so much that Lucas is gonna get hurt.

I could go on forever but nobody knows Lucas well enough to be That Concerned about this. If Elizabeth’s concern was that Lucas was going to kill someone, maybe Nathan would have gone a little faster. :P

Which brings me to my second point. Time is an illusion in this series. What month is it? Day? Year? It was August a couple of episodes ago. What month is it now? Who knows? How can Jack have been dead over a year? How did Elizabeth find out she was pregnant and deliver a full term baby less than a month later??????

It drives me batty. I hate it. It’s not that hard to keep a timeline; they should have been doing this from the start. 

But to add to the confusion, Cape Fullerton, which would be hundreds of miles away, is somehow travelable in mere hours (or at bare minimum a day). That makes the drama here seem fake, too. Why would Lucas leave his friend back east if he’s out west and can’t get to her in a few hours at a bare minimum? What good is he? His whole history and everything just shatters with that knowledge. Are we supposed to believe he’s an actual idiot? I can’t imagine so!

So on the way back they employed something that has driven me mad since for a while, and that is Extremely Slow Horse Walking.

I could roll along on the ground faster than these people are allowed to walk their horses!!!!!!!

And the reason is because of filming and like, the ‘forest’ they film in is very small. You can see too much sky sometimes; it’s obviously just this little patch of land lol. It was the most obvious in S5 when Bill and AJ were riding double and he was walking along toward the place where they had to film the snake stuff but like at a SNAIL’S PACE. I mean it was awkward because the horse wasn’t even able to step normally.

And sure Nathan and Lucas weren’t going that slow, but they were crawling compared to how they ought to have been if they were actually worried. You’d think Lucas would kick that horse into gear and go rushing back toward Hope Valley!

Finally my third point… CONSEQUENCES: or lack thereof. It’s enough to drive anybody crazy, but it seems like people who should suffer the consequences of their actions don’t, and characters who maybe don’t deserve it as much do.

Sure, they needed Henry for more seasons so they got him out on parole lol, but we’re all sitting here like, okay but how could he get out on parole while AJ’s gotta do her time? When the reason is Because We Don’t Want to Hire Her for the Next Season it’s like…really. You couldn’t have gone with something else?

That’s a pretty minor case, though, ‘cause at least Henry faced some consequences. Heck, he had a few seasons of them if you really think about it. But on a general level you’ll notice that Abigail got away with everything she did and never put anything in danger: not herself, her relationships, her position as mayor, nothing. That’s a problem! Clara disagrees with Jesse and yeah, we know they love each other, but it still feels like a risk. Lucas and Elizabeth in the saloon… Eh. They played it up so hard and yet we ALL KNEW nobody was gonna get hurt. Not Bill, not Nathan, not Elizabeth, not Lucas. We knew the bad guys would get caught and Lucas would get his money back.

The drama falls flat and feels boring because it is. I’m not saying we should operate like Game of Thrones and start offing characters for shock value because we don’t get how to write a sociostory instead of a psychstory. But we shouldn’t ever feel that literally every character is safe from all harm. 

(And the whole town running toward the danger was stupid. The only person in that town likely to run toward trouble is Bill. Everyone else wouldn’t do that. It made the drama feel silly. Maybe if people were peeking out their front doors or something, but they ran like a mob right over there. UGH.)

Seriously, if Nathan would have been shot, we’d all be like, “Holy shit that was so dramatic!” But literally nothing happened. Of course Nathan found an easy way in! Of course the front door was unlocked! Of course Lucas failed to get the upper hand with his own gun! Of course Elizabeth and Lucas were able to overpower the guy with a little teamwork!

I mean, we had similar stuff with Bill and AJ in S4, but the difference was that the plot never pretended it was dramatic suspense. They were out there in broad daylight and the plan could have gone awry but it didn’t.

The show trying to trap you into feeling suspense only for nothing bad to happen kind of feels like a letdown! 

(S5′s Bill and AJ scenes were closer to this kind of bad drama. The script was stilted, it felt like things were cut out, and worse: when it was over Bill’s just perfectly fine. He wouldn’t be. He’d need weeks to recover from a bite like that. And that lack of ‘consequence’ (and lack of mention of it later, because surely Carson would be confided in) made it all fall completely flat. Not that it would have been good WITH it, but there was no reason not to include it in the next episode. Bill barely did anything there except get laughed at.)

I guess this wasn’t so brief, but yeah these are the reasons drama in this show tends to feel flat. They try too hard to convince you that it’s dramatic and suspenseful! And then nothing happens of import. You’re lucky if character relationships shift in a believable, reasonable manner. But there are almost never any real consequences for something happening unless they can conveniently toss a consequence out that also involves taking a character off the show or offscreen for a while.

[frasier-crane-style]

Thor spot

It’s not good. It’s bad. It’s “Shake Weight joke in the first five minutes bad.” It’s “Surtur gets taken out in the opening action sequence” bad. There’s no heart, no humanity. It makes the Guardians of the Galaxy look like fucking Shaft. Those movies were still about something. Ragnarok is just a massive piss-take. If GotG was sarcastic, Ragnarok is snide. 

It’s one half epic trilogy conclusion and one half total farce, which gets you Tonal Inconsistency: The Movie. Half of the film (the one the director cares about) takes place on Planet Goldblum and is all wacky fun and crazy antics. (Note: this plotline gets the most handwavey of handwaved conclusions.) The other half is on Asgard and features deaths by the hundred, including name characters being brutally murdered on screen. Like, they’re mortally wounded, then they take a finishing blow. In their first five seconds of screentime! Without a word! That’s how two-thirds of the Warriors Three goes out!

Thor doesn’t even seem to care. It’s like, hey, remember your best friend Volstagg? The guy with a wife and several kids? He was stabbed to death and Thor has more of a reaction to having his hair cut. I’m not kidding.

Like, Iron Man 3 is controversial, but at least they were trying to subvert the expectations of a trilogy capper. Ragnarok is trying to be a straight-up trilogy capper, and a silly parody at the same time, and it ends up feeling like a Muppet version of a Thor movie that could’ve been really cool. Or like a two-hour Saturday Night Live special devoted to making fun of a real movie. Or maybe someone found a way to film two hours of a fuckyeahthor Tumblr…

GotG makes jokes about having a cliche ‘team coming together scene’ that’s still an effective ‘team coming together scene’. Ragnarok would cut out all the moments where the team talks about how they’re probably going to die and Quill talks about how they’ve all lost people (because the director thinks it’s gay), and just make it a bunch of comedians riffing on each other, and then still end the scene on a big musical note as if we’re supposed to take this half-assed improv comedy seriously.

Although even the serious half of the movie isn’t that good. Hela, instead of Loki’s daughter—wouldn’t Loki as King of Asgard, now having to deal with a rebellious offspring, be a fun twist?—is now Thor’s long-lost sister. Yes, the movie is less accurate to Norse mythology than the Thor comics. As it turns out—deep breath—

Long before the backstory we were given about Odin and Odin’s dad in the previous movies, Odin was actually an imperialistic conqueror and he took over the Nine Realms (…remember this) and killed everyone! And Hela was either the Thor to his Odin or the Skurge to his Hela—the movie can’t really decide. Then, inexplicably, Odin decided to just not be a conqueror anymore and turn good. Also inexplicably, Hela disagreed with that and became evil and he had to banish her or imprison her or something.

(This seems like a good place for the Goddess of Death thing or Hel or Niflheim or the spirits of the dead to come up, but it really doesn’t. She might’ve been staying in a loft in Soho doing actuary work, we don’t know. The whole idea of Death’s Domain or her wanting to take the souls of the living, they don’t do anything with that, she just wants to conquer the universe. I guess the Hela, Goddess of Death thing is just a nickname and not something important to who she is as a person. Oh, but she makes a horde of CGI monsters. That’s an important aspect of grappling with your mortality, as personified by Hela. Sometimes there are CGI monsters that you can kill without getting an R-rating).

Of course, stating that a character with a long-established characterization was actually a totally different way that doesn’t fall in line with their personality at all, until suddenly they decided to act in-character with no prompting—good writing. It all basically makes no sense and goes down with so little embellishment that you almost feel like they’re setting up a twist, but then it turns out, no, they just really didn’t care about creating compelling characters or giving them personalities.

And I’m not sure why everyone is so aghast at Odin being a tyrant thousands upon thousands of years ago. Tessa Thompson plays a slave trader in this and Loki killed thousands so recently that people are probably still in therapy for it, but they’re both forgiven with barely a word.

I guess TT has a grudge against Hela, but then that never really comes up or has anything to do with stuff. You think she’d get some big moment of getting her revenge by striking some pivotal blow, but I guess instead she just slashed a bunch of zombies like everyone else.

You know how some comic book movies feel like they haven’t read the comics? This feels like they haven’t even watched the other movies.

Like, I think Tahiti Wahoo is under the impression that Odin rules the Nine Realms? He doesn’t. Earth is one of the Nine Realms. Hel is one of the Nine Realms. Jotunheim, etc. He and Asgard basically act as an inter-realm peacekeeping force. If the US Army shows up in Rwanda to help with a flood, does that mean the President rules Rwanda?

They also have Hela say “Odin ruled the Nine Realms. But why stop at Nine?” Because… that’s all there is. Asgard is one universe, Midgard is another universe (with Earth and Mars and Pluto and everything else in it), and there are nine universes in total. That encompasses, basically, Hell, Heaven, the mortal realm, everything. This is kinda, like, Norse Mythology 101.

To say nothing of the fact that Hela is Odin’s kid, she’s pissy and wants the throne and actually manages to take it, she’s kinda justified and sympathetic but also a real horror… she’s essentially a lady Loki. I don’t get why we waste a bunch of time with Thor discovering Loki is on the throne and removing him from the throne (in the most half-assed, anticlimatic manner imaginable), only for another pissed-off descendant to take the throne and kick Thor out. Why not just have Loki knock Thor over to Planet Goldblum himself?

Also, apparently Hela is powered by Asgard, so if you destroy Asgard, she’s powerless or dead or whatever. Is that how Odin and Thor’s power works? It seems like Thor still has his power when Asgard is destroyed. Like it’s just a part of him. So, uhm… I guess… I guess Hela’s power doesn’t work like that. Even though she has the exact same origin as him and they’re going for this whole parallel thing… but I guess no, their powers work completely differently. For no reason.

And I thought we were still doing “the Asgardians are just stupidly advanced aliens.” If so, how can Hela be Goddess of Death? She raises the dead! What science is that? If it’s some sort of nanotechnology, fuck, why bother with bodies? Just have it make a statue move around or something.

Like, all this stuff about Asgard having a secret history and Odin being a bastard and Hela being Thor’s sister—it all sounds like it should be interesting or thematic or something, but Thor and Hela and Loki just meet for thirty seconds, then the boys go off to Planet Sidequest and never see her again until the climax, so it’s just like… hey… Thor… your dad wasn’t such hot shit after all… and Thor’s just like… I guess not… but then I did already know that from the last two movies... and I also still call on his spirit for advice and support like he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi or something... and all in all they don’t really do anything with that or make anything of it. They’re just putting that out there.

In fact, Thor is pretty much just Tony Stark in this. He makes a bunch of dumb fratboy jokes and he embarrasses himself like an idiot and he has a bunch of daddy issues because it turns out his father is an ass… Now he only does the whole “you shall not triumph over the power of Asgard” stuff when it’s about to be immediately undercut… which the movies have already joked about. And Mjolnir takes a while to show up, which the movies have also already joked about.

Like, the stinger in Doctor Strange actually has Strange and Thor interacting like equals, it breathes, it’s well-paced, it feels like part of some cool adventure--then the version in this movie is edited into basically a Youtube Poop, with Thor bumbling around and being an idiot because that’s good for a cheap laugh and it’s easier than writing jokes. Look, he knocked something over!

For some reason, they specifically mention that Jane Foster was dumped by Thor. I know Natalie Portman doesn’t want to do these movies, and I guess they can’t recast the character, or cut some Gwyneth Paltrow deal to have her show up for one scene, or just refer to her without having her show up like in Ultron. It’s not like Thor has a romance in this one that would preclude him being with Jane. I guess they just wanted to say fuck you to Natalie Portman. And get a cutting-edge “she didn’t dump me, I dumped her!” joke in there. Comedic genius Tadpole Whammy, everyone.

Replacing Jane as female lead is, uhm… I don’t think they ever give her a name? Valkyrie? Although that’s her job title, not a name, so... Yeah, she’s a slave trader. That’s kind of weird. That one of the heroes in the movie is an unrepentant slave trader. She specifically takes free people prisoner and then sells them for money. Into slavery. And not to work on a farm or something either. To be killed in gladiatorial combat. So she’s like a slave trader who deals exclusively with snuff filmmakers and serial killers. Or maybe she also sells sex slaves, but it’s off-screen. I don’t know, that’s going a little far. She’s probably one of those nice slave traders. The ones who only barely torture their slaves into submission with agonizing pain. Which she does. On screen.

I mean, is slave trader the only job this woman can get? It seems like Planet Goldblum has this huge city with millions of people in it. Are they all slave traders? It seems like some of them would be weathermen or babysitters or stunt choreographers. Maybe she could get a job doing one of those things. Instead of being a slave trader. Which is what she does. For thousands of years. I mean, Hela predated Thor and Loki and Odin fighting the jötnar, and Tessa Thompson went to Planet Goldblum immediately after fighting Hela, so… that seems like a long time that she’s spent capturing people and forcing them into slavery for money. She’s probably ruined as many lives as Loki, if you tally them all up over the millennia.  Oh, but I guess she’s bisexual. That’s the important thing. Not her selling people like groceries.

Aside from, you know, the character’s involvement in atrocities, the entire thing is just a wash. Obviously, a 5’2 black Valkyrie is violently miscast—something along the lines of John Leguizamo playing a sumo wrestler or Michael Cera playing the most badass rapper on the East Side—but even if we didn’t give a fig about the cultural heritage of real life people, the movie’s conception of her wouldn’t work. She’s supposed to be some roguish, bedraggled, gin-soaked cynic that’s haunted by her past, but as played by clear-skinned, bouncy-haired Tessa Thompson, the character comes off like a pissy sorority girl who’s had too many mojitos.

Speaking of, I swear, there’s some weird racial polemic thing going on. Odin dies, the Warriors Three die (but the Asian one gets to put up a bit of a fight), Heimdall ends up getting a rather undue blowjob as a character (as he’s the only one who isn’t killed off or made a joke), Asgard turns out to be some sort of evil colonialism thing… I guess the director really wished he could be ruining Black Panther instead of Thor. And I really have a hard time imagining a movie that would make a white slave trader a hero, so are they saying that the bad thing about the American slave trade was that it was white people doing it to black people, and that if a black person enslaved a white person, it wouldn’t be so bad? That’s gotta be the nadir of identity politics.

I’m not sure why Hulk’s in the movie. He doesn’t contribute anything to the plot besides fighting one of Hela’s subbosses in a short, unsatisfying bout. His character doesn’t really change or grow, except that Bruce doesn’t want to become the Hulk for a while, but then he becomes the Hulk for the greater good because it’s an emergency. So, you know—that’s never been done before. And I guess all that control he got over the Hulk in the last few movies is gone, because now he’ll turn into the Hulk over loud noises?

Loki, he kinda screws Thor over, but also kinda redeems himself. I don’t see why the MCU needs a movieverse Magneto. I mean, he just did this in the last movie. And in this one, they take time to make fun of that for being gay shit (I mean, I’m pretty sure the director thinks this is all gay shit and no one but him is clever enough to make fun of how Thor talks funny, but). You’d think maybe they’d at least come up with a definitive end for his character. I mean, if we’re streamlining the comics and getting rid of questionable aspects, why not the part where people keep putting up with Loki and forgiving him, even after he’s responsible for mass murder?

Just… there’s no mood, there’s no tension, there’s no sense of scale or excitement or wonder. The villains have no menace. The action has no thrills. The heroes have no coolness or power. The jokes don’t undercut the atmosphere because there’s never any atmosphere established. An average episode of The Simpsons has more momentum, more romance, more adventure. Like, I’m honestly shocked Cate Blanchett agreed to this. An Oscar-winning actress, playing Marvel’s first female villain, and she’s a total nothing of a character who the movie is endlessly disinterested in in favor of Jeff Goldblum playing a meme.

Every single character is either a joke or hastily bridge-dropped in hopes of establishing some stakes, then the movie has the audacity to ask you to be emotionally involved in these characters who it treats as fucking clowns nine times out of ten. It’s like some kind of anti-storytelling. They might as well superimpose Teaspoon Westeros making a jerk-off motion every time the characters have a supposedly heartfelt moment.

I mean… I wouldn’t even be totally against a Thor movie that’s a complete lark. If there’s one thing the Batman movies have taught us, it’s that not every villain can be the focus of an epic, personal plot. Otherwise you get shit like the Riddler wanting to suck the Earth’s brainwaves or the Penguin wanting to blow up Gotham. Bond fans are downright sick of epic, personal Bond movies that change everything for 007. They just want a nice, normal mission where Bond flirts with Moneypenny, gets gadgets from Q, is ordered off somewhere by M, fights a villain, saves the world, gets the girl.

So a Thor movie that was just him and Hulk on Planet Goldblum, trying to start a revolution, that’d be fine by me. They’re going to make a million of these things anyway and they can’t all be Superman 2, so why not? As long as, in being a silly lark, it didn’t burn through stuff that could actually make for a real movie in the hands of someone who gave a shit. Surtur? Skurge? Hela? All three of the Warriors Three dying? Asgard being destroyed? Thor being blinded? Loki being redeemed? Those are big-ticket items and they deserve to be the focus of a real story, not just ‘Get Ready For Infinity War’ items ticked off in-between lengthy rounds of improv comedy. I swear, their version of Skurge redeeming himself is just that he acts like a bit of a jerk for five minutes, is kinda uncomfortable with Hela killing everyone, and then he sacrifices himself as a complete afterthought. It’s like a version of Lord of the Rings where Boromir dies in the background while Frodo and Sam are doing a bunch of gay panic jokes.

He’s not even a villain! I guess he redeems himself for the time he lifted up an axe. Yes, now that he’s made the ultimate sacrifice, that sin can be forgiven.

Just as a counterexample, I don’t think Christopher Nolan is a dyed-in-the-wool Batman fan, but he respects the material and engages with it and wants to give the audience something for their money. He’s not just saying “wow, this is a bunch of money, I can make Inception and call Leo’s character Bruce Wayne and people will like it because in one scene he wears a cape.”

[takerfoxx]

“Fires of the Sun: Epilogue” Thoughts

All right, let’s wrap this up.

Okay, starting things off with Yukari's scene, her bits with Byakuren and the remaining SDM crew are pretty self-explanatory and don't require a whole lot of commentary. I am going to say that I actually have no idea where Sakuya's character development is going to take her, save that this sort of quiet, reserved, no fucks given madness thing she has going on right now is…sort of intriguing. She's gone beyond rage, beyond grief, beyond hate, and is, at that moment, more dangerous than she's ever been. And though I haven't planned where it's going to take her just yet, I am interested in finding out.

Bringing Koakuma back was always a given, though the manner went through some changes. Originally I had planned for Shinki to be the one to receive the request and have her reject it out of hand because of rules or some such, only for Yukari to show an uncharacteristic amount of kindness and snap at her, causing Shinki to relent. However, some last minute changes in the previous chapter meant that Shinki was no longer available, so that scene unfortunately had to go. I also was thinking of having Koakuma still be wearing her Serpentine Marauder uniform upon being summoned back. Theor natural consequence of that would of course have Yukari recognize it, draw some unfortunate conclusions, and immediately start interrogating the poor little devil. Honestly that would have been the better choice, as it opens up numerous plot and character opportunities, but at the time I was tired and didn't want to expand things any more than they already were, so I just had her show up naked like a proper summoned succubus and left it at that. The poor girl was already having a rough day anyway.

The final bit with Satori and co. gave me some issues. At that point, I was growing concerned about the runtime of Yukari's scene, especially when compared to the later ones, and felt that her having a third encounter would make it a little tedious, and considered giving it its own section. However, that disrupted the flow of how these loose end scenes were being set up, and everyone was already there anyway, so screw it. Fortunately, in reading it over, it wasn't as bad as I feared, so that worked out. Also, originally I was just going to have her yank Jun and Utsuho over in a couple of sentences, but given what Utsuho had been through, she deserved a little more. However, her scene with Jun was in danger of running too long, as they started to have a serious discussion of their relationship thus far and Jun's bullying of her, and while that would have been interesting, the focus at that moment needed to be on Satori's return, so it was trimmed. But in doing so, it seems a little abrupt and out of place, so perhaps that wasn't a fantastic idea after all.

As for Satori herself, she should thank her lucky stars that her original plotline got scrapped. It was a little awkward dividing her time between her affectionate pets and talking to Yukari. I still get a kick out of her mind-reading answering all of her question instantaneously, and am very glad that that's back. I did have to use my mental wayback machine to recall everything that she wouldn't know as well as everything she should know and remind myself that she did get a good look at Yuuka's true form. Also, I don't care how much he's slipped out of relevancy. Soulja Boy will always remain a form of torture.

The scene from Yuuka's POV (or what's left of her) was short, but worked very well. I'm not really one for flowery, poetic language. Slightly sarcastic and to the point is more my style. But I did try to slow things down and get a little verbose when trying to describe Yuuka's condition. After all, Mima's lovely speech to her was only going to be a few paragraphs, and I really wanted to drive home just how unbelievably broken she was. I mean, the burns are one thing, but Yuuka is have now officially fallen off the crazy tree and hit every branch along the way. Funny thing about her fourth wall breaking thing: originally, it was done simply to set up some gags in the future, have her interrupt the author's notes and stuff like that. But the execution proved to be even bigger than I had expected, and once it was there and started to get a lot of attention, I realized that now I had gone through with it, I needed to take it seriously. Having her be a Deadpool sort of character cracking postmodern, self-referential jokes wasn't going to do it. And going the full Stephen King route of having her break into our world and kill me or something like that would be too honky.

So instead of just making it be a silly thing or drive her to do something way over the top, I decided to let that one peek she got be the whole plotline. That was all she was ever going to see. There wasn't going to be any cutting into other Gensokyos, no entering our world, no including me as a character, outside of those talking directly to the audience bits. She was just going to get a quick look, long enough to realize what was going on, and have it bring everything crashing down on her. Her status as a fictional character was going to literally drive her nuts, cause her to question everything, have an existential crisis, and essentially drive her mad, which is pretty ironic, considering what she is. She would try to deal, become obsessed with storytelling conventions, and over time delude herself into believing that she was the main character. And as such, Yidhra the Outer God, a being beyond comprehension who would literally drive lesser mortals insane by her mere existence, was in turn driven mad herself by something she couldn't understand. Karma, baby.

Reimu's scene was to establish how tense the whole battle would have been to something unable to participate. She, Reisen, and Remilia filled the roles of worried loved ones stuck at home, desperately waiting for any sort of news. And as is my wont, that news was delivered in the silliest manner possible. Y'know, the whole Tengu newspaper business has a lot of fun possibilities. I've been frequently annoyed by clickbait sites like Knowable and whatnot as of late and how irritating their set-up is that I realized how much the Tengu would love such a set-up. Steal other people's stories, compile them under a huge, annoyingly attention grabbing title, and then cut them up in the most irritating way possible to squeeze every cent out of advertisers. And you ever notice that when they say stuff like, "Number three is shocking!", the actual number three doesn't really stand out all that much from the others?

Though that aside, you really have to feel for Remilia here. Her whole humble pie arc was intended to break her down from being a smug snake and make her a more sympathetic character, but damn did it go far. As for Reimu, I'm not too sure where her story is going to go from here. I mean, I know what part she'll be playing during the big climatic scenes in the future, but as for how she'll handle the news of Mima's heel turn or anything involving Rin Satsuki or her friends or whatever, I have no idea. Will she stay at the shrine or will Yukari end up moving her somewhere safer? Will Alice get to teach her magic or not? What is she going to do with her time until the shit hits the fan again? I just don't know yet, but I look forward to finding out.

On a side note, I did plan a cutaway to Alice and Shanghai, but realized that I didn't have anything for them to do that would add to the chapter, so it got cut. We can always catch up with them later.

And then we get to Rin's scene. This one was a big hodgepodge of points I needed to hit and trying to weave them all together. Okay, Flandre had to acknowledge the trauma of losing her old friends, check. Some banter with Rumia, check. Seija got knocked out again so she doesn't ruin the scene, check. Daiyousei's still got her snowglobe because the hell I'm gonna let it get left behind, check. Kogasa's still crushing on Wriggle, check. Doremy gets a proper introduction (and finally an accurate description of her tail) and helps Rumia sleep while making Rin jealous, check. And all the kids had to finally get named as well. I already knew that Kogasa, Doremy, Sekibanki, Kurumi, Seija, and I guess Sara would be among them. As for the rest, I had already discarded Clownpiece (too strong), the Prismrivers (unlikely to be there), anyone not a loli for…obvious reasons, or anyone part of any specific cast herd. I briefly considered Ringo, but didn't really feel like it. I did scour the remaining PC-98 characters, so that's why there were so many demons. Hey, Yuuka's been to Makai before. To fill in the remaining slots, we had Rengeteki as the obligatory fairy and the glasses-wearing Kappa from the Kappa mob. I almost added one of the nameless PC-98 midbosses, but decided to go for the Kappa instead.

And on aside, Doremy's introductory scene was a hoot. I'm not a huge fan of the newer characters, but she was a lot of fun. She and Cirno are going to get along just fine.

Then we get to the final bit, where Rin discovers the bodies of her parents (and yes, that's what they were, everyone already knows it so I'm not spoiling anything). No real behind the scenes thing with that. It just felt like an appropriate way to wrap up her arc before the hiatus, having her return to the place where her story began and finally get some closure with her origins, even if she hasn't figured out who they were.

In regards to lady Meika, again I can't really talk about who she is and how she's connected to the plot, save that she is something that several characters' individual plotlines are building up to, and her bits take place long after Imperfect Metamorphosis's finale. I did drop several hints though, a few of which have already been picked up on. Not all though.

And then, at last we cut back to Hina, who's been conspicuously missing ever since the Shadow Youkai got sucked out of Rin. That was deliberate, as I wanted her scene to be a surprise, as a final, dark reminder that Rumia Yagami isn't gone for good just yet. Anyway, remember how I mentioned being stunned that I was finally getting to write a scene that had been planned years and years ago? Well, this was that scene, and it felt eerie to finally get to do it.

Though on another aside, I tried to make the whole author notes breakdown even wonkier, even to the point of including ASCII art and weirder formatting. Alas, went and ate it all up. Stupid limited formatting options.

So yeah. That's it. That wraps up Fires of the Sun. Looking back, I'm really happy with how it came out. Were there weak spots and areas that could have been done differently and done better? Yes. Where there parts that I skimped due to, and let's face it, laziness? Yes. Did it surpass The Storm as intended? I'm…not sure. The thing to remember is that when The Storm happened, it was sort of a trendsetter for this story and, and this is going to sound arrogant, for Touhou fics in general. I got a ton of notice in the English Touhou fandom for that mini-arc, mainly due to the surprise inclusion of Lovecraftian elements and Yuuka's big fourth wall break. Also a lot of controversy as well, but hey, free publicity. But that was years ago, back when IM was still on the rise. Now the hype's died down, people have gotten used to it being around, so it just doesn't have the same impact as before. It was more of wrapping things up from that big shocker rather than being another big shocker. Marisa's death came close, but not really to the same level.

So no, I don't think Fires of the Sun matched the impact of The Storm. It's more polished perhaps, and maybe the fight scenes flow better, but it doesn't have the newness The Storm had. But that's okay. This was for everyone who stuck around to see what would happen, a way of bringing about some measure of closure before putting this ginormous story on the shelf. And in that regard, I feel it succeeded nicely.

So…I guess that's it. Wow, okay, Imperfect Metamorphosis is now officially on hiatus. Thank you all so much for reading, and be sure to stick around! More stuff for Subconscious is to come!

Cheers, everyone!