#give her character development give her agency give her a subplot

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

canon divergent/au/crossover fics that give the Tragic Doomed Girlfriend character a gun and make her survival everyone's problem my beloved

[artbyblastweave]

Finished up Batman Beyond today. As much as I liked it, one thing that did jump out at me over the course of the show was that Dana Tan was basically an unreconstructed instance of "The Superhero's Girlfriend-" a love interest who's present in the narrative mainly to create tension between the demands of the superhero lifestyle and the loved one who's in the dark, but who has very little agency or role in the story beyond that, indeed, very little else you can have them do if you want to preserve that. The episode in which I believe she got the most focus, she spent most of it running for her life from a Rat Guy through the sewers.

There's a post about Spider-Man doing the rounds, which posits that part of why Mary Jane won out over Spidey's other long-term love interests was that because she wasn't originally intended to win, she had room to develop traits and dynamics beyond "superhero's put-upon girlfriend-"in fact, she had to, in order to present a plausible temptation away from whoever Spidey was quote-unquote "supposed" to be dating. I'm not a comprehensive Spidey reader, so I'm not going to go to the mattress for that read until I've read some more- but I do think there's some meat to that dynamic in general because of this show. Melanie Walker only shows up in three episodes and already she's got a ridiculously tangled family dynamic thrown into the mix, torn loyalties, the need to keep her head above water financially no matter what other goals she has, a cool hoverboard. Max Gibson's got an actual give-and-take back-and-forth with Terry and Bruce, the added interesting complication that she's trying to prybar her way even further into the game than either of them want her to but it's not like they have a way to make her leave. Dana is.... pissed that Terry is spending so much time with Mr. Wayne. Again. I mean, she's got a job to do, she clocks in at the start of each episode and does it.

This sort of harkens back to Invincible, where a major tenet of the first quarter of the book was that for logistical and ethical reasons, a superhero's dating pool is realistically limited to other players of the game- other people deep enough in the cape lifestyle that they can keep up and relate. Otherwise, your partner is going to spend most of the relationship stuck on the outside looking in, and even if they're nominally okay with the situation it's going to suck. Arguably, Amber in the comic fell into the pit of visibly existing mainly to demonstrate this, reproducing the dynamic they were critiquing. The show did a lot of legwork trying to make her more of an actively agentic character, but when the entire point is that a character in her position would have extremely limited agency there's only so much you can do to patch that. Then Eve rolls in, and it turns out you can do the exact same relationship beats about chronic unavailability, lack of communication and the like, but with a partner who's equally capable of showing up to all the big set piece fights and gorily eviscerating people in her own unique ways- a character who's consistently around in the story for reasons other than that she's dating the hero. You don't have to pick!

This got longer than I thought it was going to be. I do want to round out by saying that this sort of aligns neatly with something else that I've noticed- namely that a lot of post-10s cartoons also appear to have noticed this, and either hang back from biting off more than they can chew by committing to a romance subplot for their leads, or if there is a romance subplot they really aggressively commit to making sure the love interest approaches deuteragonist status in terms of airtime and agency. Hell, Steven Universe left the exact status of Steven and Connie's relationship ambiguous, and it still had a lot to say about the civilian girlfriend freezeout trope. Again- date other players!

[sokkastyles]

What are your thoughts on Pakku going to the SWT and he and Kanna becoming a couple again? Personally, it always felt really rushed/out of nowhere to me. Not that Pakku would go to the South to help rebuild, but that Kanna would accept him back into her life romantically or that it would take so little time for her to decide to do so.

It is rushed, and pretty questionable storytelling wise, and there's no real reason for it to happen. What is especially jarring about it, though, is how little Kanna gets a voice in this storyline.

I mean, forget for a minute the questionable choice of having a woman who went across a continent to flee an arranged marriage just get back together with that person after decades. Even if we accepted this as a choice the writers made, the problem is that we have no idea how Kanna felt at any time about any of it.

It seems like there was an attempt at character development there, but a lot of it is actually assumed by the fandom to fill in the gaps. All we're actually told in the series is that Kanna left because she didn't want to marry Pakku. I have seen some fans extrapolate that Kanna did love Pakku, but that what she wanted was a choice, and that's why she agrees to marry Pakku in the end, after Katara taught him How to Respect Women (another problematic trope that this series has a problem with in general). But even if we assume those things, all of that is still fanon. We aren't told any of this, how Kanna felt or why her feelings changed. Katara actually says that Kanna didn't love Pakku, and while Katara could have been incorrect, the problem is that we never actually get to hear from Kanna about it, at any point. Even when they get back together, we don't know why. All we hear is that Pakku says he made a new betrothal necklace for her.

It would have been very easy to fix this problem by just adding a few lines of dialogue to make Kanna's feelings more clear and present in the story. Maybe Pakku tells Katara how Kanna gave him an ultimatum and said that she would not be another man's prize. And then when the group sees Pakku again with the White Lotus, Pakku tells Katara how her bravery in standing up to him made him realize how he had lost Kanna through his own pigheadedness, and he proposed to her anew if only she would have him. In just a few lines of dialogue, we get a lot more of Kanna's agency and we see that Pakku has actually changed as a person. It's still problematic, but a lot more palatable.

Hell, you could even add in a line of dialogue about how Kanna is helping Pakku open up a school for female waterbenders now, and that would give us some sense of character development that would have helped us understand how their relationship developed. It also brings things nicely full circle from Kanna watching Hama and the other waterbenders from her village being taken away, and solves the exceptionalism issue that is part of the problem with that whole subplot, because we don't get so much of a sense that Pakku has actually learned to respect women vs learning to respect Katara because she is tough or because she is Kanna's granddaughter.

What's even more confusing is how the necklace came to symbolize what it does for Katara, and how that fits with the Pakku thing. It's my personal headcanon that Kanna passed it on to her daughter as a symbol of what she had overcome, of her own determination to be free, and Kya did the same thing with her daughter. Katara had to get her feminism from somewhere. But then that's hard to reconcile with a Kanna who was secretly pining for her lost love all these years and who would accept another necklace from the same dude.

The show just didn't bother to give Kanna a voice here, and that's the biggest problem.

[cross-my-heartt]

Why I don't think anyone from the batch is going to die in Season 3

Alright this was supposed to be in Part 3 of my Three Act Structure analysis but it's gotten rather long so I'm making it a separate post.

The premise here is that a large part of the third act is often the process of tying up subplots and providing closure for the audience. (Unless we get an open ending which I doubt since we have a whole season to cram full of content.)

And in my opinion killing off any member of the batch would serve to cut their respective subplots short rather then resolve them. Here's what I mean:

Let's start with Tech. Making Tech’s death final means an untimely end to not one but several subplots. First and most obvious is the goal of reuniting the batch. And I mean the batch in its entirety. Next is his romance with Phee which was in its development stage when it was cut short and finally there’s the mystery of his possible survival which, given how many casual and non casual viewers are convinced he’s alive, is an ongoing subplot, an active mystery.

And answering the question of ‘how he survived’ with ‘he didn’t’ is likely to put off a large part of the audience.

Next is Crosshair and the entire subplot of getting him back to his brothers.

Crosshair is the missing piece that has been creating tension since episode one of season one. A character who has already sacrificed himself for the good of the group making another sacrifice repetitive and redundant. Who has largely redeemed himself and has gotten his own miniature hero’s journey where the hero hasn’t been ‘rewarded’ yet. Who was once forcefully prevented from returning before making a decision to leave, a choice that he now has the chance of making again.

In short killing Crosshair now… doesn’t make sense on any front.

Then there’s Echo, another option with little narrative logic behind it. There was an immense effort made to bring Echo back after he died in TCW so there’s the element of redundancy in killing him again. It would also completely obliterate his subplot with Rex, because here’s the thing:

If at any point there is emphasis put on a character’s choice, especially one involving an interesting personal/moral dilemma, killing that character before he’s able to give his answer is an extremely unsatisfying thing to do.

As an audience we naturally want to know what conclusion the character reaches. Hunter and Echo had a conversation where Hunter asked Echo ‘when it would be enough’ and thus far we haven’t heard Echo’s answer. We don’t know whether he’s made up his mind on which life he’s going to choose, which one he will prioritize or how he will possibly balance them; whether the new circumstances introduced by the show have somehow swayed him in either direction.

These are all very interesting questions. And depriving us of an answer, a resolution, a character defining choice feels cheap. Almost like a cop out following a good baiting. What’s the point of giving us complexity if it’s going to lead to a dead end?

Next in the lineup is Omega who has been such a crucial driving force behind the batch’s decisions that killing her off would be beyond stupid. Much like Echo, she’s the source of many quandaries that I’m sure the audience would rather see answered than have them be cut short.

Character development and complexity is built through the important decisions characters make when faced with dilemmas. And taking those dilemmas away either stunts growth or leaves us without any insight into the character’s mind.

Characters who are forced into a certain path for lack of any choice can quickly become one dimensional. Deprived of the chance to demonstrate agency, personality and their values. Crosshair was such an instant fan favorite because he was allowed to make choices. He was compelling regardless of whether we agreed with him or not.

So what happens if Omega is torn away from the batch? What happens to the question of family versus being soldiers? Of safety versus risk? Of the familiar versus the unknown? Do we really want our heroes thrown back into the fight out of despair? Out of a sense of revenge? Or do we want a slow building realization brought to a satisfying conclusion. You tell me.

And finally let’s not forget how much of Star Wars centers around hope and in particular, passing the torch to the next generation. There’s a whole dissertation to be written here but I’ll refrain from it and just say that killing off the youngest member of the batch who’s supposed to carry their legacy and lessons into the future would be a pointless slap to the face of much of what the franchise represents.

And last but not least there’s Hunter and Wrecker who I’m putting in the same basket as they’re similar in that there’s no immediately apparent reason or subplot keeping them safe. Well, none besides the question of why... Why do it really? The only thing I can think of is shock factor and my personal stance on that is borderline derision. It’s one of the cheapest most narratively pointless tropes out there and I expect better from the show.

If we had to go into the nitty gritty, I’d say Hunter is safer from getting the chop because a) there’s his developing parental relationship with Omega b) he’s already been in a critical situation where he’s shown to be ready to sacrifice himself (I’m talking about Daro where he tells them to leave him behind. Honestly it’s redundant to show any of the batch sacrifice themselves for the others because we get it. We’ve seen it. It’s really really redundant at this point.) and c) he’s one of the main decision making forces in the squad so we expect the answers pertaining to their future to come from him.

And honestly there’s more. There’s the fact that he and Crosshair were the representatives of two opposing worldviews so seeing them reconcile and reunite would be a satisfying moment. There’s Hunter’s guilt for leaving Crosshair behind, Crosshair’s resentment for being left behind (both things that have been largely forgotten after the Outpost despite being unresolved. There’s been this pervasive attitude of ‘haha you were wrong all the time, stupid! now grovel’ that seems to invalidate everything that’s happened before that but …sigh… another post for another day).

So I suppose the conclusion here is… Wrecker is in danger? If we believe that someone is definitely going to die. Though I certainly can’t promise anyone that the writers won’t throw us a curve ball or introduce some new narrative reason for a carnage.

[cadybear420]

#literally the same problem i had with mtfl #it had potential to have serious discussions but they're all brushed over to have mc make her jacob/edward decision

"Her Jacob/Edward decision" is the most perfect way to describe it honestly and I'm probably going to be calling it as such too from now on. This book really is just if Twilight, Glee, and The Kissing Booth got drunk and had an unholy orgy resulting in The Kissing Booth giving birth to the Choices story we have before us (no I will not let go of the TKB comparisons, the base similarities between between it and MTFL are just too uncanny)

#and ofc the sidelining of ava #she had a whole arc on how she wanted to open up a dance studio not wanting to go to college and so much more and it is all thrown away #or shoehorned in to make some room for “drama”

Yes! OMG, I forgot to mention it in the list I had of all the other subplots– but on its own, I loved it in concept. Ava is searching for colleges but eventually comes to realize she's not yet ready for college– and that's something we should normalize more!

But this book sidelined it so much that I forgot it even existed until you brought it up. Like, Jesus Christ. God knows how many other people forgot it existed.

Just shows how much this book was "wasted potential". Like, something like a plotline about how it's okay to not be ready for college right after graduating high school, should feel a lot more impactful and memorable. Something like a character realizing they are or might be queer, should feel a lot more impactful and memorable.

But the way they're handled is just so... cheap. They threw in all these subplots with serious themes, but just barely scratched the surface's electrons and ultimately failed to make them feel truly impactful. But it seems to think by just doing that bare minimum and simply having these themes in their is enough to make it meaningful.

#and ofc just when ava starts dating someone else mc is all gutted and jealous and THAT is the so-called “bi revelation” seriously? #pb stop using cheap plot tools such as love-freaking-triangles to have conversations about sexuality challenge: impossible

PB really thought pure jealousy and indecisiveness was the best way to portray their canonically bi MC. I get teenagers may have these feelings, but that's all that MC's bi-discovery arc had to go by.

I probably should have put this in my original review, but... Ava and MC are supposed to be best friends, right? PB clearly has them set up as being best friends. Yet we know next-to-nothing about their relationship for some reason, and we barely get any chance to see their relationship develop leading up to MC's bi awakening.

Like, PB, if you're gonna nerf our choices and player agency and have a MC that's mainly their own set character rather a flexible wildcard playable character, then at least have the decency to commit to it. Correct me if I'm wrong (it has been almost 3 years since I last played the story after all), but I don't think we ever learn how long Ava and MC have been friends for. They bothered to set up this whole childhood backstory between MC and Mason, but not for MC and Ava who are also supposed to be close friends? PB clearly said they're best friends, so you'd think whatever relationship they have would be a major factor into MC canonically realizing she's bi and attracted to Ava.

But no, instead all we get is MC being jealous that Ava is dating Mason, Ava takes MC home after homecoming, then MC gets jealous that Ava is dating Bayla. That's all they make MC feel towards Ava. I could maybe get a better feel for MC feeling this way if they actually elaborated on Ava and MC's friendship like they did with MC and Mason's, but... well, at this point I'm just gonna be repeating myself now lol

Cadybear's Reviews- My Two First Loves

Welcome to the twenty-seventh official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about My Two First Loves, which I have ranked on the "Rotting Flesh Tier" at 2 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was back in April-June 2021.

Oh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I could write a whole essay on everything wrong with this…  

So I will. 

To put it briefly: this story feels like it was adapted from a Wattpad story that was written by a 12-year-old whose only ever exposure to high school media and depictions of teenage sexuality was Glee, and then had serious queer and mature themes slapped onto it in order to make it seem better. Y’know, the equivalent of trying to polish a turd.

Or, heck, it’s probably PB’s attempt at ripping off “The Kissing Booth”, seeing as both have a MC in a love triangle between her childhood best friend and a bad boy named Noah, after all. Which, funnily enough, was also originally adapted from some tween’s Wattpad story. That’s about the equivalent to a dog eating some rotten food, shitting it out, then another dog finds it, eats it, and then shits it right out again. And THEN that second dog’s owner comes along to try to polish that double-toured turd. 

Number 1: The LGBTQ+ tag is clearly an attempt to appease the queer players that they probably think are being whiny. 

Ava’s arc about realizing she’s a lesbian who had been experiencing compulsory heterosexuality is pretty solid in a vacuum. But her being an LI was so blatantly only a last-minute decision PB made during the writing process, and it shows because Ava’s CG just uses her game sprite while Mason’s and Noah’s are fresh art. 

MC starts to fall for Ava sometime around at least 30 chapters in, but we don’t get to officially pursue her as a romance option until about 70 chapters in. I get delaying her as a love interest a bit because of the whole thing with MC realizing she’s bi, but even then, there’s just so few opportunities for building any kind of relationship with her that it hardly feels authentic. 

Speaking of, MC’s supposed bi awakening is completely rushed and treated with about as much value as a Family Guy cutaway gag, even outside of Ava being sidelined. As someone who realized I wasn’t straight three years ago and is still questioning if I’m bi or straight, I understand that people take different amounts of time to figure out their sexuality. But this MC does not spend any period of time figuring out her bisexuality. She basically just goes “Welp, guess I’m bi now”, and then it’s back to being indecisive as per usual except now there’s a female love interest in the mix too.

To add insult to injury, "discussions of sexuality" is placed in a "player discretion" warning, alongside "racial tensions" and "occasionally violence" to boot. How the fuck is discussion of sexuality even remotely on the same level as either of those? If they meant discussions or depictions of homophobia then maybe I could understand… but I don’t even recall seeing any depictions of homophobia in the book, so including this in the freaking warning tags is pointless at best and kind of insulting at worst. 

Not to mention, plenty of other Choices books like MOTY, ILS, D&D, etc. have had discussions about sexuality/LGBTQ+ stuff before, and didn't have to warn us about it. Not even MAH, a later book which had discussions about freaking conversion therapy for Christ’s sake. Sure, some of those books did have content warnings, but they were generally vague and/or mainly warned for violence, and didn’t warn specifically for depictions of queerphobia or discussions of sexuality. Yet for some reason, MTFL feels the need to include a player discretion warning for sexuality discussions, even though it contains far less harsher queer themes. 

Number 2: The portrayal of teen sexuality in this does not feel earnest. 

Let me just say, I found it very jarring how this one was much more sexually charged compared to PB’s other high school books. PB is usually way more “safe” and PG-13 at most when writing high school characters. Even in books like ROD and WEH, where the characters are 18+ and do have smutty scenes, it’s clear that those books are a lot more restricted compared to the adult cast books.  

I mean, with WEH, the safeness makes sense– it was meant to be a serious and tender story from the start, and it does actually follow through on those themes. But ROD feels like it could have easily been as horny with its writing as MTFL was, what with being about a studious “good girl” who goes rebellious. In fact, the story’s loading screen was pretty infamous at first for looking “steamier” than other covers and loading screens.

In actuality though, ROD had only, what, one smut scene? And despite a lot of MC’s outfits being revealing or arguably sensual, there are practically no moments where MC fawned over how “sexy” a revealing diamond outfit looked. Like, I’m pretty sure there were just little to no sexually charged scenes in general. 

My point is, whatever compelled PB to make MTFL *this* sexualized is beyond me. My guess is the fact that PB called this one a story about “navigating sexuality” and thus wanted to focus more on the aspects of sexuality, but if that’s the case… hoo boy, did they do a terrible job at it. 

I don’t really care about the hypersexualized writing of the teenage characters on its own, or how the characters were initially not confirmed 18+ when the earlier smut scenes were written. What I find far more important is the fact that this sort of cliche and formulaic hypersexualized writing is in a book that markets itself as being about ��a young woman navigating love and sexuality for the first time”.

Teens do indeed have sex and can be all over the place with their hormones and sexuality. A lot of us have been there in some way, myself included. And there are ways to talk about that type of stuff in a manner that is silly and/or exaggerated, but still earnest and respectful. But the particular way that MTFL handles super-horny teen sexuality, specifically while claiming to be a coming-of-age story, is neither earnest nor respectful. 

The way this story handles these sorts of topics is the writing equivalent to doing a surgery with Fisher-Price toy surgery tools. It’s genuinely difficult to take MC “navigating her sexuality for the first time” seriously when has to constantly blubber about how Mason and Noah are so muscular or how a diamond outfit has “naughty little thigh highs” or how she wants to do a “down and dirty” cheer routine with Ava for Mason and Noah. 

That last one especially feels like the kind of stuff we’d see more in a campy chick flick that doesn’t take itself seriously. Honestly, if this was a more campy high school book with the tone of DLS or the 2023 movie “Bottoms”, it probably wouldn’t be as glaring. But in a book that markets itself as a coming-of-age story, the tone feels completely off and the whole book honestly felt like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. 

(Also, while we’re on this topic of MC’s premium outfits, I really fucking despise how MC gets so upset about wearing "mom clothes" if you choose to wear the free modest clothing instead of the revealing diamond outfit in Chapter 2. Ugh. Yes, the dad was being shitty about not letting MC dress how she likes, but all it does is it just makes you feel like shit for not wanting to dress in more revealing clothes. Stop making me feel bad for wanting to wear simple non-revealing clothing. Same goes for you, Chris Romantic Getaway story with your “the regular jerseys aren’t cute enough for girls to wear, we have to cut one up into a cleavage crop top in order to make it good for us girls to wear” bullshit.) 

And it just slaps you in the face with these sexual moments too, placing them in frequently whenever it feels like it, and the amount of it that actually contributed to any coming-of-age navigating-sexuality are few and far between. Honestly, it felt like it was trying way too hard to look "mature" with how it handled sexuality (as well as some of the other stuff like them drinking alcohol). Like it maybe was trying to portray teens realistically, but it only does so at a very shallow level. 

It's literally just "Look at the teens that talk about sex and like doing sexy things and having sex and doing grown-up stuff like drinking alcohol, see how MATUUURRREEE they are!" and they don't do anything more with it. It's just tacked on so they can pretend their book is a realistic story about maturing/being mature, when it fails at actually doing so.

I mean, I guess you could argue that the MC is meant to be seen as more messy and hormonal. And in that case, I could give it a pass. But, again, MC’s supposed arc of “navigating sexuality” never goes anywhere from that until the very last few chapters where you choose which LI she ends up with. It’s pretty much the same crap all throughout the book. MC doesn’t navigate sexuality, she just runs around aimlessly in it like a chicken with its head cut off.

Number 3: All the serious themes they try to have in the story are overshadowed by MC’s stupid indecisiveness plot. 

I’ve already said MTFL tries way too hard to make its story seem “mature” with the trashy way it sexualizes its characters. I’ve said it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Honestly though, this just sums up MTFL’s writing in general. 

MTFL has quite a handful of subplots, and I will admit, all of them are pretty compelling. You have Ava figuring out she’s lesbian, Mack dealing with gang drama, and Mason and Noah dealing with their past and Mason’s dad’s abusive behaviors. And an admittedly decent arc about MC discovering her love for photography instead of cheerleading. 

And then you have MC going on about how she can’t decide between her love interests, which is just the bad apple of the bunch that ruins the rest. It just makes it very hard to take everything else seriously. You ever seen that one meme where the Power Rangers put their hands in a circle but then a Teletubbie tries to join in? It’s the writing-equivalent to that, and MC’s indecisiveness plot is the Teletubbie. 

And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if MC’s indecisiveness wasn’t the main focus plot of the whole book. I want to take these other storylines seriously. I want to take this story as a whole seriously. But how can I when the main focus of the story is so god damn shallow? No matter how many "soft positive heartfelt" piano tracks and “so sad and tragic sad” piano tracks from WEH they try put over it, it doesn't change the fact that the focus is MC going on and on about being unable to choose between Mason, Noah, and Ava. 

I get teens are shallow and can have shallow issues, but did we really need it to be that big of a focus of the story? Especially when the way it handles it is completely empty? Something like OG HSS was great because even though a lot of the issues the characters had were seemingly shallow and basic (such as the band fighting over which song to play), they do give a little more depth to it and reason to care about it (ie. Aiden starts to feel like a failure at music because of the band infighting). MTFL just throws MC’s indecisiveness at you for 95 chapters and expects you to take it seriously with nothing else surrounding it. 

And they try to pull the twist on the title at the end where it’s all like “LI and photography, the two greatest loves of MC’s life”. Which is an interesting idea in concept, except it feels so artificial and non-earned when MC’s romance plot was spending 95 chapters being unable to decide between the LIs. 

Number 4: It reuses way too much from HSS. 

I know this is a less severe issue, but I just can’t get past it. Sprites, backgrounds, school colors… even plot points like the corrupt principal embezzling from the school, or MC and LI(s) being locked in a large school room (remember when HSS:CA MC and Ajay were locked in the auditorium?). Heck, even MC having lost her mom and having a photography passion connected to that, rings way too similar to one of Autumn’s arcs from the freaking HSS PRIME GAME! Oh yeah, and both of those characters have a love triangle with a golden boy and a bad boy. Holy hell. 

Easily the most noticeable part is the sprites. In my playthrough, I counted 7 whole HSS sprites that were used in MTFL: Sydney became Iris, Payton became Toni, Frank became this random kid in a flashback for Mason and Noah's past, Morgan became a kid in Elijah's gang named Lucy, Lorenzo became Chad, Aiden's mom became Asian Noah's mom, Skye's dad became White Mason's dad (PB really said use that sprite for abusive dads huh). And there’s probably more, I’m sure. 

And the worst offense? They even reuse the iconic bird's-eye view of Berry High in MTFL. Call me petty if you must, but that's just criminal. It's one thing to reuse and alter a bunch of the sprites, uniforms, and backgrounds from the series but to reuse another book series' iconic background like that? Honestly, it feels rather insulting. They couldn't even be arsed to change the "Go Tigers!" on the football field, that’s how little sense it makes to use that background outside of HSS. Fuck’s sake.

I know it’s kind of the norm for Choices to reuse assets throughout different series, but the fact that they do it so much here and majority of it is from HSS just rubs me the wrong way. At best, it’s jarring and lazy. And at worst, it comes off as trying way too hard to be a “more mature” version of HSS. When in reality, it makes HSS:CA’s side characters look like Citizen Kane in comparison. I mean, at least Clint and Natalie and MC stopped whinging about Rory ⅓rd of the way through the series. 

At least when other high-school-setting books like ROD, WEH, and ILITW were made, they at least somewhat bothered to change up a few things and make it feel like an actually different school. They changed up the backgrounds a bit, used different school colors and uniforms, and didn’t reuse nearly as many sprites from HSS.  

In MTFL, all they did was make new cheer uniforms for the non-reused sprites and remove the Berry High logos from everything HSS that they used. Yeah they made some changes, but it’s clear that they didn’t put nearly the same amount of effort into it as they did in the other high school setting books. 

All it does is just make me miss HSS. Like, stop toying with my heart by piggybacking off of a better series (that has better queer rep too) so much. It’s to the point where it feels like they should have just used the time making this book to instead make a HSS senior year (Which, y’know, would be nice, especially since the sendoff we got in HSS:CA 3 was absolute flaming fucking garbage). 

So… in all honesty, I don’t hate this book. But it had a lot of things that annoyed me to no end and it sure as fuck is disappointing wasted potential. It had a great opportunity to be a nice queer coming-of-age story. But instead it felt like a Kissing Booth rip-off with serious themes only hamfisted in order to make it seem more “mature”.

[nellie-elizabeth]

What We Do in the Shadows: Freddie (4x09)

Ohhhh boy. I haven't checked for the reception of this episode yet, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say Tumblr isn't happy.

Cons:

So here's the thing, the biggest "con" I have for this episode is one that's very conditional on whether Marwa ever comes back. Turning your only woman of color into a white British man and then sending her off, after a full season in which this character is stripped of her agency and turned into nothing more than exactly what Nandor desires is... well, it's a choice. And to be clear, I think it's a choice the show made on purpose, I think we're supposed to think Nandor's behavior towards Marwa is ghoulish and disgusting and all the rest, I think we're meant to feel horrified by it. But that doesn't change the fact that I expected the payoff for this story to be Marwa getting to live her best life, and now instead she's... effectively... erased from existence? I don't know. This ending for her character gives me very weird, uncomfortable vibes. I would have played this differently if it really is the end for Marwa, at least resetting her back to her original state before sending her off into the world. If they go back and do more with this character later, I'll be happy. If they don't, I'm side-eyeing the way this was developed pretty hard.

As far as the rest of the episode goes, I will say that I definitely liked the stuff in the main plot with Freddie more than the subplots. Looks like Colin is now a teenager in terms of development, and I'm kind of ready for him to be his adult self again. This is like baby Groot, or something. I'm ready for the original character to return from his purgatory. Nadja's troubles at the club similarly felt a bit underwhelming to me, I'm sorry to say. Some good jokes here or there, but I felt like the actual comedic bulk of the episode was treading water at some points, to get to our conclusion moment, which did work pretty well.

Pros:

I feel like I need to tap dance so much around my thoughts on the Freddie situation! Suffice to say, if this is building up to a better resolution for Marwa down the line, I'll be totally satisfied. In and of itself, the fact that this fucked up thing happens to her character doesn't bother me, because the point is that all these characters do fucked up and immoral and thoughtless things to people. It's part of the comedy and the tension of the show. So yeah, the fact that Guillermo's boyfriend shows up, Nandor gets a crush on him, uses one of his remaining djinn wishes to transform his wife Marwa into an exact copy of Freddie, and then in the end the two Freddies fall in love and Guillermo and Nandor are both single... that's really fucking funny. That's clever, that totally subverts our expectations... people were ready for Nandor to be jealous that Guillermo had a boyfriend, and never in a million years would I have expected the story to take this turn. I admired the insanity of this concept so much! I just wish I could understand what they were thinking with the resolution of it.

This really has been Guillermo's season, not in terms of everything going well for him, exactly, but just in terms of the screen time and development being given to this character and his desires. We see how happy he is to have Freddie, something in his life that's disconnected from Nandor and the rest of his life as a familiar. The shattering when he realizes what Nandor has done is really effective. There's a rule in comedy about how in order for anything to land, there has to be the moment where it stops being a joke. Like in The Princess Bride, when Inigo says "I want my father back, you son of a bitch." In a lot of ways, Guillermo storming off from Nandor, and Nandor realizing he's deeply hurt his friend, is the equivalent of that moment. It's effective if, once again, we keep it in a bubble.

In the subplots, while I mostly was just kind of shrugging, I did enjoy Sofia Coppola getting her head ripped off, and I liked Lazlo's endless list of vampire music pun names. There are always some fun one-off jokes in this show, even when a certain plot thread or scene doesn't hit quite right.

I think ultimately what this episode sets up, though, is a good thing: with only one episode left of the season, all of our characters have been brought low. Young Colin is going through a change and has thus lost his childhood stardom, Lazlo is trying to navigate the changing role he has as Colin's parent of sorts, Nadja is losing her club, Guillermo has lost his boyfriend, and Nandor has lost Guillermo, or at least it looks like that very well might be the case, along with losing his wife. The stated purposes of these characters at the start of the season have all been shattered. Nandor wanted to settle down and be married. He had it, he lost it. Guillermo wanted to assert a sense of identity outside of his role as a familiar. He had it, he lost it. Nadja wanted to open a vampire night club. She had it, she lost it. I think that works really well as a thematic tie for this episode.

So I'm torn. Again, having not explored the reaction of the fandom, I'm willing to bet that people are livid about what happened to Marwa in this episode, and frankly I'm not exactly pleased with it either. But I do think that structurally and in terms of our core cast, there are some interesting things that have been set up in this one. I know people expected Nandor to be jealous, but this twist was honestly funnier and more revealing about the fucked up nature of Nandor and Guillermo's whole deal. I suppose I'm willing to wait and see where they go from here, although Marwa's exit, if indeed that is the last we see of her, is a serious mark against the show at this point.

7/10

[thelearningcat]

Love and Leashes (Netflix 2022)

So I'm currently in the middle of the webcomic this movie was based on, otherwise I'm not sure I would've ever sat down to watch this, but I sure am glad I did.

Some aspects of the webcomic didn't transfer. The stoicism of the webcomic female protagonist didn't translate as clearly. I almost wish they've would've done cute little animated thought bubbles for the movie so the female protagonist could keep her face completely flat like in the comic. And I missed some of the side characters, like the male protagonists best friend.

But they basically condensed the many side characters into a a couple really well done characters. I liked the addition of the sexist boss, maybe just because I've had that boss and felt female protagonist's anger every time he said shit.

But love story short, this is the 50 shades of grey that should've gotten fame. It displays a safe, healthy bdsm (specifically ds) relationship that develops at a healthy space. The relationship conflict is not due to the bdsm aspect, but the fear of one character to give into a real emotional relationship, which allowed me to never think "this is creepy or unhealthy".

I think there was a strength to having the Dom be the noobie (not to mention the gender swap made me not feel like the dude was a misogynistic hiding his assholery under bdsm, not saying that happens, just that I read too many asshole male love interests and I love a good male love interest who isn't dominating). It gave her a lot of agency to try what she wanted. To that end, where I am in the webcomic, it's actually worse about this then the movie. The movie shows our female protagonist instantly curious once she realizes she'd be the one dominating (I love that they include the scene showing her shutting down the chance at being the sub). And the couple really does have good chemistry in their interactions. I love that early on they have moments where they're awkward as they figure things out. It seemed so honest and it really makes the film that much better.

I haven't finished the webcomic, but I'm definitely excited to. I don't think I got any real spoilers, since especially with a lot of the bdsm moments, the movie seemed to get a bit more explicit with it then the innocence of the comic. And the loss of so many characters means there's lots of subplots that disappeared.

I feel like I need to go around finding 50 shades of grey forums, suggesting this movie instead XD but there's probably not enough naked bodies in it since its really fairly pg13.

[luna-rainbow]

TFATWS 1.06

I have so many issues with the entire script, but overall the final episode provided the neatness that the MCU world needed (yay, no more stray super soldiers!), while ignoring gaping plot-holes it dug for itself throughout the series.

Zemo: while I loved what Daniel Bruhl did with the character, the sheer amount of deus ex machina that occurred to include this character is phenomenal. Starting with Bucky making a completely uncharacteristic and self-destructive decision that out of all the contacts he knew from 70 years of working for Hydra, this Sokovian special op who tried to use him to kill half the Avengers was going to be the only expert on Hydra they have. Sam then makes an entirely uncharacteristic and bewildering decision to agree to take Zemo illegally. The entire world except Wakanda then makes the uncharacteristic decision to just ignore the fact a terrorist has broken out of jail, and in fact there is absolutely no consequence for Bucky. Ironically, the entire super soldier serum issue had nothing to do with Hydra, from its production, to its funding, to its theft or its users. Yes, Zemo was a great help in tricking the refugee kids in telling him information, but why couldn't this have been made to be a character moment for one of the two leads?

Karli: there are fantastic videos on YouTube explaining the deleted virus subplot that would have made the Flagsmashers and Karli so much more sympathetic. The idea of a plague background with a vaccine shortage, and people dying en masse because of inequity or obstructive governments would have given Karli powerful justifications for her increasingly radical actions. In a story like that, she would have died a martyr, but instead we're left with shredded hints of their motivations, a Mama Donya who we only meet in death, a meaningless chant that sounds creepily similar to the Chinese Communist Party's push for One Belt One Road, and no concrete plans or goals that suggest her fight would be worth it. Erin Kellyman did a beautiful job with this idealistic young woman driven to desperation, but the script failed her.

Walker: I like that they decided to make him do something good towards the end, but it also undermines what a redemption arc actually means. He gives up, momentarily, his pursuit of Karli in order to save the van, but has he really learned anything? Has he learned about his prejudices, his arrogance, his recklessness, or his anger issues? No. The blonde blue-eyed boy does one good deed and both Bucky and Sam welcome him into the team, which I thought was the whole point this series is trying to condemn.

Sam: I love what we saw of Sam in the last 2 episodes, but it should have been much more. His growth was all about agency: he took up the mantle on his own terms, in his own time; he tells Bucky to take control of his own identity, and in the end, he publicly calls out the Council for not giving agency to the people who need to be heard. What's frustrating and ironic is that in the first 4 episodes, Sam's role was passive. That's the other problem with including Zemo, because Zemo became the major driver of moving the plot along until they met Karli - in a series where both main characters needed more development. Apart from that one emotional scene of Sam cradling the shield, the script doesn't give him the backstory or the emotional range that Anthony Mackie deserves.

Bucky: I've already harped on about my views on how the series has insisted that Bucky makes amends. They've tried to force a redemption arc on him when what he needs is also agency. He repeatedly tells fellow super soldiers "believe me, don't go down that path" but the frustrating thing is, he never had the choice that they do, and this is never acknowledged by the script except in that 2 second exchange with Yori. His defining characteristic is Trauma, but nothing else is developed beyond that. What motivates him? What does he believe in? What does he fight for, when he's said he's tired of fighting? Even the trauma itself - why is there nothing else apart from guilt? Is there no anger towards his oppressors? No vengefulness? No grief about what he's lost? No fear about the pain he endured?

I've seen meta questioning Bucky's attachment to the Cap legacy, and I agree. Bucky followed Steve - in all 3 movies, he explicitly followed Steve and not the shield. As much as I love the proud, affectionate gaze he bestowed on Sam during Sam's speech, I almost wish we got a version of "I'm following the little guy from Brooklyn" here, rather than the "Nice job, Cap." It's Sam trying to give a voice to the ignored and oppressed that makes him someone Bucky wants to follow, particularly as this was personally identifiable for Bucky, who was kept voiceless for 70 years. I wish this was the point rather than Bucky's incoherent belief that the shield was "family" especially when Steve abandoned the shield every time he chose to help Bucky.

I have so much frustrations with the script because it could have been something more. Sam deserves something as emotionally poignant and universally relatable as Steve's backstory. Bucky deserved to be more than just a broken man defined solely by his trauma. The camaraderie developed so hastily in the last 2 episodes it felt more like watching Anthony and Sebastian than it did their respective characters. Maybe this will get better when I rewatch it in a few months, because watching things weekly definitely gives you time to pick at the little things. I wonder what would have been if Covid didn't happen and they didn't have to scramble the plot.

[yourhighness6]

Okay, fine, I'll take the bait.

Mai had absolutely no development. We only see her express any kind of emotion in three episodes. Once in "The Beach" when she gives a little insight into her background and basically tells Azula to fuck off. Once when she declares her love for Zuko is stronger than her fear of Azula in "The Boiling Rock". Once at the end of the series in her brief scene with Zuko when she seems relatively pleased at the state of the world. Besides these three instances, she acts the exact same from her introduction to the supposed completion of her arc. There is no change in worldview, no change in actions or behavior, no social change or change in the way she interacts with other characters, and no addressing of trauma or character flaws. That's what a character arc is. She had none. Her only narrative purpose is that of Zuko's girlfriend and Azula's friend.

Yue, on the other hand, has a very comprehensive and in my opinion incredible arc. She is set up as a character with very little agency. She lives in a patriarchal society controlled by her father and her husband-to-be. She has no say in what she is going to do with her life, but she does express to Sokka that she is very committed to her people. This is the cornerstone of her character. In her sacrifice to her people, her motivations are clear and remain the same, but she gains something she never had before: agency. To put it simply, her sacrifice is in character and a clear fulfillment of her narrative.

Mai is, on the surface, a very interesting character. I was drawn to her don't-mess- with-me attitude and apathy, and she had room for some interesting development, but as I stated above, she had none. I don't dislike Mai, but Bryke did absolutely nothing with a character that could have been very well written and a subplot that could have been interesting.

One thing that will never cease to confuse me about Mai's nonexistent arc is the fact that Bryke knows how to write great minor characters/ love interests. Princess Yue only had three episodes but she is so universally beloved in the fandom and she's honestly my favorite character. I think this is just another one of those disparities that shows the difference in the quality of ATLA writing from book 1 to book 3.

[marmarparadoxa]

Hello Marmar 🍀 What's your overall opinion on Historia? I am shocked at what kind of person she has become at the end of the manga. I hate her selfish behavior and silence about genocide. This is not the historia that I liked. Where is her compassion and altruism towards people in trouble? She has become exactly what she detests most. (1 Part)

(2 Part) I thought Historia's development was about forming a full circle and living with pride. And what did she become? A selfish and cold woman. Disgusting. I think it's terrible that some people of the fandom celebrate Historias selfishness and worst girl shit. (3 Part) I will never understand why Historia did not at least confide in Hange or Levi and report about Eren's madness. The two would certainly have found a plan. And Historia herself could have been more active. At least politically or diplomatically. The only plausible explanation would be that Eren manipulated her memories. I often wonder what if Historia had reported everyone about Eren's sick plan? How would things have turned out?🤔

Hello anon :) I share all your feelings about the conclusion of Historia’s character … It was repulsive, it made me dislike her character on a fundamental (moral) level, and also, to my understanding, it was completely inconsistent with all her development post Uprising arc. I believed Historia grew up to be a, differently from before, genuinely altruistic person (she started orphanages, taking care of helpless people), and took up her new role as queen determined to fulfill her responsibilities. Even if it was the role others required from her, Historia actively shaped it to herself, and it looked as if she was finally ready to start living her life with pride. I thought that was the point of her character too, but it’s also long since (since the post-time skip pregnancy subplot) that I lost track of what her character was really up to. She basically disappeared from the scenes, and when she did appear, it was only in silent panels; she was completely deprived of any voice and agency.

However, the only time she spoke up, in chapter 130, was to express her utter disagreement with Eren’s plans. She couldn’t be more clear about how wrong she believed massacring innocent people would be, and even said that she wouldn’t allow Eren to do that. How she eventually ends up agreeing with him is a complete mystery. We weren’t given any explanations, and so I think we’re allowed to speculate that Eren manipulated her memories. Nonetheless, some particulars of her conversation with Eren in chapter 130, and her conclusion in chapter 139, make me think differently. The agitation, and evident trouble with which she spoke to Eren could be safely interpreted as deriving merely from her horror of what Eren’s words were drawing before her, but, in light of what happened later, one could speculate that (and this is just a guess I entertained, I can’t say I’m entirely convinced of this), in her protests, she was not only trying to talk Eren out of it, but also to suppress the most hidden, selfish part of herself that was already there, and would gladly sign up to exterminate humanity, if that meant preserve herself - in spite of all her good, superior intentions and principles. We shouldn’t forget, indeed, that even if she had told Eren's plans to Hange and Levi, they could probably have found a way to stop Eren, but at that moment, the only other solution Hange and Levi had to save Paradis included her sacrifice, and that of her children. It was not such a bad plan, and it would have enabled Paradis’ continual existence without having to exterminate the rest of humanity, but certainly the destiny that plan anticipated for Historia was not a fair one. Possibly, she didn’t believe that, even if granted some more time, the SC would have found another way to save their island. And we see how she stopped talking, how she hesitated, when Eren reminded her of being “the worst girl in the world”.

Furthermore, three years later, she doesn’t seem bearing any remorse, any burdensome guilt for what her silence, her conduct had allowed to happen. Because of what she had done, humanity was almost annihilated (for what she knew, all humanity outside the walls would have perished in Eren’s Rumbling - it’s only because of the Alliance’s intervention that complete genocide hadn’t happened, and in her choice of remaining silent, she had implicitly agreed to it). The few who survived are now struggling to live in wasted lands, suffering, and Paradis, instead of giving its help, is working on consolidating its military and political power. It has become a fascist nation, and she’s the ruler of it. In that situation, hence, we’ve presented with panels of her happily celebrating her child’s birthday, in a merry, peaceful cottage-core scene, with a cake and wine to party - a picture disgustingly at odds with the following one, of suffering survivors from the Rumbling, queuing for a meal, beside a camp of barracks. And then there’s her last statement, “that is the world Eren left them”, her endorsing his ideology of continual fighting and mutual destruction as the only way to solve humanity conflicts. And there seems to be coldness, and a steel determination in her expression.

In conclusion, my general impression, although only based on the very few and contradictory panels we have, is that, in the end, self-preservation, cowardice, and narrow-mindedness (that of being content to save only those who live in the island) overpowered true altruism and compassion in Historia, and the original meaning of “living her life with pride” (what we could reasonably hope for her character), what Ymir asked from her, what Historia’s development seemed to point to, was lost in the process.

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Marauders #22

I absolutely hated this issue, so be warned that’s a lot of salt here, and my usual whining, so skip this post if you’re not in the mood for that.  Also spoilers below.

First impression - what absolute, self-indulgent horseshit.  I hesitate to use “fanfic” in a derogatory way, but a lot of Marauders has read as being very “fanfic” in terms of self-indulgence, and greatly favoring certain characters while denigrating others.  I actually don’t think that’s a bad thing in fanfic.  It can be annoying to read if that’s not what you’re looking for (or it can be wonderful, if it IS what you’re looking for), but ultimately, fanfic is all about self-indulgence.  It’s about writing what you want to see in a story, and if Duggan’s Marauders was someone’s actual fanfic, I wouldn’t have anything bad to say about it.  I might dislike the characterization, and probably wouldn’t read it, but it ultimately wouldn’t matter because it’s fanfic.  Frankly, I’m just as bad about constantly centering everything around Pyro (and finding ways to work him into stories where he doesn’t even belong), because I’m writing just for myself, so I can be self-indulgent.  But I’d expect much better from a professional writer.  I’d expect much better from someone being paid to write a team book.  I’d expect a god-damn balanced book that actually pays attention to the whole cast and gives a thoughtful interpretation to ALL the characters, even the villains, rather than a book dedicated to shining a spotlight on two already well-established characters, and treating them like queens who step all over the rest of the cast. 

So, we ignore almost everything set up at the Gala, including the attack on Christian and the Marauder (the ship) being set ablaze.  Why aren’t the characters handling that, Duggan?  Is that really being saved for another month?  We don’t even know if Christian is dead or not, you can’t even spare a panel for Iceman reacting to this?  Instead, we tell a flashback story that eventually reveals that Lourdes Chantel is still alive, and Emma helped her fake her own death to escape from an abusive Sebastian.

What exactly is the point of this story, in terms of the overall Marauders arc?  Will Lourdes show up later to play a role?  Is this meant to further push Sebastian along some kind of path to redemption (recognizing that he drove Lourdes away with his actions).  Because so far, Duggan doesn’t seem the slightest bit interested in rehabilitating Sebastian.  This seems like yet another story establishing Emma GOOD, Sebastian BAD, the same message that’s been getting pounded into the readers’ heads for 22 issues.  Like, we KNOW, Duggan.  We know that you think the sun shines out of Emma’s ass, you’ve already well-established that you think she’s a brilliant, wonderful, compassionate, badass queen, through 22 issues of centering the entire series around her, at the expense of EVERY other fucking character in the book (even sometimes Kate, the other obvious favorite).  It’s gotten beyond tiresome at this point.  Like, I feel like even people who love Emma and hate Sebastian are getting bored by now, because it’s not even good storytelling to have a strawman villain who is no real threat just getting repeatedly knocked down.

So, Duggan has taken both Sebastian and Emma, and further removed any kind of complexity or nuance from them.  Sebastian can’t have a kind or tender side, he can’t ever be shown in a positive light.  His relationship was Lourdes was previously part of his tragic origins, pushing him to be a worse person than he’d been in a past, but no, lets retcon him to be a controlling abuser, whom Lourdes is desperate to escape.  Because it makes Sebastian look bad and Emma look good.  Honestly, it would have been more interesting and powerful to have Lourdes come back from the dead, and be disgusted by the person Sebastian has become.  That would actually have an impact.

And by the way, why did Lourdes need Emma’s help in establishing her new identity?  She was already part of the Hellfire Club, she’s the one who brought Sebastian in, she’s rich as fuck.  Lourdes should be well capable of getting away from Sebastian on her own.  She might need Emma’s help for faking her own death, but the rest of it?  Emma should just do a little hacking to access Lourdes’ personal fortune and transfer it into a new account, and then she’s good to go.  But no, Lourdes has to be treated like a little lost lamb, a helpless battered woman for Emma to rescue.  And Emma’s deal with the Kingpin further exonerates Emma for her past crimes, because obviously, she’s just working off the debt she incurred helping poor, innocent Lourdes!  It can’t be that Emma did bad things in the past because she was ambitious, cruel, vain, and power-hungry, she has to be a woke queen who was always there to help other women.

I think Duggan thinks he’s being feminist with all this, with the “women help each other,” message, and either ignoring or villifying all the male characters.  But he’s not.  It’s not feminist to take a very complex, interesting, powerful woman like Emma Frost and completely remove all responsibility and agency for her past crimes by turning her into an abuse victim and repeatedly retconning her to be better than she actually was.  (To be fair, Duggan is just continuing a trend already started by other writers).  Emma is ambitious, power-hungry, cruel, callous, self-absorbed, vain and snobby.  But she is also brave, intelligent, compassionate, kind, protective, heroic, and self-sacrificing.  All of those things are part of Emma.  She is a teacher who loved her students, and the love for those students is part of what sent Emma on her long, difficult path towards redemption.  Yes, she’s a badass queen, but she is also a flawed individual, who has worked to overcome those flaws and become a better person.  And constantly re-writing the past to make her an “always good” abuse victim who only ever committed crimes because the big bad men forced her into it cheapens that redemption.

Speaking of cheap redemption -     

The Wilhelmina subplot: Wow, Duggan really will prioritize ANY character over Bishop, Iceman and Pyro, won’t he?  I know this is me throwing a tantrum, because “Wah, Duggan is writing someone other than my favorites!” but after 22 issues I feel justified in this whining.  Iceman, Bishop and Pyro are supposed to be regular cast members, and so far Duggan has given more serious development and emotional scenes to Callisto, Forge, Dolores (the human contact at the X-Desk), Masque, Jumbo Carnation, Magneto, the Cuckoos, and now Wilhelmina.  I don’t mind the development for many of those characters, I like Callisto and Forge and Jumbo (although I’m a little annoyed at the Magneto stuff, since he’s already front and center in the Krakoa era, and about to star in a mini-series, does he really need more time in the spotlight?).  But honestly?  Fuck Wilhelmina.  I was never that interested in the Hellfire brats, and I’m not the slightest bit interested in watching the retcon redemption of a character that murders animals for fun.  Why does she get a spotlight story while the three dudes on the team STILL haven’t gotten anything more than vague background hints of character arcs.  I mean, compare the very emotional flashback and Wilhelmina’s breakdown to the half-assed, mostly taking place off- panel “redemption” that Duggan has given Pyro.  Just a single line of “maybe this crew is bringing out the best in me,” with no lead-up, no further reflection, no hints about Pyro changing his ideas before then.  Why did you even put Iceman, Bishop and Pyro on the team if you’re not going to use them, Duggan?  Because you’ve made it quite clear that you’d rather write ANY character other than them.  I can’t even look forward to Tempo and Banshee joining the cast next issue, even though I like them (and I really want to see more development of Tempo), because I know they will be yet more characters that get pushed into the foreground, while Iceman, Bishop and Pyro remain the underdeveloped background clown trio.    

Also, it seems kind of offensive to have a cruel, murderous female character, and then say that her cruelty is entirely due to sexual abuse?  What kind of message does that send to sexual abuse victims?  That it will turn you into a monster?  Why do female villains keep getting sexual abuse as part of their backstory?  Why can’t they just be bad?  Or have something else going on?  So the Cuckoos flip a switch in Wilhelmina and she’s magically “fixed,” or at least on her way to better?  Again, I think Duggan thinks he’s being feminist with this, but he’s not. 

At least Wllhelmina has been a recurring villain in this series, so I can kinda see how her potential redemption may move the plot along, but Duggan is still introducing new plot threads, while leaving so many others dangling.  What about Christian?  What about Shinobi and Fenris?  Will Bobby and Christian ever even speak to each other again?  Will the supposed main cast members of Iceman, Bishop and Pyro ever, EVER get a proper character arc?

Or will we get an entire issue of Emma, Kate and the Cuckoos giving Wilhelmina a redemptive make-over, because girl power, amiright?

[svedupelle]

but fr if i had to try to organize my thoughts into some kind of coherent review i'd say that lycoreco just. spreads itself too thin.

it's got too much stuff going on, and it's stuff that i don't think it manages to connect very well? there's an underlying theme about making your own choices, which DOES actually hold up pretty well, but all of the plot elements that feed into it feel. lackluster.

the alan's institute/alan's children subplot feels like it doesn't belong, while the lycoris feel unexplored (which to me doesn't make ANY sense because they're the MAIN PART OF THE STORY).

u can look at the antagonists for example and how they interact with chisato:

Yoshi is personally very important to chisato, and the question of what she should do with her life is also a very personal one! so their conflict feels important and in some moments, actually tense. both parties are equally invested in this conflict. however, it's also ultimately got little to do with the lycoris directly; it's about chisato getting to choose over her own life vs following some mission that was chosen for her, and about yoshi's very personal betrayal of her trust

majima is in a complete opposite situation: he has an almost totally one sided rivalry with chisato, he's absolutely terrified of her! his entire terrorist plot/takeover is, to him, ultimately about her! but she couldnt give two shits. and when he tries to talk to her about how terrible the DA and lycoris are as an agency, aall she really has to answer is "yea, but not my problem, also ur literally a terrorist so ur wrong". it's the whole "selfish hero vs selfless villain", with a dash of "villain wants to change thhe world for the better, but also he kills people so it doesnt count".

because chisato oonly cares about one of these conflicts, only one of them go fully expllored, and it isnt the one directly related to the MAIN PLOT AND WORLDBUILDING OF THE STORY

but people dont watch it for that stuff. people watch it for the gay girls. verdict on the gay girls: not gay enough. i mean watching the show feels like reading a book where a rainbow flag emoji replaces every period at the end of every sentence, but it seems terrified to actually commit to anything, and as a result, takina and chisato's relationship just kinda stalls awkwardly at "really good friends"

because lycoreco isnt just afraid of committing to homosexuality (mika and yoshi are both gay for each other), lycoreco is blatantly afraid of committing to anything that would alter its status quo that it sets up at the very beginning. do not think of the teenage girls being abducted to become hitmen, do not think of takina's and chisato's lack of development in regards to this, and definitely do not wonder why the show ends on status quo. majima can never truly cause change, he's doomed to forever fail and only be chisato's decorative foil. even the good guys who DO realize this is fucked up or wrong on some level (IM TALKING ABOUT MIKA) do nothing to change it, nothing to stand against it and nothing to convince anyone else that it isnt right. why does takina leave the lycoris, in regards to her development? her final character moment is her intentionally disobeying orders, just like at the start, this time fully aware and accepting of the consequences, but is that it? on some level she knows she wants to be with the café crew rather than lycoris, but she never wonders why? takina should be reflective of the broader change; as she chabges and realizes that her freedom away from lycoris is more important, she should also make some kind of realization of the moral nature of their work, and simultaneously, so should the world at large; im not saying this because its the only correct way to write this story, im saying it because ITS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS. MAKING THE VIEWER AWARE OF THE FUCKED UP MORAL IMPLICATIONS AND THEN GOING "tehe jk! ;3" IS JUST. AGGRAVATING. IT FEELS LIKE IM WATCHING NARUTO.

yea i really liked lycoreco, it's like a 7.5/10. can't in good faith rate it higher but i super enjoyed it and will rewatch it at some point

lycoris recoil is so dumb it KNOWS that its leads are its strongest aaspect yet it still insists on its dumbass. stuff.

[koutone-moved]

Saeran/Ray After Ending: My Thoughts

Hey everyone! I’m not one to really go in-depth about stuff in here, but I really felt the urge to talk about this since Saeran is a character that is really dear to me and this After Ending was something that I and many, many other people had been looking forward to for a long time.

I’ll be talking spoilers about the entire AE below the cut, so please beware!

I wanted to start off with the things I really did enjoy. 

Cheritz trying new things with the AEs for both V and Saeran was really great, in my opinion. They could have stuck with the previous format of just giving us sneak peeks into the respective couple’s life after getting together but instead decided to turn them into complete story expansions that felt more like Secret Endings. The effort and care everyone at Cheritz has put into these storylines is incredible and they deserve all the kudos and praise. 

The chatroom format was a really cool idea and having the player influence the outcome was something I greatly enjoyed. Having the story be a romance/thriller combination was super fun and immersive, too. The prologue was a great hook in my opinion--it had my heart beating fast with anxiety from the very start lolol.

ALL THE SAERAN FLUFF AND CALLS, LORD ALMIGHTY. I ADORED EVERY SECOND OF IT! I totally picture Saeran being a really cheesy and adoring boyfriend, especially since MC is so precious to him. I think they hit the nail right in the head with this.

The CGs were BEAUTIFUL. I was shocked at how many we got for a 4-day story, and they all really brought the story to life. Huge props to Cheritz for the immense effort they put into them.

The first two days of the AE (though extremely anxiety-inducing and emotionally painful for most of their duration, lol) were super entertaining and how I had always envisioned the story going down. I think having the PM and the agency unite forces as the main antagonistic force was awesome, and I really wish the story had solely focused on them.

Now, the things I didn’t like.

The Rika drama. I totally understand why addressing and breaking down Rika’s terrible actions is important for Saeran’s story. But... why, why did we need to revisit the “actually Rika has always been a good person that did some bad things” plot point when it was already done to death in V’s AE and route? I’m sorry, but this makes my blood boil.

Rika abused Saeran so badly to the point that he had to split his personality into two different people to survive, drugged him into hating his own brother, constantly told him and made him believe he was worthless if he didn’t work his ass off 24/7, killed his fucking mother, etc. The list goes on. Not to mention: she broke and drugged the minds of many other people! Not just Saeran!

I understand that the story gives us options to call Rika and V out on this bs and it encourages us to do it, but... just the fact that we have to entertain the possibility of forgiving her and letting her get off scot-free truly, truly fucking floors me.

What really bothered me about this is that this subplot took an entire day out of the 4-day story. A whole ass day that could have been spent developing the PM-agency storyline (which, again, I truly wish they had focused on). It really sucked that we had to spend a day exclusively talking to Rika and V about the same thing over, over, and over again.

V. What in the hell did Cheritz do to his character, lmao? I don’t like V at all and the actions he’s chosen to take in regards to Rika and Saeran have always truly infuriated and baffled me. But, I’ve never thought of him as someone who would willingly hurt the RFA.

I was SHOCKED to see how selfish and twisted he was in this story, especially in Day 3. He said he would never try to change Rika again and hoped she would flourish as a result and become a better person. But. My good man, how in the hell did he ever think that kidnapping two grown ass adults and forcing them to be their children was a sane decision? 

I was truly convinced until the very last moment that V returning to Rika was a red herring and that he had a plan all along to keep her in check and protect the RFA. But nope. 

I may not be a V stan, but even I know that V would never act so selfishly.

The GE/NE resolution. It felt so rushed and is the main reason why I think Day 3 should have been handled differently. The truly bullshit thing that stood out to me about it was how a short confrontation with the illegitimate son he gives no shits about is enough for the PM to have a change of heart. LOL. The corrupt, greedy prime minister that has his entire life and career hanging on a line is suddenly enlightened on his evil ways and turns himself in. Am I too cynical for thinking this resolution is stupid and makes no sense? I know at this point it was basically impossible for him to not get arrested, but I really didn’t buy this and it felt like cop-out from Cheritz’s part, writing-wise.

How Saeran’s trauma was handled. I know I already expressed loving how Saeran was towards MC in this AE, but that does not include this part specifically, lol.

I understand a big part of Saeran’s story is learning to forgive and understand to find true happiness and freedom. And I love that, it truly is a beautiful direction for his character.

I know Cheritz is not great at writing realistic trauma recovery for his characters--that was already apparent in Saeran’s route. But, I never found it so unrealistic to the point of breaking immersion for me until this AE. It just felt so silly at some points that I couldn’t even convince myself that maybe it was possible.

It’s been two weeks since he escaped Mint Eye, and... he is completely fine with talking casually to Rika, trying to understand her, and being in the same room as her? He is fine with confronting the PM and telling him he forgives him because ‘he must have a tragic past’? Really? 

Maybe he is just a better person than I am lol, but this was too much. I completely understand how someone could reach this level of inner peace and choose to forgive their abusers in order to heal. But. Two weeks. Although the circumstances were different, I think the Secret Ending handled Saeran’s recovery a lot better in this sense.

In Summary: LOVED Day 1 and 2, hated Day 3 and 4

I’m sorry if I got a bit too rant-y on the reasons why I disliked the AE LOL. I just had many feelings about it and couldn’t stop myself. If anyone wants to send me or comment their own thoughts, please feel free to do so!! I would love to read some different perspectives. 

I don’t hate the AE as whole, but it really let me down in some big ways. I’ll probably try to replay it in the future and see if I change my mind about some aspects about it, though. It’s sad to say this, but V’s AE left me feeling more fulfilled in some regards than this lol. I really wish Saeyoung would have had more involvement in the story, too.

I did love the very final epilogue for both the GE and NE, which was the main thing I was hoping for--so there’s that, I guess.

Anyways, thank you so much for reading!

[rappaccini]

..... had to reread sitting in a tree for gwenfic research and wow i still hate it! this is a sitting in a tree hateblog! all respect for gwiles shippers but this comic was everyone's introduction to them, and boy does it still suck! it is singlehandedly the worst thing gwen's ever been in! it poisons the concept of them as a couple! i went into reading it the first time excited to ship them, and closed the issue like 'they should never hook up anywhere in any context ever' and even after the spiderverse movies broke their backs to try and redeem this ship i still want to hiss at it every time i see it!

gonna number out all the things i hate about this shipping crossover here in a very incoherent, bitter, salty fashion because that's just how i get when i have to reread siat:

they have no chemistry. it's subjective, i know, but reading those issues, the vibe is just so fucking strange. the writers clearly think these two are into each other and the entire time you're like... oookay. they only met and interacted a few times before this and barely know each other too, so them being so touchy-feely is just... strange. especially when you consider--

the age gap. miles is 15/16, and gwen is 19/20. so, high school/teen and college/young adult. it is creepy seeing them canoodle and kiss. especially when you consider that miles is drawn to look so much older than he canonically is in those panels where they made out (and that they keep insisting that he's 'almost seventeen and she's barely two years older' but only in this issue), probably to downplay that he's a minor and she's a young adult. there's literally a subplot in siat where gwen infiltrates a nightclub that miles is too young for, so he sits outside texting her like a kid waiting for his mom to get done grocery shopping. and... okay. a 4-5 yr age gap is nothing, but not at this point, and given how slow marvel's internal time progression is, miles and gwen can't logistically get together without it being too weird until he's out of college, when they're 25ish and 30ish respectively. which won't be for another irl 10-15 years. it's simply not worth putting them both on a shelf (or let's be real, putting gwen on a shelf, bc miles is the far more popular character) and making them wait that much irl time, denying them other potential couplings and probably a lot of crucial development that'd take them further apart, and all for the possibility of a romance arc that does none of them any favors.

the fate meddling. the whole shoehorning of earth-8 ruins it beyond the point of no return. maybe the chemistry could've come later. maybe once the age gap became negligible they could've had something. but them only making out because they suddenly, randomly discover an alternate future world where they are a happily married celebrity supercouple who lead their equivalent of the avengers, are fabulously wealthy and beloved by the public, and have two superpowered spider-kids who keep. showing. up. to be all 'hi alternate mom and dad! we love you! let's team up!' is so fucking creepy. dangling two delightful spiderkids in front of a teenage boy and a 20yr old girl who barely know each other and are under a lot of stress and heavily implying 'you'd better kiss or these sweet kids won't exist and you'll never be happy' is gross. and it makes any idea of them hooking up feel like they're giving in to the pressure of adhering to someone else's narrative and surrendering to an arranged spidermarriage rather than trying to forge a sincere emotional connection of their own.

the sexism. specifically making gwen, the girl who is defined by standing in the shadow of her mainstream self being Spider-Man's Dead Girlfriend, finally get to have her own story where she gets to survive her peter parker, be the hero, and have a narrative about trying to keep her agency and find her place in a world trying to chew her up and spit her out, and for her characterization to be that of an antiauthority cop-cynical grungy musician girl with no desires for a domestic life, who is currently hated by the public and hunted by the cops in her world....... and then having her be informed by the equivalents of the gods of destiny that she will only ever be accepted or tolerated if she marries some boy (literally, a teenager. a boy.) she barely knows, abandons her world and everyone in it that she loves for him, has babies with him and becomes a hyperfeminine celebrity supercop, as all her musical ambitions seem to have evaporated in favor of her being a family-centered girlboss.... rancid. absolutely rancid. god no please no. run gwen stacy run. don't get kataang'd.

the comphet. it's a given to everyone who reads her comics-- and even most of the people making them-- that spider-gwen is not straight. she's unmotivated by sex and romance (or domesticity in general: this girl does not want kids), she turns down male love interest after male love interest, she has tension with her bandmates and much of her female supporting cast (though they seem more interested in her than she is in them). alternate versions of her have had even more overt queercoded vibes with her interactions with female characters (even spiderverse gwen is trans-coded). gwen is queer. she might not be gay but she's definitely not straight, and it's just the disney-marvel homophobia that won't let them say it. with that in mind... a queer girl being told by what basically counts as a god that the only way she'll ever be happy or accepted is if she marries a boy she isn't that interested in and has a nuclear family with him, and hey, it'll make sense eventually... fuuuuuck that. even the kiss reeks of comphet: gwen only does it because it's what she feels like she's supposed to do. with all this in mind, if they get together... man that's a bad vibe.

the shallowness: reading the miles issues of sitting in a tree, the way he talks about her is... weird. it's him bragging to his high school bros about how he met this super hot, super powerful older spider-woman and totally made out with her, and dude, she's gonna have my kids someday. and the gwen issues are just like 'so this boy showed up and god made me make out with him. anyway.' basically the vibe is that miles is into gwen because she's hot, she also has spider powers (and at this point given that he was being thrown peter's leftovers, that she's a version of peter's girlfriend, and he wants to be like peter.) and gwen is into miles because she sees hiding behind a relationship with him as an easy fix to her problems. that's it. that's what keeps them together. that's the depth of their connection. that, and that they look pretty when they stand next to each other. if they get together, good god they're gonna hamstring each other's growth.

anyway i'm just staring down the barrel of these two getting together in btsv. no matter how earned the payoff is in the movie, the consequences are that they'll likely be paired off in the comics then too, which almost certainly means that gwen, whose solo was cancelled and only appears in team-ups and crappy minis now, will be sent to be miles's supporting cast to largely exist as His Girlfriend for potentially years, and that the fundamental cornerstone of her character ('gwen stacy gets to be the superpowered protagonist of her own story without being any spider-man's girlfriend, regardless of whether she dies or lives to motivate him') will have been betrayed. that's the Big Fear, and it all started here, with fucking sitting-in-a-tree.

[crispychrissy]

Here are my thoughts/questions/theories about the finale of Falcon & The Winter Soldier and going forward in the MCU:

1) We all know that there was some kind of virus subplot that had to be rewritten due to Covid happening, so while some of the plot might be hard to follow or not make sense, I think overall this series was fantastic. The Flag Smashers, in my opinion, probably lost some of their dangerousness with this rewrite which is why, compared to Zemo, they don't really feel like they have the same threat level as him.

2) Sharon Carter is the Power Broker (even though she didn't expressly say it, she didn't deny it and it seems like she is). She was never confirmed dusted with the snap. She went on the lam at the end of Civil War, but 2 years pass between that and the events of Infinity War. There is a chance that she survived the snap and had been living in Madripoor (nobody could get in contact with her because she'd been hiding, similar to how Scott was assumed dusted), and either took over for the Power Broker because nobody knew who he was, or she killed him and took over for him. No way she built that kind of criminal empire in just 6 months.

3) I would have loved it if while Karli was dying in Sam's arms, she leaned up and whispered to him that Sharon was the Power Broker, setting up a season 2 where Bucky and Sam chase after Sharon.

4) Sam's Captain America outfit is FANTASTIC, and very close in design to his comic book counterpart. The fact that Bucky made sure the Wakandan designers included Red Wing makes me chuckle. The wings must have some kind of neural interface or advanced control system because during a lot of those flight and fight sequences, they almost appeared to be a part of his body, like how an actual bird would use them. A+ design.

5) I don't think wrapping up everything with a neat bow was the point of this series, as much as people wanted it to be. The Marvel universe is just that... a universe. With lots of people and storylines. But, that being said, there was a lot of character exploration and development. Sam and Bucky had their heart to heart, Flag Smashers were defeated, Isaiah got the recognition he deserved, John Walker got a beat down and had his title revoked (and ran to Val with his tail between his twitchy ass legs), and Sam took the shield. The angsty parts got their resolutions, but they also left the door open to explore other people besides the title characters.

6) John Walker... his story arc is confusing and I feel like there's some holes in there that might have come from the rewrites. Whatever PTSD he had before the serum was amplified after he took it, and stuff like that doesn't just disappear. All of the twitching and anger issues... he's a time bomb waiting to explode, just like how he did when he killed Nico. So yeah, Val made him USAgent, gave him a new identity that's his own, but he's still unhinged. He's going to be used as a weapon by Val and whatever agency she works with/for, just like how Bucky was used as a weapon for Hydra.

7) I love that they showed Bucky going back to tell Nakajima what happened to his son. The raw emotion on his face, finally confronting his past deeds as the Winter Soldier, and giving someone the answer they've so desperately wanted even though it meant likely losing one of the few friends he had. Bucky was making amends by trying to fix the things that occurred because of what he did as the Winter Soldier out of his own guilt, instead of being selfless and admitting to those directly affected what he did.

8) There are some parallels between Bucky and Walker. Bucky saved Steve from the river in CA: TWS without really knowing why, and I think John Walker saved that truck from going over the edge without really knowing why either, almost like it was a gut instinct. He may have questionable morals, but he still has some kind of morals deep inside that serum hazed brain of his from when he was a solider. Walker even dropped the shield to grab the truck, just like how Steve dropped the shield on the helicarrier.

9) Isaiah Bradley finally getting the recognition he deserves... absolutely touching, and a long time coming. Just because Isaiah wanted to remain dead doesn't mean he should be given the attention and respect he deserves for what he did.

10) Is Bucky living with Sam now? Have the Wilson's adopted him? Is this a true Uncle Buck situation? Will a (hopefully happening) season 2 have a Sarah and Bucky romance to annoy the shit out of Sam with?

[maschotch]

Just sent an ask about characters you might have liked to have seen more of, can't believe i forgot to add the inevitable follow up of: are there any characters you wish we'd seen less of/side characters who you didn't enjoy the subplot of?

I just like hearing your opinions about these things, they're always fun

damn like not to be a hater but pretty much.. every subplot s11 and on was just so unbelievably annoying to me aksjdhglakjs i can’t remember if i’ve mentioned anywhere but i really think foyet snowballed into the downfall of criminal minds—or at least the style of the early seasons. suddenly the writers became obsessed with making a bigger, higher stakes, bad guy. admittedly i loved foyet and doyle, i liked luke skywalker and whatever trafficking ring kidnapped meg. but the hitmen? cat adams? mr scratch? linda barnes? the chameleon? i guess they each had their moments, but they dragged out way too long in annoying ways that disrupted the rhythm of the show. and i could write a whole fucking essay on how stupid jj's sister's side plot was

those are a lot of subplots that annoy me askdjhgal so im not gonna go over them all: instead i’m just gonna chalk up the later seasons as “boring to me personally” and focus on some of the earlier seasons just so this doesnt turn into a twenty page essay on me talking about how much i hate those arcs skajshdlgakjs

OH MY GOD I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION HOW STUPID IT WAS THAT THEY BROUGHT THAT MINIMAL LOSS CULT BACK LIKE THAT WAS SO LAME and that should’ve been about emily instead of reid ngl

one thing i will mention is lindsey. now i looooved jack and lindsey vaughan and i totally think they could’ve made their own movie. but i didn’t like the way they brought lindsey back as just a stupid sidekick under cat adam’s thumb? loved that she was a lesbian ksjdhgl but she had no agency no motive no reason to be there other than cat, so i really think it was a wasted opportunity that ruined something that could’ve been really special. and omg like ik i bully every cm character for their daddy issues but?? why does she have them?? just bc she has a good relationship with her dad doesn’t mean she has to be utterly obsessed w him or whatever. idk i just think they made her really weak and it was just sad to see.

some of these are just preferences and i recognize that at least. reid’s dad’s episodes where he’s having visions of a kidnapping from his past or whatever is so fucking stupid askjdga i feel like they give reid a lot of side plots that they don’t develop all the way?? so why bother introducing them at all? like his headaches?? his love interests?? either commit or don’t do it, but leaving them unfinished is just unsatisfying and feels cheap

profiling 101 guy was boring and it complicated the timeline even more and also i hate rossi asdjkhgls every arc with him was so dumb