#guys i know she's more nuanced than just being a terrible person stop telling me

[dustikins]

yes she's a terrible person but have u considered that she's still so so pretty

[wildpeachfarm]

okay buckle up because this will probably end up pretty long but:

While there are similarities in both situations there are some major differences in many aspects:

1

First Caitis claim was originally that she got touched under her shirt which got interpreted as in on the waist and that’s what George confirmed, later she changed it/clarified? it was her boobs?

Beaus claim is she got kissed and then the guy proceeded to start making out with her which she described as basically more kissing

2

Caiti in her first stream says she was “freshly eighteen” which got quickly disproven based on her birthday and when vidcon happened and she is very firm on letting people know that the guy was 8 years older than her and that he definitely knew her age. Which later George addressed and said that no he didn’t know her age and he assumed she was over 21 based on the information he had. Caiti is clearly trying to make people come to conclusions that it was predatory

Beau never tries to paint the guy as predatory, they were I think both 17 or similar age. The guys response is “omg she is trying to paint me as predatory”

3

George is very empathetic in his response, while he shows his perspective he is still mindful of Caitis perspective and feelings and asks people tobe supportive to her

The guy Beau confronts starts going around telling their mutual friends “she lied” and when she posted about it on twitter denied everything, didn’t think about her feelings at all and again claims she is trying to paint him as predatory and destroy his career.

4

Beaus main problem isn’t that the guy is bad for making her uncomfortable, it’s the way he and their friends reacted after she talked to them how it made her uncomfortable to the point of having a panic attack in his bathroom

In Georges situation bo one seems to care about his response from the beginning and immediately write him off as a terrible person that can never learn and change

5

obviously the brightons bastards different reactions:

- not hearing out the victim vs not hearing out the guy who got accused

- different response when the guy who is accused is their friend vs someone they disliked for a long time

- jumping to tweeting about it vs the only response publicly is maxggs priv tweet yesterday qrting a dream stan that he stopped being friends with beau for different reason obviously not further explanation and that he only laughed about her on stream few times and later let her know about it???

6

Caitis story having many inconsistencies, things being corrected by George with evidence

Beau telling her story and being called a liar by the guy who she accused with no evidence she is and her friends just immediately believing the guy

idk if there’s more but here are things I immediately noticed

similarities is both stories are girls getting uncomfortable but not sa. different reactions from all sides in both stories to them?

yeah I'd say this is a decently fair assessment of it all but a few quick notes for those who want to be picky with details:

george confirmed "under the shirt touching", people originally took that to mean the waist (because that was how most people interpreted her initial claim) however he never specified beyond that iirc so I just wanna make it clear in case people wanna be picky about wording lol

I will say, as soon as Beau called it sexual assault, she is accusing this guy of SA. So to say her main problem is with how her ex-friends reacted is a bit inaccurate considering she is also essentially accusing this guy of a crime. Now, how much of her friends behavior rather than the guy's behavior contributed to her trying to commit multiple times? we don't really know. So i get what you were trying to say in making that point

but overall yes there are many differences which I think is why people have been saying not to compare them (on twitter) because the details are quite nuanced in each of them for different reasons and if you don't acknowledge that, then you're not representing each situation fairly or accurately I suppose.

[lady-griffin]

I don’t want to say I have complicated feeling towards Drew Barrymore and her show coming back on, because I really don’t; I like her as an actress and shit, but seriously -

Fuck you, Drew!

She keeps talking about how she’s so sorry, but she’s doing it nonetheless, so really how sorry is she?

Oh, I’m so sorry, I say, as I keep stabbing you in the back. This totally isn’t me and not at all indicative of the kind of person I am nor what my values are. Not at all. Honestly, I think you’re the one who's being the real jerk, screaming and telling everyone I’m a bad person for stabbing you. Rude.

Oh, but silly me, how could I forget that Drew is doing this because other jobs are on the line and of course this show started during the sensitive times of the pandemic and so of course it needs to be out for these current sensitive times of ours, and let us forget, how Drew’s intention was never to hurt anyone, as she stabs them in the back. That’s not who Drew is at all.

Bullshit. Fucking bullshit.

You keep saying you own this decision, Drew. Well then fucking own that this is who you are. Your actions aren’t separate from who you are as a person.

You chose to do this. No one put a gun to your head and is forcing you to do this; you weighed the pros and cons, and decided that putting your show back on was well worth it in the end, others be screwed.

Also please stop lying. You didn’t do this for other people and you're certainly not do this for the little guy or those struggling; because this doesn’t help them. It puts them in a weaker position going forward, especially when they’ll be fighting against the behemoth giants who are making these times so fucking sensitive, which is just...

How is your show for sensitive times? Wouldn’t your show need to be actually sensitive, for it to be a show for these sensitive times. So, you know, like the bare minimum of not screwing over your own writers?

Just a thought there.

Seriously, Fuck you, Drew Barrymore.

Like, I can’t stand Bill Maher. I mean the amount of loathing I feel for that man; I just...

I hate him. I just do.

I can barely listen to him speak for more than a few seconds.

But and don’t misunderstand me because he’s also a shitty person for his show breaking the line as well, but at least he acts like he’s a shitty person. I’m sure HE doesn’t think he’s that terrible, but let’s be real, he’s not someone who goes out of his way to be kind and understanding to others...

Bill Maher is an asshole who acts superior to everyone and complains about everyone else’s entitlement, as though he’s not some entitled, whiny jerk.

I just find it hard to believe that people are shock his show is coming back, because I’m really fucking not.  

That doesn’t make it okay or any more acceptable nor him any less of a scab, than Drew. NOT AT ALL!!!

Seriously, I need more news article calling him out.

But I already knew whose side he was on.

And it's not like my world view has been shattered by Drew’s talk show coming back – but like...

Spare your fucking crocodile tears.

You don’t get to fuck others over and then cry about people being mad at you.

You chose to do this. This was your fucking choice, stop acting like this is a nuanced and complicated situation and it’s just so tricky and hard to navigate, and that you’re in it for the little guy, because that’s PR talk if there ever was.

And again, how many times have you said that this was your decision and that you take full responsibility for it.

What did you think was going to happen?

Or maybe, you knew this was exactly how people were going to react and you accepted that some people are going to be mad at you now, but you’ll be fine. You’ll weather this no problem. Because they’ll forget and forgive, soon enough. You’ll be in good standing with the behemoths, and once this is all over with, people will see you as your charming and down-to-earth self, once more.

I sincerely hope that all those who are crossing the line now and, in the future, never recover from doing so.

That this will always be an ugly stain on their reputations and other celebrities, who can still be friends with them personally, I don’t care, will be like, yeah no about working with you buddy, because that is some stink, they can't have on themselves.

Like I want people to weigh the pros and cons of associating with these scabs and deciding the cons aren’t fucking worth it, at all.

-

In case you couldn't tell I'm very angry and worked up about this

[laugtherhyena]

I hadn't stop to think about Linuj's way of writter bad characters in that regard and like? Yeah i can see it wow.

After seing both of his games i feel like he has like 2 main ways he makes characters who are bad people; he either makes them do terrible shit but gives an understandable explanation to why they turned out that way and goes out of his way to show/tell that these characters are capable of changing.. Only to kill them off and act like they deserved to be "punished" and people should just dislike them even tho he actively gave them lore that explains why they're assholes and so lead to sympathy points coming up. (This is more about Kizuna and Kokoro but i feel like Hibiki also fits that role to some extent, especially with the whole "showing how this character could change and maybe get an arc and then just killing them off")

Then you have characters like Iroha who are awful and were given a sympathetic backstory that explains her behavior but despite making through the whole game she remains stagnant during the entire time which is especially jarring when you see other characters going through their little arcs and Iroha is still the same piece of shit from beginning to end. She's not the only one as i feel like Syobai and Kanade also fall into this category of stagnant asshole character, but they don't bother me as much as Iroha does because obviously not every awful person needs to change and some characters are just pieces of shit and that's fine, but also Syobai doesn't overstay his welcome, he's there on a gig and said he won't interact much with people and he doesn't unless he feels the need to intervene usually because his own life is on the line, he's not constantly being unhelpful and whining like Iroha while still screaming for sympathy points despite constantly throwing everyone around her under the bus to try keeping herself alive and Kanade really is nothing more than an over the top one note vilain, so it's whatever.

Knowing he way he tends to go about these characters makes Higa one hell of a weird case because he doesn't really fit neither of these categories that well yet Linuj went out of his way to show us that "no guys look how cool/nice Mitch can be" when he wasn't even given some backstory to explain why he's an asshole and that's just weird because it's not the kind of shit he usually puts in his writing.

And man, while his,, comments. In Ayame's character sheet makes me die on the inside a little i think what bothers me the most is that when the creator himself goes like "hmm I don't really know what more to say about her, let's just keep talking about her tits" that gives off the impression that Ayame is a nothing character, and yeah, she's far from being deep or complex, but she HAS some level of substance you could talk about instead of just zooming in in chest.

Personally i find her a fascinating conflicting character when it comes to her actions in the trial and a really nuanced one at that too, but linuj only mentions that in like,, a paragraph or less and then goes back to saying bullshit. And if you don't wanna ramble on that then why don't use the sheet as a place to talk more about her relationship with Akane pre-game and how that affected Taira in making her feel conflicted when carrying out her and Utsuro's plan? Because we can clearly see that during the flashbacks, or go more in depth about how Ayame seems to rather hide things from people even if it hurts her because she'd rather not have others worrying about her or "bothering" them? Or maybe just talk more about how her leg injury happened?? Because there ARE things you as the creator can talk about that can't be boiled down to just "hehe big boobs"

Random but i just saw your ship chart stuff and holy shit HigaxMaki feels like a feever dream to me and i still can't believe they have canon basis that feels,, unreal

He is such a weird case like, i get the impression that Linuj didn't intend for people to hate him THAT much and so he tried to do damage control via those flashback scenes in Ch6 so you just have him and Maki having flirting a bit, him being even a little heroic with kicking out that Monokuma and giving a motivational speech to the boys which is just,, wow, that will never enter my head, it simply does not compute,,

(Also the Ayame thing irks me so much but i'm so glad that Linuj's weirdness stayed confined in that character sheet because the game itself hardly goes out of it's way to sexualize her, at most there's the seemingly obligatory Dr fanservice scene and the weird angle in that CG showing the cut in her leg, and i just know it could have been SO much worse-)

I'm glad to see you understanding the POV of mine :') because I felt the same way

From what I have read in most character sheet of Linuj did, Linuj somewhat have an obsession to make a bad character be redempted in some way....? So people would feel bad still for them- Except in some cases like Kanade and Syobai. But especially with Higa, it feels especially forced with him because even in flashback and the whole FTE, he feels disconnected from the class more than Utsuro does....? (Mind you, he's an intruder in first place but he's more connected to the class thanks to Yamato and Mikako keep accompanying him) So him having a bit of redemption arc with him saving Maki and suddenly being a motivator never really sits right with me.

Same thing with Kinji. Though in his case, I feel like his breakdown during class trial feels unnecessary and feels like Linuj just wanna follow the og trend of ch3 culprit being unhinged in some way- which ended up making Kinji being OOC during that whole class trial part.

Not gonna lie, I mostly cringed reading the whole Ayame's character sheet. You know that feeling when you want to know the creator's thought process on creating your fav character, but then it ended up being.... yeah. That's what I feel when I want to know more about Ayame 😭 the other character's sheet is pretty normal per-se, just only her man,,,, But yeah, I feel glad that at least Linuj keeps it in that rather than exploring it more in the game because boi, it will not help at all.

Sorry this ended up being a bit of a rant haha. As much as I like Linuj's charas and writing, some of them frustates me sometimes when I look at it again.

[phoenixyfriend]

When Obi-Wan gets to AotC, there's also about two dozen Anakin clones on-site. They're all girls because... IDK Anakin is trans. They have a hive mind and are developmentally a few years younger than Anakin himself.

It's incredibly unsettling to Obi-Wan.

It's almost definitely a "fuck with Anakin's already fragile mental health" ploy by Palpatine, along with a "what if Jedi Black Widows, for me, a Sith Lord. Wouldn't that be neat? That would be neat."

Anakin is torn between "this freaks me out" and "GANG OF BABY SISTERS LET'S GOOOOOOO."

(I just finished reading Like Real People Do by glimmerglanger, so this is definitely inspired by that and the obligatory 'lay back in bed and daydream variations on plot points of that fic you just really enjoyed,' and also a little by Same Heart, Same Blood by loosingletters.)

They're physically like 14-16 on average, and Anakin's vibrating out of his skin with a million conflicting emotions, but when he tells Padme she's just like "oh, you have a handmaiden gang!"

I told this to @willowcrowned and she suggested:

Once Anakin decides to repress the part of him that’s weirded out and just regard them as baby sisters he gets. A little strange about it The first time one of them dies he may or may not slaughter every person he can [in response to Padme's comment] Anakin starts worrying that he needs to get them cool matching outfits

I also chatted about it with @firebirdeternal and they said:

Gang of Unsettling Smol Siblings is exactly the Karma that Anakin deserves

Do you think the Clones have a kind of Collective Name that they use at first that eventually just kind of morphs into a new last name? Skysisters or something? Like Palpatine was trying to be clever and name them like the Nightsisters.

I initially went with "functionally one person" hive-mind but I'm torn.

I think maybe they're BASICALLY one person on Kamino but drift into Separate Consciousness once they're far enough apart physically that their minds don't blend from proximity anymore.

Then they start Dating (like half of them are dating Fett clones because they grew up with these dudes, it's like childhood friends romance), and Anakin loses his mind about Protecting Them and They're Too Young.

Padme: You're nineteen and we just got married, they can date. Anakin: THEY'RE EIGHT. Padme: And the Fett clones are ten and dying for us in the field. Get them rights before you panic about their love lives.

Firebird:

it could be worse, one of them could imprint on Obi-Wan. "Anakin I promise I won't yell at you for the next five stupid things you do if you can figure out a way to stop this baby from having a crush on me" (I like the idea of Obi-wan bargaining not with "I won't be mad at you ever" because they Both Know That's Not True, and instead haggling with specific allowances. Like he's handing out Stupidity Coupons)

Please imagine Mace and Obi-Wan's personal responses to the idea of suddenly having to deal with not one, not two, but OVER TWENTY SKYWALKERS.

Plo is delighted to take one off their hands.

So is Yoda.

Willow:

Mace is like. okay suicide isn’t the Jedi way but on the other hand. i physically cannot deal with this Yoda: a skywalker, you say? one who is tall enough to reach the top shelf, you say? such a skywalker, bring me

Anakin would be given at least one because fuck you, suffer with us, but he's still a padawan so Ugh, fine, no.

I want to say one stays on Coruscant to hang out with the Guard, and ends up half-adopted by Padme. She keeps dressing up the Aniclone left with her in handmaiden outfits and sending selfies to Anakin.

"Hanging out with the little SiL!"

Anakin has so many issues about WHEN his genetic material was acquired.

And there's some confusion from the Fett clones about how much of a hive mind is normal for Jedi. They are confused that the answer is basically none, and "this is WHY nobody clones a Jedi"

ONE OF THEM STEALS BOBA FROM THE ARENA ON GEONOSIS.

Firebird:

"I have followed in our progenitor's footsteps and acquired a sibling." holds up a struggling Boba "He bites."

Willow:

Ooooo okay so if they have a sort of hive mind then they probably don’t have names other than their designations on Kamino right BUT When they SEPARATE The one that picks Boba up on Geonosis gets a name specifically for that. Okay what if the one Padmé picks up gets some variant on ‘pretty’ because she’s always being dressed up BELLE Maybe Yoda’s Ani has a name that means thief? Because obviously Yoda is using Anakin to steal sweets

So, to make the timeline work...

I don't think anyone would give Anakin one of his sisters until after he's knighted at least.

So obviously when they're doing initial placements none of the sisters go to him or Obi-Wan.

Once he's knighted, of course they're already all placed with someone, and Anakin instead gets Ahsoka. He loves Ahsoka. She is also a little sister. He said so.

At some point afterwards, one of the sisters is left without a place because the Master that was in charge of her died in the field battle.

That sister then gets placed with Obi-Wan, because he's already mostly-successfully raised one Skywalker, so he can do it again.

Anakin gets to hang out with her basically all the time.

Ahsoka is very very jealous of this girl stealing Anakin's attention.

Anakin is oblivious to the rivalry.

He asks Barriss to look after them while he's discussing Adult War Things with Luminara and Obi-Wan, and Barriss gets an eye into This Mess, which is quickly colored by Ahsoka growing a puppy crush on the lovely Miss Offee herself.

Firebird:

Ahsoka: Ah yes, my nemesis. Anisister: Ah yes, my new older sister whom I want to impress so bad.

"I will impress her by being Stoic and Competent" "Oh my god she must think she's so much better than me what a bitch"

Anakin is oblivious to most things to be fair Anakin: Laser focused precision fighting machine who can read the tiniest body movements and predict your moves seconds in advance, who also cannot understand even the most basic social nuance. I was originally writing this as to Dunk on Anakin but then I made myself sad, because none of those things are really his fault.

So you know that post about like, Sasuke and Brooding, specifically in the context of "Brooding" as it's used to refer to Nesting Chickens? Grouchy and protective and sitting on a tennis ball trying to hatch it because they're just. "These are my Babies." Anakin Broods. Baby sisters. Must protecc. "I'm actually fine and extremely deadly in combat." "MUST PROTECT."

Bad Guy: [catches Ahsoka in a Trap] Aniclone: Must rescue sister! Aniclone: [fights, is not winning fight, gets ouched] Ahsoka tearing her way out of Trap: I lived bitch. Also: stay the fuck away from her. [murders so hard]

Ahsoka catches the Protective Older Sib feels by the traditional method: "Hey, only I'm allowed to be mean to them."

Willow:

Oh Anakin has no clue what’s going on. He walks in on Ahsoka glaring at the Ani and is like!!! Little sisters!!! Bonding!!! When Ahsoka was about three seconds away from tossing her out of the airlock. Ahsoka mistakenly assumes that Barriss has a crush on the Ani, and gets even MORE jealous.

Obi-Wan is like oh god. I can’t take care of an Anakin going through puberty again. He’s great with periods and other stuff because he read about a billion books. He is TERRIBLE with everything else, as he was the first time.

Barriss is like???? YOU'RE BOTH CHILDREN, PLEASE CALM DOWN, I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN DATING ANYONE, LET ALONE SOMEONE YOUR AGE.

IDK how old Obi-Wan's Aniclone is, probably physically the same age as Ahsoka?

Per @atagotiak on discord:

Also something something, similarities btw Anakin and Obi-Wan where like. "Am I a parent? That seems uncomfortable, I'm too young to be a dad to a kid this age, I mean I'm cool with being a mentor/caretaker but..."

Obi-Wan can't even sidestep parenthood this time.

"Is Anakin basically your dad?" "Uhhhhhh" [Muffled discussion] "So Obi-Wan is your dad." "Okay!" "WAIT NO I DIDN'T AGREE TO THIS"

Ahsoka: She's stealing my brother, that BITCH. Obi-Wan's Aniclone: new sister new sister new sister gotta make a good impression

Firebird:

I feel like the Sister Squad would make very effective interstellar espionage agents Even like, kind of by accident. They just get encouraged to branch out in their interests and figure out what they want to do with their lives and end up all over the dang place, and since they're all pretty dang competent they tend to gravitate towards Important Positions wherever they end up. Except for one sister who just retires to raise Space Sheep.

I like that in this AU Palpatine is just like "I will create an army of Loyal Murderers who will obey my every whim and also be a big psychological lever on my Other Pet Murderer," and then they all just Baby Duckling imprint on the first Jedi to be nice to them instead and he has to just be like "Wait no not like that."

AND one of them Steals Boba

I want Obi-Wan's Aniclone to start dating Fives. All the sisters judge her for it, because he's a Goof. A very competent, ARC Trooper goof! But a goof.

Not as goofy as Anakin, though.

Firebird:

Who expects a clone of Anakin Skywalker to not make questionable lifelong romantic choices impulsively?

[13tinysocks]

Something about there not being enough "Killer Y/N" in creepypasta fanfictions annoys me. Like it's almost always Y/N being the one to take care of the Creepypasta. And normally, I don't have issues with that, I love those wholesome types of relationships despite it being with murderers. It's a nice contrast. But the problem is that it's usually so unbalanced, like Y/N is doing all of the work meanwhile the Creepypasta treats them like shit. Going through so much angst drama that makes me roll my eyes instead of being invested in the story. Not to mention that Y/N can be written to be so annoying. Like wtf is up with that? I want to read a fanfic where Y/N is a killer that looks intimidating (and can kill you) but is also a softie. And where the Proxy/Creepypasta is the human who looks normal but is absolutely feral and capable of worse.

I just like the idea of Y/N being this super scary killer, and then standing behind Toby , shyly asking the waiter for no pickles.

Toby, a human who you can probably snap like a twig: Uhm EXCUSE ME, they asked for no pickles >:(= Y/N, a proxy who is capable of gory murderous actions, but is hiding behind Toby: 🥰

I hope all of this makes sense, this is just a thought that's been annoying me >:/

Personally I can't stand shy characters in any sort of media. When people write cpp x readers, typically younger writers but I've seen ppl older than me do this as well- they tend to shove all the bad stereotypes on shyness onto yn then crank em to 11. Where are the yn's that eat people? Where are the Hannibal kinnie batshit bonkers yn's? WHERE ARE THE JENNIFER CHECK KINNIE YN'S? PLEASE.

I know why this happens. It's people thinking shy = submissive and many ppl in this fandom are into that sorta thing but they tend to get a little carried away. You can be either of those things without being a cardboard character. You can be shy and still cap people. You can be shy and still strong as shit and fully capable of fending off that smelly fuck who keeps climbing in your window.

On the flip side, people who try to write a "badass" yn typically end up writing yn exactly how men write women in b-movies. Like the hot girl who hangs with guys and fixes car and has two brothers but has no visible muscle or actual grit type beat. It tends to be frustratingly shallow. I want yn's who commit acts of senseless violence because it makes them feel better about themselves because they're terrible people❤️ Just love me a yn who goes through evil character development completely. They don't just kill because Slenderman wants them to but because they need to in order to keep themselves propped up psychologically.

Also? We just need more mean grouchy fuck yn's. I want a bitch in stained clothes to call someone dumb cunt then kill em. (Can u tell I fucking love insane women?)

Now I get taking a more "realistic" approach to a yn. It's what we did with thio yn, normal and on the reserved side. But she also fights back, feels and expressed her anger, and comes out of her shell. Serial killers are scary people to be around. I get writing them as scared. Personally I enjoy writing a more fearful dynamic but this is because I like to use that further down the line in my yn's arc- to exemplify their masochism. I think it's an interesting concept to explore- how a normal person would get with someone so evil.

And can we as a fandom stop writing the weird shit where the pasta is abusive in every single way to yn and they're just like cool with it. I could literally list all the fics I see do this it makes me crazy. Where is the nuance bestie? Toxic relationships can be an interesting thing to write but hey guys maybe not uhhhhhh rape? Then yn's like omg 😳 so dominant omg I'll learn 2 love him. Bitch I'm gonna get you.

[popculturebuffet]

Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers Part 3: Storkules in Duckburg! aka THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES TERRIBLE BUT WELL MEANING ROOMATE OUT OF MYTH

Hello all you happy people! And welcome and welcome back to Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers, my look at the season 2 arcs of Ducktales! This arc was paid for by WeirdKev27 and I truly enjoy his support. if you want to know how to commission your own reviews or to get a guarnateed review of me of your choice from me a month, stick around to the end. I realized that shoving all my plugs in up top may be driving people away and while I DO make them because I want to make a living off this, i’ts not fair to those of you who simply can’t afford to buy a lot of extra shit like myself to keep shoving it in your face. 

Previously on the Louie Inc Arc, Louie, after believing he had no skills and it was a matter of when not if he ws going to die, found his talent: seeing all the angles and thus being Sharper than the Sharpies. With newfound confidence and a chip on his shoulder from Scrooge saying he could one day be a bigger success than Scrooge himself, founding Louie Inc as a result. But what is Louie Inc? Does he actually have a plan or a bunch of buzzwords. And what does STORKULES, MANLY GAY OUT OF MYTH have to do with any of this? Join me under the cut to find out. 

We open with Louie giving Scrooge his sales pitch that is essentially...

Naturally Scrooge buys none of it. I mean he’s somewhere in his hundreds, he’s probably seen about 80 thousand pitches that amount to “I have no plan but give me money anyway”. There’s a reason there’s a Butch Hartman shaped crater on the lawn from where he threw his ass out. 

Scrooge does mentor the lad, or at least attempt to pointing out he needs an actual product or service (Louie rejects the idea of a lemonade stand as too easy), or as he puts it “Find a problem and create a solution”. 

While the basic PRINCIPAL isn’t bad, find something people want or need and provide it, phrasing it that way sounds like “find a problem people are having and exploit the shit out of that problem for fun and profit.” Granted that IS a guiding principal of business, it’s just not something an uncle should be teaching his kids. They should be teaching them about the anime and cartoons they grew up with as I do with my niece and nibling. 

He does show him a valid example of this in action in the form of Donald. Turns out Donald has found a good way to make money while he looks for a job, can relate: since Duckburg is facing a housing shortage, likely because several square blocks probably get destroyed by Scrooge’s Adventures, Glomgold’s Schemes, Superhero Battles, whatever creation went horribly wrong for Gyro, etc at least once a week. So he’s taken it upon himself to offer up the spare room to whoever can rent it.. and to steal Scrooge’s chandelier which even when caught he still takes anyway. Scrooge.. you called the guy a god-damn moocher in the season premiere, despite the fact he lives there soley because YOU offered and because he’s you know, being responsible and staying by his boys so they have their father figure around. So yeah I feel he’s doing this partly out of spite as is the McDuck way. I mean if your going to call him a freeloader just for being a responsible parent, then he’s going to take it up a damn notch.

Scrooge proceeds to laugh off Louie wanting a million dollars and gives him a dime instead because of course he was. Seriously Louie there are two other billionaires in town who are FAR dumber and far more easily swindled. Just go get star up capital from them. Hell with Glomgold all you’d have to do is tell him it’d upset scrooge and he’d literally throw money at you. Or give you a shark full of money. He needs the shark back though. He’s family. 

Meanwhile Donald prepares for his new tenant and finds.. THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES! Who to his mounting horror as he realizes it, IS the new tenant. And who throws him into the sun. Cue credits. 

So after Donald somehow survives being thrown into the sun, Storkules explains why he’s here: Zeus responded to his son playing the lute a lot like any rational reasonable 

No of course he responded to the “crime” of “playing his instrument a lot” with sending a swarm of harpies on the town then blaming Storkules for it and casting him out. What’s most shocking is not the action, this is honestly him staying the course of being a fucking disgrace, but that Zeus somehow ISN’T the biggest asshole i’ve dealt with this week. No that honor is reserved as always for this bitch:

Keep in mind she manages to be this obnoxious in only TWO scenes. Also keep in mind I had to put up with Julie for a MUCH larger chunk of the previous two volumes I covered before volume 5 yesterday for my Scott Pilgrim Retrospective and she is ALWAYS like this and you now feel my pain. 

This does create a problem though: Zeus casts Storkules out until he’s a responsible adult.. and thus paints Storkules as the bad guy... in a situation where the only other person in the story sent a swarm of HARPIES down at him for simply playing his music too loud. It just dosen’t work as a catalyst: Storkules objectively did nothing wrong. The only person he annoyed was a person who clearly dosen’t love, respect or like his son in any way shape or form anyway and essentially assaulted him and a bunch of innocent people via harpie and then cast him out. Zeus is an abusive asshole and i’ts weird the narrative sides with HIM and not our well meaning doofus. Zeus being an asshole with harpies is not a bad catalyst for the episode, and the harpies being unleashed is used well.. it’s just not a good catalyst for THIS story to try and portray an abuser as in the right. And make no mistake Zeus is a domestic abuser: he had his son mind controlled to try and MURDER innocent people, something Storkules begged him not to do, sent a swarm of creatures after him for the crime of playing his music too loud and in his next episode manipulatives Storkules sad emotional state for personal gain. Why would you try and paint THIS jackass as in the right?

Speaking of painting this jackass in the right sadly.. this episode does not do my boy donald justice. In most episodes he’s pretty nuanced and i’ts fair enough he’d be frustrated by Storkules as a roomate. Storkules has little sense of personal space, breaks his stove thinking theirs hydra in it, makes a mess of the kitchen making them a meal, and in general clearly dosen’t know how to live with a roomate much less in modern society. He has valid concerns and the episode COULD have used it that way.. but he’s also horribly impatient with Storkules. He refuses to get the guy just hasn’t had to live in a modern society and dosen’t know HOW to function in it and instead of helping him just gets mad again and again and gets really pissed when it’s clear Storkules dosen’t have a job and didn’t consider paying rent. He’s not WRONG to want him to pay Rent, despite what ironically the musical Rent would try and have you believe, but he dosen’t have any patience with the guy. And stork isn’t nearly coming on as strong as he normally does. The worst he does is cook the guy lunch and bring his donald fan art with him. Which we don’t see but I am assuming is mostly naked. What i’m saying is for once that while still bombastic, Storkules isn’t trying to force a relationship/friendship on him and simply wants to learn t be an adult from his best friend.. and Donald isn’t bothering teaching him.

Asking for rent or for him not to destroy the stove is fine, but not explaining WHY he needs either of those things or why he needs boundaries, he makes a roomate list, isn’t helping the guy. And this would be fine... but the episode dosen’t call Donald out on it for no real reason. It feels like it’s setting up for a “you should learn to wokrk with someone instead of just screaming at them aseop” that never comes and like with Zeus takes his side because shutup. I’d also LIKE to say this is the only time the writers reduced one of the cast to a caracture of themselves.. but I can’t.  Several episodes in season 3 forgot Louie’s character development and another episode in season 2, The Duck Knight Returns!, somehow reduced both Scrooge and Dewey to parodies of themselves with Scrooge SOMEHOW, despite Della as stubborn as she is being in his care and by his side for decades and Movies bein ga huge business, not having seen a movie since the 1920′s and not knowing how they work and Dewey being reduced to just hyperactive moron. It isn’t as common as other shows like say Regular Show, The Loud House or, for the exact reason I lost intrest, Rick and Morty, but I still expect better, especially since they went into this season KNOWING Donald would be gone for half of it and this would likely be one of his only spotlight episodes. 

Back at the good part of the plot, Louie is having a company meeting aka already treating Huey and Webby like his employees. Webby of course is glad to sign on, if little help in actually coming up with a product while Huey just wants to nope out. And if your wondering why Dewey isn’t involved Louie outright says he’d make a bad employee and while Dewey rises from his bed to object.. he stops halfway to opening his mouth and concludes he has a point. Best gag of the episode. Louie being louie easily cons Huey into staying by making Webby his charts officer. 

So the three have a corporate retreat at Funso’s... granted they don’t have a product but Louie figures this might help. Huey.. still wants out of this and suggest since they already spent what they had on ski ball “Company over?”. It’s clear that Huey just sees this as another one of Louie’s short sighted schemes... and while he’s not ENITRELY wrong, Louie has genuine ambition.. he just has no earthly idea what he’s doing and is shooting way too high.. but for understandable reasons. 1) He’s 11 at this point. 11 year olds aren’t great at business strategy or reinging it in. 2) he wants to live up to what Scrooge said to prove he can be successful and really be worth something like his mom was. 

But sometimes fate throws you one and the harpies bust in. And while Louie wants to do nothing and hope they go away Huey and Webby spring into action.. as does Storkules, who had to leave but warns donald there’s Orzo in the slowcooker and to not open it “LEST THE PASTA FAIL TO ABSORB THE BROTH!” Which is just.... Chris’ best line dleivery the episode. He says it like he’s saying the title of an old Stan Lee and Jack Kirby comic, i’ts wonderful.

So our heroes defeat them and Louie steps in to charge for the service and quickly comes up with a company idea and name “Harp-B-Gone” (A Subsidary of Louie Inc). Louie hires Storkules on the spot. Storkules proudly tells Donald he has a job the next day and goes off to it. What follows is our heroes hilarously shooting a commerical with Storkules playing a baby to promote themselves so they can help who needs it. They just need to find out what they want.. and thanks to the JWG and the harpies stealing it find out they go after people’s most treasured posessions   Cue Ghostbusters-Style Montage

And this isn’t just me saying thing. The Rewriting History Entry (Which as a series weirdly stops around mid-season 2 and I don’t get why frank hasn’t gone back and finished it since) states they specifically based this whole operation on ghostbusters and the entire sequence of our heroes cleanin up the town reminds me of it. The highlight of it is a glomgold cameo where he’s kidnapped.. and refuses to pay so Louie just lets him go. And were this an innocent person who couldn’t afford it, i’d call him a monster.. but it’s glomgold. he brought this on himself.. and also sues himself for it. Wonder if he won. 

So with their stars rising, our heroes get booked on the hottest show in town: Dewey Dew-Night! I had honestly forgotten there was a Dewey Dew-Night segment in there, and delighted I get to talk about this recurring bit.  It’s one of the shows funniest runners and just perfectly FITS Dewey: of course the most egotistical and energetic of the kids would not only want to be a late hnight host but make up his own show. I also love the slow evolution of it: it started as something everyone clearly knew about but he stlill tried to keep hidden, slowly escalated to him allowing the rest of his siblings (Webby very much included) and the giant man who stalks his uncle in, and by later this season he’s putting the show online in the web shorts and gladly shooting it into space, with Season 3 having him spend the first half of let’s get dangerous making a documentary that includes an episode of the show featuring Darkwing. It’s a small thing sure, but it’s the little things like this that make the show special. 

The show does reveal a problem though as it turns out they’ve GOT all the harpies and while Storkules merely wanted to help, Louie points out they need more to keep a buisness going and naturally never bothered to ask Storkules just how many there were. They need SOME plan to get going. Webby submits a legitamte and great idea, training the harpies as she’s been trying to do in the background of the episode and aside from a hole in the floor they are starting to listen. But Huey is an ass about it and not only shoots it down saying let’s keep the dangerous creatures contained, even though A) he has no idea WHERE they’ve been kept so he can’t verify it’s safe, and since i’ts Donald’s Closet no no it’s not. and B)There’s no where he knows of to keep them. He isn’t aware of the other bin till next season. and C) it’s not ehtical to keep creatures locked up forever epsecially since while the harpies are dangerous they arent’ MALEVOLENT and are clearly acting on instinct. oh and for D) at least she has a plan to keep the company going instead of just wanting to end this and cash out. 

Which Huey tries to.. but naturally Louie spent all their money on...

So their broke.. and Storkules has no rent money and feels like a failure despite having done NOTHING wrong. We do get a clever little nod to Disney’s hercules though “I”m not a hero, i’m a zero”. Webby rightfully glares at Louie who decides to fix it... by sneaking into Donald’s house that night to free the harpies. 

Though to the shows credit it’s a VERY bad idea, and Storkules coming in mid attempt and congradulating Louie when he lies about checking the door gets the kid to come clean. And it’s a nice character moment: He could still go through with it.. but it’s clear he realizes just HOW low he was about to sink to save his own skin and that as much as Storkules WANTS a paycheck and deserves one, it’s not worth hurting people to get it. Louie tries to justify after this.. but can’t. 

Unforutnately Donald took a lot of stupid pills this episode, yells about his no pets rule and frees them instead of you know, THINKING for five minutes.

So yeah NATURALLY Donald is an angry shit about it , refusing to actually TALK to Storkules about this or maybe admit this is partly HIS OWN FAULT. Yes their both at fault, Storkules shoudln’t of shoved a bunch of harpies in a closet. That’s a classic blunder. But Donald still opened it and isn’t called out on taking zero responsibility. Huey sees the fracas and just takes down their days without an accident placard, good stuff and he and webby arrive to help. Donald fights with Storkules and Storkules worries about loosing his friend.. lead to them going after the thing he values most aka donlad and hyjacking the house boat, though the kids manage to get aboard. 

As Storkules saves Donald, Louie realizes the most precious thing he has is  his merch and willingly gives it, and his buisness up to save everyone. It’s good character stuff and shows that despite his problems with greed, Louie IS a good kid and will do the right thing. It’s what seperates him from the Rouges Gallery the family faces: He has FLEXIBLE morals but he has morals when it comes down to it. So everyone tosses the stoff to help direct the hapries and make it home tying them up. Donald has a heart to heart with Storkules and agrees to help him find another place, but still considers him a friend and they hug. Awww.  One intresting thing I DID find out from rewriting history is they originally fully intended to have Storkules STAY on the houseboat. He was going to be a permenant member of the household, at least as far as Season 2 was concenred and plans were made for several episodes down the road: the whole bit with him in “The Golden Spear” was simply because he lived there, he was going to be the one Della met in the houseboat, obliviously guilting her about what she’d missed, and he was going to set off the kids subplot in “Whatever Happened to Donald Duck?”

This ended up not happneing for logistical reasons: Frank, and I swear this was the term he used, felt they already had the perfect Himbo in Launchpad and it was just too much HImbo energy for the two to coexist without one taking the others screen time or neither getting a lot. 

The next reason was having a god around simply broke the story: He cited the gilded man from “Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!” as a specific example. There were just too many hoops to jump to have him not break any story he should be around for.  Finally with Della being added to the cast soon there simply wasn’t room in the main cast. Della brought it up to 9, Storkules would make it 10, and as i’ve gone on about the show already had trouble ballancing it’s cast, something Frank admitted to. Adding him would both be too big a stiatus quo change and be one on top of the massive one of Della joining the cast. So he was dropped back to recurring and only showed up one more time. And while it was the right call I am dismayed he didn’t show up for the whatever happened to donald duck subplot and it does feel very weird he never adresses Donald being gone despite, at least for season 2, apparently living in Duckburg. Otherwise though as funny as this wouldv’e been.. yeah it was the right call. 

Scrooge returns... having been absent all episode because otherwise it wouldn’t work and easily saw Louie loosing it all coming.. but gives him a can of lemonade for his troubles and comforts the boy. The heart of htis arc and what makes it work at it’s best.. is these two. Scrooge GENUINELY wants to help Louie see his potetial successor in buisness: oh sure adventure wise he’s throughly covered.. but Webby, Dewey and Della all are more focused on the addventure part and that’s where their passion and talent lies, Huey’s better at science and given his close frinedship with fenton and how much that part of things seems to truly inspire him, i’ts what he was born for, and Donald just wants a regualar life and can’t manage his own life much less a company. 

Louie is the only one in his family whose the right fit to inhereit that part of his legacy and I feel that’s why he takes a special intrest in him and webby over the other two: While he loves all of them and will clearly again leave a piece of his fortune and empire to all of them, Webby is the most like him, as we later find out not coincidentally in the slightest, when it comes to adventuring and curosity and a love of exploration. But Louie is the most like him in other ways; He’s cynical, money driven and passionate. Scrooge simply wants him to be as good a person and buisnessperson as he can be and is trying to push him in the right direction. And does so here by pointing out that failure isn’t a huge problem..it happens, comes with the terriotiry and as we’ve seen with life and times, even with portions of it clearly not happening in this universe, he failed a LOT to get here. What matters is that he tries and tries to do it the right way. 

Scrooge also sympathizes as he was buying a lemonade company in cape suzette, giving Louie the can as a present... but laments there’s no cheap effective way to deliver the lemons. Louie notices the harpies going after the can after he throws it and Webby controlling them with it and muses that theyd idn’t think about what THEY wanted.. nad rightfully gets punched across the lawn by Webby, whose had to spend an entire episode having her surrogate brothers talk down to her and ignore her valid ideas. She dosen’t even open her eyes she just bops him one.

So we end with Scrooge having enlisted the hapries, Louie trying to take credit again and both realizing they might just steal the lemons instead of work for them. Ha ha ha their going to get so sued. 

Final Thoughts: This one was mediocre. It has some good points, Louies arc continues to fascenate me, Huey’s done with this shit attitude is hilarous, and Storkules is at his best in this episode: his crush on Donald is toned down from this..

To this

To the point I could see shipping them off this one if Storkules episode didn’t have him do eveyrthing short of .. well see above.  So it’s not WITHOUT merit: I love me a ghost busters style plot, there are great jokes and Chris Dimatopolis is a gem as always. Glad he’s getting work after this show on Invincible and hope he gets to play Darkwing again some day. But the Donald stuff and the fairly predictable plot drag this one down. I’ts fairly obvious they’ll run out of harpies, Louie will have spent the money and they’ll somehow get free. It’s not a terrible episode but it’s it’s sandwiched story wise between two straight up classics on both sides: the previous two episodes were even better than I remembered and the next two are incredibly good: Whateve Happened to Della Duck?! is one of their finest hours and The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck, while not making my best of list for the series as a whole is still one of my favorites for the season.  It’s just disapointing this one wasn’t nearly as good as I remmebered and it’s understandable why I forgot almost all of it, unlike the previous two episodes. Thankfully as I said better’s over the horizon.

NEXT TIME ON OF MOONS, MILLIONARES AND MOTHERS: I’m taking a break for a week. One of two weeklong breaks for the arc, the other being the first week of July where i’m on vacation anyway (Though i’ll be doing the episode I would’ve done for that week the week before to keep the pace up, so no worries),

 As for why, it’s my utmost honor to announce GOOF WEEK! Goof Week is a weeklong celebration of Goofy’s birthday. The idea came about because as I do for the big three, I intended to just do a shorts special. But Kev , the guy who made this very review possible, suggested doing the two part Goof Troop pilot. And since kev pays for a house of mouth episode a month anyway and thaks to you lovely people I hit my patreon stretch goal to review the goofy movie, I figured “why not make a week out of it. Hence Goof week. So next week we’ll have a review of the two part pilot for Goof Troop, the special Sports Goof, the House of Mouse episode Super Goof, your regularly schedule shorts spectacular, with The Goofy Movie for the grand finale! yaaahoooooieeee! 

When we come back i’ll be shuffling episodes around slightly so I can do the Della comics from the Ducktales Tie-In Comic before her debut and in time for Donald’s own theme week in June, i’ll be saving “Whatever Happened to Della Duck?” for the week after Donald Week. Instead next we get a fun wild west adventure as Scrooge tells a story of his outlaw days, his tension with goldie and his encounter with a certain robber baron as John D Rockerduck FINALLY makes his screen debut. Yee-Haw!

If you liked this review, subscribe and follow for more and consider joining my patroen, patreon.com/popculturebuffet. I have exclusive reviews, my most recent duck based one being an obscure carl barks story about wigs and the boys attempting to murder a guy with a blow gun, and your contribution helps me reach my goals and thus gets everyone, patreon or not, a bunch of neat new reviews. If you get me to 20 dollars a month, i’m currently at 15, EVERYONE will get a monthly darkwing duck reviews, reviews of the two remaning ducktales 87 mini series including the origin of GIZMOOOODDUUUUUCCCKKKK, and a review of the Danny Phantom movie The Ultimate Enemy. And with the month running out NOW’S the time to join. YOu’ll also get to pick one of the shorts for my Donald Duck birthday specail next month, so if you want to join in NOWS the time. But wether you can or you can’t, thank you for reading, i’ts been a pleasure. 

[mallowstep]

I'd love to hear some ✨StarClan Slander✨ from you

starclan fucking sucks and i'm not afraid to say it.

ugh. where to begin.

okay, starclan sucks in a lot of different ways. like, a lot. it sucks from a narrative perspective, it sucks from a lives-of-cats perpsective, and it sucks from a worldbuilding perspective.

like: starclan is incredibly inconsistent as worldbuilding. it. gah. that part is most in my control when i write, so i try to really like. maximize said control. but if you compare the description of fireheart getting his nine lives to any modern starclan scene, it pisses me off. starclan is so fucking Cool, and now it's not.

i could go on for a while, but it's more of the same.

and then from a narrative perspective like. it causes so many problems. and i don't mean starclan causes problems for the characters, i mean starclan is simultaneously the cause of a lot of problems while the narrative wants us to believe they are the good guys. starclan causing problems? interesting. starclan causing problems but they're Very Good Actually? lazy.

this is a small thing but like it bothered in tbc? okay so. the fact that the clans' relationship to starclan has changed doesn't bother me. it's really interesting. they've been through this time of massive upheaval, something which often correlates with this uptick in spirituality.

i do not need convincing to believe that as the clans have gone through these past ten or fifteen years, with an exodus and the whole great battle (even setting aside the religious implications and just focusing on: big battle, lots of betrayal, lots of death), and everything with skyclan and darktail, yeah!

like, there was a spiritualism wave in the us after the civil war because that's what people/humanized cats do in those times. they latch on to spirituality and religion. why do you think witchcraft is on an uptick again in modern times?

however the problem is the Narrative never acknowledges this, which makes it feel not like an intentional culture change but authors being lazy. i'm not sure what's worse: authors just leaning on starclan because it's interesting and easy, or authors simply failing to convey the nuances of culture change.

whichever makes the erins sound better, pick that one. i have no lost love for them, but i try to keep my criticisms factual.

anyway, i digress, here's my favourite example:

in tbc, it's this Big Deal how the moonpool is the place of the medicine cats, and other cats cannot enter, Nope No Sir, which, like, really fucking confused me.

what?

do leaders not speak with starclan anymore? is that. is that not a thing?

i mean, in tpb, leaders visit the moonstone all the time. apprentices visit it before coming warriors. it's pretty normal.

and i'm fine with the culture of the clans changing for the moonpool to be a medicine cat exclusive: that does not fundamentally bother me. there's even the smallest nod to this idea in po3, during outcast, when they mention that the tradition of going to the moonstone/pool has fallen out of favour, and maybe that's bad.

and like, yeah, okay: i don't really understand Why it fell out of favour, especially in thunderclan. thunderclan had the Longest journey to the moonstone, and now they have either the shortest journey or one of the shortest, so there's really no excuse, but like. that's diaspora, you lose things, i'm okay with that.

what i'm not okay with is the sudden transformation of the moonpool to a Holy Place only Medicine Cats can touch. like, mothwing has been to the moonstone: she knows this isn't how it was. the others are young enough to not know, but then, when did this idea get started? who put it in their heads? why?

jayfeather has had so much pov, it wouldn't be hard to explain. he could've even taught alderpaw about it. or something could've been slipped into an early shadowpaw chapter. it really would not have taken much: a single line in outcast or something was all i needed to accept the moonstone/pool visitation tradition was dead (even if i think it should've continued), but unless i've forgotten, this is just. never explained.

this is how it Always Was (even though it wasn't, and there are cats who should Know it wasn't).

heck! heck! mistystar shared tongues with starclan in her novella. i don't remember where riverclan was during this scene in tbc, but my point is more. someone should've been able to say something. anything.

probably before the actual scene, given how few cats would know about this: bramblestar should since he was made a warrior in the forest territory, but i'll give the other leaders a pass. all i need is like. one line. from one cat. that's it. that's all i need.

finally, starclan obviously is uhhh. evil? it's evil, right, we can all agree? there is no evil starclan au we're In the evil starclan au, i should write a good starclan au.

the thing about this one is like. it's a product of the others. if starclan wasn't Real and Tangible, then like. then like. it wouldn't matter that they gave shitty advice and did terrible things, because now you just have cats dreaming of others, searching for answers in the Strict Code, and that would all make sense.

(did that paragraph like. read? i can't tell. basically, if starclan wasn't confirmed as a real thing with real dead cats, i would be fine with starclan cats being shitty and ooc, because now it's not actual cats we know and love, it's other cats' perceptions, memories, and inferences of them as they search their ancestors for guidance from the warrior code.

so of course their advice is going to be terrible and inconsistent and leafpool is going to decide spottedleaf said she should have kits and then starclan is going to backflip when the kits are born: all of that makes complete sense as long as starclan isn't an actual place. as long as it's just religion, just dreams and omens, there is no problem with that.)

and then if starclan like. if their role in the clans had been covered more thoroughly by the narrative. if how they gave shitty advice a lot was covered. i would also be okay with it.

but the best we get is mothwing's whole "yo uh. starclan doesn't save cats. i save fucking cats. give me my god damn credit for saving your fucking life." like that's a bad thing no. mothwing. queen. please continue ur so right.

and just as a cherry on top, the ableism in starclan is exhausting. it's its own thing, really, but like. i was talking with @foxstride about this. and like. how disabled cats will just have their disabilities erased.

personally, i'm okay with briarlight not being disabled in starclan. i think that makes sense for her character. i think it is Bad that the narrative's response to that was "now that she's dead she's finally happy again!", it should have been "thunderclan failed to give briarlight the actual support she needed to be happy", but the fact that she's not disabled in starclan doesn't actually bother me.

she was sick basically 100% of the time after her accident, and thunderclan was really shitty to her. do you remember how happy she was to "get" to sleep in the warriors' den? she was a fucking warrior that was her right.

thunderclan failed her, but the takeaway is "she couldn't be happy until she was dead and her disability was magicked away." that's bad. that's. i'm not okay with that part of it.

(briarlight deserves so much better than thunderclan.)

but for pretty much every other instance of it, there's none of that. maybe, maybe, you could make a similar argument for cinderpelt, but i would disagree with it.

my cinderpelt opinion is and always has been: she would never have chosen the path of being a medicine cat for herself, but she ultimately finds happiness and fulfillment with it. like, it wasn't right that she was forced to become a medicine cat because of her accident, but it was something she did ultimately enjoy and was happy to dedicate her life to. if she was given the chance to become a warrior after she had been a medicine cat for a while, she wouldn't have taken it.

it's part of why when i'm doing like. big time aus for warriors i still make her a medicine cat. because i like her growing to love it. i like that it's not right, how it happens, but she still loves it eventually. it's a very interesting idea to me that there aren't many characters to explore it through. jayfeather and alderheart are similar, but not in the same way. anyway i'm rambling because these are all the things i thought about when writing stolag, back on topic.

so i don't think cinderpelt should have her disability poofed by starclan, i think she should keep it. i also think that cats who are injured and then aren't disabiled in starclan should be representitve of that. they should be the age before they got injured.

briarlight should be apprentice aged, a hypo-cinderpelt should also be apprentice aged. this is something i'm fine with. i make hollyleaf apprentice aged in starclan because i think she was happiest before the ending of po3.

moving on: snowkit? can apparently hear? wtf?

and y'all already know how much i hate that jayfeather can see in his dreams. i said No that's Not Canon anymore and no one (no one) can stop me.

in conclusion: starclan is bad in a lot of ways, and if it weren't so damn inconsistently bad, i think i wouldn't hate it half as much.

<3

[sophie-writings]

☁️ Synopsis: Bakugou just might have the biggest tiniest crush on you, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to admit it to anyone — or even himself. Inspired by: “I won’t say (I’m in love)” from Hercules.

☁️ Character: Katsuki Bakugou 

☁️ Type: Scenario. Pure fluff and in denial Bakugou.

☁️ Warning: Light cursing. 

☁️ Note: This is the first long fic I’m doing for this blog, so i guess this is a especial moment? As promised, the Bnha x Disney songs is here! Kirishima’s next on the list, can you guess which song was chosen? Tip: lights.

"I'm not saying it!" Bakugou says, glaring daggers at his best friend before huffing and averting his gaze to the door he so desperately wanted to reach.

"Oh, c'mon Bakugou!" Insisted Kirishima, still blocking the blond's way. "You like her ever since that day."

That was undoubtedly true, even though Bakugou wouldn't admit it to himself or the others. 

You both first met on your first day at UA, and you were just another classmate he didn't really pay attention to. You tried to be friendly with Bakugou at first, just like you were with the rest of your classmates, but the explosive boy didn't seem to be open to the idea of friendships, so you eventually gave up. If you didn't cross his way — which you usually didn't, no words were exchanged.

But that changed with time, after the fateful day Bakugou was rescued from the league of villains.

You were never really close to him, but the guilt of not being able to help your fellow classmate was eating you inside out, especially because you were so close to grabbing his hand when he was taken. So you joined the rescue team alongside Kirishima and the rest. 

The smile you had on your face once he was safe and the hug he found himself unable to run away from made his heart beat faster than ever before.

"And you're terrible at hiding it too, dude." Teased Kaminari, who was the first to notice the sudden change in Bakugou's behavior whenever he was around you. “Why deny it?”

That too was true.

Bakugou found it harder than ever before to maintain his cool when you were around. It was like his already sweaty palms got sweatier whenever you got too close to him, he could feel his heart pound against his ribcage and wondered if his heartbeat as always been this loud and if people can hear it too. He found himself sighing more and getting lost in thought while staring at you.

It was like the stupid third-grade crush he had all over again, only that this time it didn't last a week. 

"I mean, how could he hide it? They're so pretty!" Chirped in Mina getting dangerously close to his face, but this time he couldn't even shove his pink friend away because his mind was wandering elsewhere.

You were really pretty, no one could go against that. 

You couldn't blame Bakugou for staring at you for a second too long. Who wouldn't? 

He eventually caught himself noticing small details he never did before.

Like the way your eyes twinkled when you ate your favorite meal during lunch, or how you would scrunch up your nose when eating sore candy. Sometimes he couldn't help but smile whenever your tongue would stick out of your mouth when you were doing difficult math exercises. Only to realize he's been smiling at you for the past thirty seconds and bury his face in his hands in frustration.

Oh God, he's really seeing you through rose-colored lenses and it was so obvious. 

"Just admit it." Now it was Sero's turn to intercept. "You got it bad." The raven-haired boy snickered and nudged his friend's side with his elbow, causing Bakugou to huff in annoyance.

"Okay, let's say I have this small interest on them — which I fucking don't!" He adds before the rest of the group could use it against him. "Why does it matter?" 

He really couldn't see what confessing his very minor interest in you would do. Okay, he might get really nervous when you're around, recognize your scent if you walk into a room, and even let you touch him more than anyone else without yelling or huffing, but so what? 

"You confess and tell them how you feel?" Kirishima said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, earning a "are you fucking serious?" look from Bakugou back. “Just give in, you’re in love!”

“Are you crazy? In love? Me?”

"Confess? Really Kirishima?" Mina asked, and pointed at Bakugou who was still staring at Kirishima as if he had grown a second head. "This guy can't even admit to himself he has a crush on them." "I don't-"

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. 

The sudden notifications coming from everyone's phone expect for Bakugou's was enough to stop the ensuing argument. The blond cursed under his breath while the rest checked their phone and cooed at whatever they were looking at.

"What the fuck is so damn interesting?" He asked crossing his arms and peering over Kirishima's shoulder.

His eyed widened once he caught a glance of the image and he snatched Kirishima's phone from his hand to get a better look at it.

He wished his eyes were deceiving him because there you were sitting next to a guy he has never seen before. The guy's arm was over your shoulder and you were smiling — the smile he really liked — to the camera.

"Who the fuck is this guy?" He literally spat. "Why didn't I get this picture?"

"Bakugou, you’d leave the group chat every time I tried to add you." Kaminari deadpanned. "They send pictures like this all the time." 

"You should've added me again then!" He snapped back before swiping to see the rest of the pictures you sent to the group chat.

You really sent a lot of them. Some smiling, others cutely pouting at the camera, and some with the other classmates. 

His eyes widened when he realized you sent a picture of you pouting and pointing to him in the background. The caption read "grumpy Bakugou won't join us for game night :(" He could feel his face get warmer after knowing you actually realized he was missing during the group activities. He swiped again and his eyebrows furrowed when he saw another picture of you and this mystery guy. 

"Okay, that's enough of staring for today." Kirishima said, taking his phone back from Bakugou's grasp. 

"Who's that guy?" Bakugou was enraged, there was no other way to describe it. Why did you have so many pictures with the same guy? Why has he never heard of him before? And why did he care so much?

"Take a chill pill dude." Kaminari sighed. "That's just her cousin, he visited one and everything, don't you remember? — oh you were sleeping." Kaminari words felt like annoying prickles to Bakugou and he was getting really tired of his friend's nuances.

"But you see that irritable feeling you had when you saw them with another person? That's called jealousy." Mina sang. "And if you don't confess soon, they'll find someone to actually date." 

"They wouldn't do that."

"Why not? They're single" She continued. "And not to mention, super attractive!" Added Sero. 

"Shit..." Bakugou muttered and sat down on Kirishima's bed.

He was in it deep, his friends were right. But having a crush this big was just something he never imagined would happen so soon in his hero-in-training life. He didn't want to be slowed down by things like love, but it's not like you would slow him down right? You were strong and capable, and maybe, just maybe, you could even help him reach new height, right?

Oh, there he goes again. He really can't stop his brain from making up scenarios in his head and finding an answer every time he comes up with a reason why he shouldn't have a crush on you. 

"Okay..." He whispered, loud enough for his friends to hear and stare down at him. "I might have a little crush on them." 

"I fuckING KNEW IT-" Kaminari couldn't even finish his sentence because Bakugou sent a pillow flying to his face, successfully throwing him off balance. 

The rest of the group simply ignored Kaminari's complaints and focused on Bakugou's speech.

"I... I don't want to see them with somebody else."

"Then confess! Tell them you like them." Cheered Mina.

"Do I really need to say it out loud?" He averts his gaze. Bakugou really wasn't the one to turn down a challenge, but the risk of rejection seemed too high to his liking.

"How else would you say it?" Asked Sero, cocking his head to the side in confusion.

"I don't know! This is my first time doing something like this, how am I supposed to know?!" He says in frustation, grabbing a handful of his hair. 

"First say it out loud! Just admit to yourself first." Said Kirishima, sitting next to his best friend while patting his back as a sort of comfort. He could realize that while he was really book smart and strategic, he was still emotionally dumb. "Just say it."

"Okay, whatever." He breathed in and out, before opening his eyes in determination. "I like — fuck, this is stupid."

"Just say it, OH MY GOD." Even chill Sero was losing his temper.

"OKAY FUCK I LIKE THEM OKAY?!" The whole room fell silent with Bakugou's sudden burst and his friends could only stare at him. They were used to Bakugou's outbursts of rage since they happened almost daily, but they rarely came accompanied by red blush across his cheeks. 

"Great!" Kirishima was the first one to break the silence as he got up and grabbed his best friend by the arm, pulling him up with him.

"What do you think you're doing?" Asks Bakugou once he's on his feet again. 

"Now you go out there and tell them that."

"Right now?! Are you crazy?" Bakugou backs up. Oh hell no, he couldn't confess yet. Just admitting it to himself and his close group os friends was too much for the day, he didn't know he could handle confessing to you right now. 

"Do you want someone else to beat you to it?" Asked Mina while typing away on her phone.

"Of course not, I said that alre-" Before he could end his sentence, Mina showed his her phone, which had a thread of texts between you and her, asking you to meet her outside in five minutes. "Then go Bakugou."

Bakugou cursed to himself before opening the door that led out of Kirishima's room. "You're all screwed when I get back." He states before slamming the door behind him.

"Your love muses will be waiting." Was the last thing he heard before starting this walk.

Bakugou mind races as he walks towards the spot he was supposed to meet you, opting to take the stair so he had more time to think. Admitting he had a crush on you to the world was hard enough, but confessing seemed like a whole ‘nother level. He couldn't help but think about all the possible negative outcomes that could come out of this decision. 

“Fuck... what am I doing?”

Maybe things were good as they were right? Sure, he couldn't hold your hand and kiss you like he has been picturing the past few days, but at least you talked to him and made the effort to be in his life. What if after he confessed his dumb feelings to you, you just straight up rejected him and things between both of you get awkward? How was he going to handle that?

"Bakugou?" 

The familiar voice was enough to pull him out of the trance-like state he was in. He was so deep in thought he didn't even realize that he had reached the meeting spot and you were there waiting already. 

Damn, did he make you wait? Maybe he should've taken the lift, I mean, summer's coming but it was still spring and maybe you're feeling cold. Oh shoot, you're staring at him, maybe he should answer right?

"Hey..."

You smiled realizing it was really Bakugou and what your eyes weren't playing games with you. Ever since you've realized that the admiration you felt towards Bakugou was only platonic and that you had a big fat crush on the hot-headed boy, every single attitude he had seemed to mean something more. His long stares, the way he would get nervous when you were around and the oh so light smile he would send your away would make your heart flutter and send you back to your room overthinking his actions. 

"I thought Mina was supposed to meet me here?" You asked, still glad it was the blond who came over to meet you. 

"Yeah..." Bakugou couldn't concentrate on the matter at hand. How could he when you looked so good just by standing there? You were already on your summer pajamas and he couldn't help but blush at the sight of the moon shining on your skin. " I actually need to tell you something."

"Ah, sure! I'm all ears" You tried your best to sound as confident as possible, but the truth is, doing so is hard when you have your crush standing in front of you. Everything about the situation screamed "cliche rom-com confession scene" to you and you didn't know if your increasing heartbeat was because you wanted it to be exactly that, or because you were afraid he was just going to ask for your English notes. 

"Look, this is my first time doing something like this, so if I fuck it up just bear with me for a second okay?" 

God, he must be sounding so stupid. So weak. So vulnerable. So not him.

But then again, this wasn't something he would normally do. Heck, his original plan was to graduate without even having the need to make friends or get into a relationship. He just wanted to be the best, but there he was. He had a small group of friends and was even considering bettering his relationship with Deku.

Nothing like that was ever part of his plans but they happened. And he sure as hell wasn't backing away now. 

"I think I like you, no fuck it, I do like you!" He said staring at you dead in the eyes. "I didn't want to admit it at first but the truth is that... ever since that day, you helped shitty hair and the others, I've felt a different way towards you, and if you don't feel the same way then-" "No."

"What?" Bakugou stopped on his tracks and he could feel all the air getting sucked from his lungs.

"Oh Gosh, that sounded really bad." You say panicking. "I meant, no don't say that because... I really like you too Bakugou!"

Everything about the situation felt unreal.

From the way his words left his mouth to the fact that you were hugging him at the moment, breathing in his caramel aroma, making you melt to his touch. All of those nights overthinking about his actions and imagining how things could go if only you had to courage to confess would cease to exist, and now you would actually live every single scenario you made up in your head.

Bakugou was only glad he listened to his friends and told you how he felt. Not that he would tell them that, he sure wouldn't. And he also wouldn't forgive the fact that they were spying on you at the moment, but he could deal with that later.

Now he wanted to find out if your lips were as sweet as he imagined.

[vanhelsingenthusiast]

.... Omg! Can you please give us analysis of each character and how they are portrayed in the book and then the movies?

Oohh ok! (I’m just gonna go thru the characters and how they are in the book vs how they are usually portrayed in adaptations. These things do not apply to every single adaptation, or even necessarily one specific adaptation, full disclosure, lol) (also this will be very long, so, it’s under the cut.) 

Mina: 

~ In the book: kind, sweet, caring, motivated, intelligent, interesting, funny. I could go on and on. The protagonist. She IS the moment. She could defeat Dracula without the men but the men could not defeat Dracula without her. I said what I said. 

~ In adaptations: typically kind, but may or may not be any more intelligent than the men. Typically portrayed as a damsel in distress, though in the book she isn’t. Almost always Dracula’s love interest. Sometimes she even low-key betrays the Crew to help him. Her personality is very often reduced to one or two traits/archetypes so she can better fit the role of Dracula’s love interest. 

Jonathan: 

~ In the book: Damsel in distress. He can sometimes come across as boring, because he’s the only very average person in the book, but that’s because he’s supposed to be. It’s a compare and contrast type of thing. Even then, he’s incredibly brave, and incredibly determined. He represents the average person, rising up to the challenge. 

~ In adaptations: oh, Jonathan?? You mean the only reason why Mina and Dracula can’t bone??? Yeah but it’s fine if Mina cheats a little bc also he’s an asshole for no reason ://// 

Lucy: 

~ In the book: A delight. Absolute angel. Everyone loves her and she loves everyone but not always in the way they want. If she could she would move all of her friends into a little cottage and bake bread and make tea for them for the rest of forever. Part of the reason why her transformation into the Bloofer Lady is so scarring is because she was genuinely so good-hearted before that. 

~ In adaptations: lol she has three suitors so she must be suuuuper promiscuous (side note: not a bad thing but most adaptations portray it as such), and also because of that she definitely wanted Dracula to turn her into a vampire. 

Arthur: 

~ In the book: Lucy’s fiancée. Also he’s fuckin loaded so he helps fund the whole expedition. Interpretations of him change kinda drastically because he’s not given much canon personality or back story, but he’s overall a pretty decent guy. He can be mean but, like, in a loving way. 

~ In adaptations: if he’s there at all he’s usually Just Some Guy. Which, like. fair.  

Jack: 

~ In the book: a psychiatrist who desperately needs to see a psychiatrist but he is not self aware enough to know this. Used to be Van Helsing’s student. He definitely can be an ass (especially to Renfield), but it’s usually more that he just doesn’t think how his actions affect other people all the way through than him actively being a terrible person on purpose, if that makes sense. Him and his interest in science and technology symbolize the heralding of the new age, which is in contrast with Dracula, who is only ever “living” in the past (bedum tsss). 

~ In adaptations: sometimes he’s Van Helsing’s peer rather than ex-student. Usually he doesn’t still keep a phonograph, or even an active interest in technology, which is...a disservice. He can either be nice, or mean, usually not very nuanced or interesting. Honestly I feel like usually in adaptations he’s kinda just used as the gap to get Van Helsing there and then he does nothing after that.  

Quincey: 

~ In the book: literally the guy who kills Dracula. A Texan, as well, which seems funny now but at the time it was a fairly common trope to add in a foreigner. He’s pretty calm always, especially in a crisis, and also willing to step up and do whatever’s needed of him. And, again, he literally kills Dracula. Easily one of the more important characters in the book, except he doesn’t keep a diary so most people don’t acknowledge this. Also at one point it’s stated he’s rich af iirc so that’s funny. 

~ In adaptations: what do you mean we should add the guy who killed Dracula??? Nah it’ll be fine without him 

Van Helsing: 

~ In the book: he’s the hero of the story (not the protagonist, that’s separate). Him and Dracula are character foils. He’s the guy who knows everything about vampires, and also the guy who specifically knows how to stop Dracula. Even then, he isn’t a professional vampire hunter, or even, like, an expert. He just happens to know a shit ton about this. His name means “father of multitudes” and he is the Designated Dad of the group. He probably makes everyone hot cocoa and tells them weird stories about spiders drinking oil from lamps after a long day. 

~ In adaptations: murder grandpa is an asshole who also has no idea what he’s talking about because it makes Dracula look better 

Count Dracula: 

~ In the book: the villain. He could represent a lot of things — anything from a plague, to the past creeping up and not staying buried where it should, to Stoker’s internalized homophobia, to Stoker’s own xenophobia or antisemitism, or all of the above, or none. He has a lot of layers and each layer is a new level of villainy. We don’t know a lot about him, admittedly — who he was in life, why he became a vampire, what all of his powers are, or even his motivations for coming to London. He can represent any evil we want at all, which makes him a very affective villain. Also he’s supposedly related to Atilla the Hun which is funny af to me for no reason 

~ In adaptations: incel!Vlad III 

Renfield:  

~ In the book: admittedly, he does not have much baring on the plot. He tends to act as a meter for how close Dracula is at any given moment, until his death when Mina takes over that role. However, he introduces many themes and topics into the story: insanity, corruption, idealization of evil, etc., and he and Lucy work together to showcase how vampirism corrupts and how it can destroy even relatively innocent people. Even though Renfield has a bit of a reputation of being violent and volatile, he only ever really does something violent once, which wasn’t even entirely of his own volition and he sacrifices himself for the greater good. 

~ In adaptations: oh no scary evil insane man1!!11! he’s obviously just horrible it’s not like Dracula is manipulating him!11!! if Dracula were to manipulate him then Dracula wouldn’t be a sympathetic antihero :((( 

The Three Weird Sisters: 

~ In the book: the antithesis to Lucy’s suitors. They are supposed to be seductive, and dangerous, above all. They might be Dracula’s victims, or they could be some other vampires unrelated, we don’t really know. Not much is said about them and that’s likely very much on purpose. They have the same air of mystery about them as Dracula does, if not more. A lot of the horror in this book is based in the fear of the unknown. 

~ In adaptations: walking boobs with fangs. Usually so much is changed about the story that none of the above is even relevant or can be applied to them. 

Anyways thanks for the ask and I hope this answers your question :) 

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Back at it again with my self-indulgent comic posts. This time! It’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #3, perhaps the most tonally-distinct entry yet, with shades of The Twilight Zone. 

Spoilers!

So, as mentioned, this issue is the most deliberate in terms of both its pacing and its tone, IMO.

What is that tone, you ask?

To quote Alex Danvers, from “Midvale”: Hello, darkness.

THE STORY:

Kara and Ruthye are still looking for Krem Clues in the alien town of Maypole.

(Which is actually just Small Town, USA, complete with vintage 50s aesthetics.)

But the locals are clearly hiding something! So Kara and Ruthye continue to investigate, and they eventually discover what it was that the residents of Maypole were so keen to keep hidden. 

Genocide, basically. 

As I said, this issue struck me as very Twilight Zone; a genre story involving the build-up to a dark twist, all set against the backdrop of an idyllic small town. (Think, like, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” but instead of focusing on the Red Scare, it’s classism and racism.)

The wealthier blue aliens kicked all of the purple aliens out of town, and when space pirates showed up to pillage and plunder, the blue aliens made a deal with them: the lives of the purple aliens in exchange for their safety.  

Which is where the episodic story connects to the larger mission; it was Krem who suggested the trade, and then joined up with the Brigands (space pirates) when he was freed by the blue aliens.

The issue ends with no tidy resolution to the terrible things Kara and Ruthye discovered, but they do have a lead on where to find Krem, now, as well as Barbond’s Brigands.

KARA-CTERIZATION:

Ironically, it’s here, in the darkest chapter yet, that we get the closest to what might be considered ‘classic’ Kara. 

Which I think comes down to that aforementioned deliberate pace--this issue is a little slower, a little quieter. It gives the characters some room to breathe.

That’s not to say Crusty Kara is gone. Oh no. She is still very much Crusty. XD 

But anyways. A list! Of Kara moments I loved!

I mentioned a few of these in a prior post when the preview pages came out: I like the moment where Kara blows down the guy’s house of cards, and I like that the action is echoed later in the issue when she grabs the mayor’s desk and tosses it aside. A nice visual representation of the escalation of Kara being, like. Done with these creeps. (Creeps is an understatement but you get the idea.)

Another one from the preview pages: Kara explains to Ruthye that her super hearing won’t necessarily help her detect a lie, especially if she’s dealing with an alien species she’s not familiar with.

It not only reveals her level of competence and understanding of her super powers, it also shows that, you know. She’s a thinker. She’s smart. 

Amazing! Showing, rather than telling us, that Kara is smart! Without mentioning the science guild at all wow hey wow.

(Sorry, pointed criticism of the SG show fandom.)

Anyways.

I dig the PJs! 

And Kara catching the bullet! Not only are the poses and character acting great, it’s also a neat bit of panel composition:

We start with Ruthye’s POV, and then move to the wide shot of the room. The panel where Kara actually catches the bullet is down and to the side of the wide shot panel--we move our eyes the way her body/arm would have to move to intercept the bullet. Physicality in static, 2D images!

Also, like. It’s a very tense moment, life-or-death, but. Ruthye’s wide-eyed surprise at the bullet in Kara’s hand? Kind of adorable. 

I was pretty much prepared for the page of Kara shielding Ruthye from the gunfire to be the highlight--it was one of the first pages King shared and I was like, ‘yeah, YEAH.’ But, shockingly? The TRUE highlight of the issue?

Where do I BEGIN?!?!

EVERYTHING. About this moment. Is lovely.

From Kara holding Ruthye above the bench to explaining the concept of a piggyback ride, to telling her:

“I’m going to hold my hands here, and these hands can turn coal into diamonds, so they’re not going to let go. I’m going to keep you safe.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG.

Ruthye’s narration--about how Kara had avoided flying as she was concerned it would freak Ruthye out--just adds a whole additional layer of YES, GOOD, YES, and her line on that splash page is great: “You see, all that time, she was worried about me.”

HNNNNNNNNNNNG. AGAIN.

To say nothing of the STELLAR ARTWORK.

And SPEAKING of that stellar artwork, Evely and Lopes continue to knock it out of the park. Each issue is distinct and beautifully crafted, a true joy to look at.

Before I jump into more of the art, a few final notes of character stuff in general.

Ruthye is the one most affected by the experience in Maypole, as she can’t comprehend how a society of people that look so nice and gentle and peaceful could have been party to such a horrible act.

One of the big criticisms of the book thus far is that Supergirl is not the main character, and I guess I can agree with that observation. Typically, in Western media, the main character is the one who goes through the most change in the story. 

And, yeah. That’s Ruthye.

As I was reading the end, where Ruthye sits on the curb and Kara hugs her, I was imagining how the scene would’ve played, had King stuck with the original idea for the series: Kara as the one learning to be tough/experiencing all of this for the first time, and while I think that could certainly work...

I continue to appreciate that King literally flipped the script; that Kara, especially in this issue, is like, ‘I’ve seen this, I know this,’ as opposed to being the one going through a loss of innocence.

*Marge Simpson voice* I just think it’s neat!

Because Kara’s been a teen in DC comics for so long--ever since she was reintroduced to the main DCU continuity, actually--so this is all brand new territory, here. Having an older Kara who’s SEEN SOME STUFF.

(Alsoooooo, since Bendis made the destruction of Krypton not just inaction and climate disaster, but rather, genocide, and the subtext of a Kryptonian diaspora text, the waitress’ derogatory comment regarding the the destruction of Kryton, as well as Kara picking up the bad vibes the entire time, suggests not just a broad commentary on discrimination in all its forms, but specifically allegorical anti-Semitism. The purple aliens being forced out of their homes and into substandard living conditions, then the blue aliens--their neighbors and once-fellow residents--essentially allowing the space pirates to kill them, making them literal scapegoats, Kara discovering the remains of the purple aliens, and Ruthye’s horror at the ‘banality of evil’...yes. A case could be made, I think.) 

(Which would probably require a post unto itself and a lot more in-depth discussion, nuance, and cited sources.)

(Should mention that King has brought up that both he and Orlando--the other Supergirl writer he talked to--are Jewish, and for him personally, that shaped his views on Kara’s origin story.)

I guess my point is that this issue is perhaps not as out-of-left-field as some might think, and just because there isn’t as obvious an arc for Kara, doesn’t mean there isn’t some sharp character work at play. 

(I could be WAY OFF, of course, and I’m not suggesting it’s a clear 1:1 comparison. I’d actually really love to hear King talk about this issue in particular.)

Anyways.

Here’s the final page, which I think works, because as I mentioned before, there is no easy answer/quick wrap-up to the story of Maypole:

THE ART:

I mean. How many times can I just shout ‘ART! AAAARRRRRRRRRRRTTTT!’ before it gets old?

I dunno, but I guess we’re gonna FIND OUT.

There are some panels in this issue that I just. Like ‘em! From a purely artistic standpoint! Because they’re so good!

Like, I just really love the way Kara is drawn in that top panel. Her troubled, confused expression, the colors of the fading light, the HAIR. 

Evely draws the best hair. I know I’ve said this before. I don’t care. I will continue to say it, because it continues to be true.

The issue I find myself running up against when I make these posts is that I really don’t want to post whole pages, as that’s generally frowned upon (re: pirating etc.) but with something like this, you just can’t appreciate it in panel-by-panel snippets.

(Guided View on digital reading platforms is a BANE and a POX I say!)

Anyways.

LOVE the implied movement of the cape settling as Kara speeds in and stops. 

And, obviously, Kara flicking the bullet away is just. A+. 

And the EYES, man. LOPES’ COLORS ON THE EYES???!?! BEAUTIFUL.

Also, should note the lettering! The more rounded letters for the ‘WOOSH’ of Kara’s speed (and, earlier, the super breath) work nicely, and contrast with the angular, violent BLAMS of the gunshots. 

And, I gotta say, the editor is doing a really great job of not cluttering up the artwork with all the caption boxes. Which is no small task.

(I assume the editor is placing them, as editors usually handle word balloon/caption box placement, but I suppose it could be Evely? Sometimes the artist handles it. Either way, whoever’s taking care of all the text, EXCELLENT WORK! BRAVO!)

Okay I think that’s everything.

Ah, nope, wait.

MISC.

Just a funny observation, more than anything else: Superman: Red and Blue dropped this week, and King had a story in there, “The Special” (which was very good, btw.) Both Lois and the waitress swear a lot so I’m beginning to think that this is just how King writes dialogue for any adult character who isn’t Clark. XD

This is absolutely a personal preference but when Kara was like, “And my name IS Supergirl,” I was like nooooo. I know King is trying to simplify all of the conflicting origin stories and lore but I LIKE KARA DANVERS, SIR. XD

It’s almost assuredly a cash-grab/an attempt for DC to get all the money it can out of a book they don’t have much confidence in, but I like the cardstock covers! Very classy, much Strange Adventures.

(OH my gosh, can you imagine that issue 1 cover with spot gloss???? Basically the only way you could possibly improve on it.) 

Okay NOW I’m done. For real. XD NEXT TIME: Kara and Ruthye go after Krem and the Brigands!

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 2 - Marcus’ Inner Strength!

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Tohma H. Norstein ~ Thomas H. Norstein

Sayuri Daimon ~ Sarah Damon

Chika Daimon ~ Kristy Damon

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

Kudamon:  “Satsuma, what must be done with Raptor-1?”

~~~~~

Kudamon:  “Tell them what will happen to Raptor-1, Commander Sampson.”

Originally, Kudamon was asking, making it somewhat more sensible to think that Satsuma is not actually planning on sending Agumon back, despite the way he awkwardly implies as such by going on to demonstrate it with the Cockatrimon egg. In the dub, it sounds a lot more like Sampson and Kudamon have already firmly decided that Agumon is going to be sent back, which should not actually be the case.

(Granted, I found this whole aspect rather awkward in the original, but the dub is not helping.)

Satsuma:  “Digimon who cause problems in the human world…”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Any Digimon who break the real-world law…”

While I didn’t appreciate the original calling it a “crime” for a Digimon to be in the human world, at least this line got to the actual point – that a Digimon being in the human world is simply a problem that they need to clean up. The dub leans even more into this “crime” idea by claiming that there’s some sort of explicit law about this, even though Digimon from the Digital World should have no way of knowing about such a law.

Also, do you notice another key difference here? The original calls it the “human world”. The dub calls it the “real world”. The latter is a term that Savers never uses to refer to the human world, which I appreciate a lot. Calling the human world the “real” world implies that the Digital World is somehow less real and less important than the human world, and by extension so are Digimon. That is extremely the wrong attitude to have about it, especially for this series in particular, and I appreciate that the people in DATS, and the writers of Savers, understand this. To be fair, the dub almost always gets this right, too! But apparently someone was sleeping on the job this time.

Satsuma:  “We simply sent it back to the Digital World, where Digimon live.”

~~~~~

Sampson: “What you’ve just seen was the Digimon you defeated being sent back to the Digital World.”

The dub’s version of this line sounds a lot more unnecessarily expositiony, as if they think viewers couldn’t have picked up which Digimon this was from the flashback to the egg appearing after the fight.

Agumon: “Boss, please do something, I don’t wanna go back!”

What does he mean, go “back”? Agumon doesn’t remember ever being in the Digital World in the first place.

Sampson: “It’s a Digivice.”

Kudamon: “Marcus dropped it when he fled.”

The dub fills a silence to establish another obvious fact that definitely nobody could ever have picked up through implication.

Satsuma:  “I see. That man must’ve…”

~~~~~

Sampson: “That kid. Full of surprises.”

Since the actual word Satsuma used in Japanese was “person” and not “man”, apparently it completely went over the dubbers’ heads that Satsuma was meant to be referring to the old man who gave Masaru his Digivice, not Masaru himself. Way to miss the point there and lose out on the implication that he knows the guy.

Agumon: “Good idea, Boss. No-one will think there’s aaanything suspicious about a walking cardboard box!”

Pfft. The thing is, I don’t think Agumon’s being sarcastic. That’s kind of a trait that dub-Agumon has that’s a not quite there in the original – a tendency to unironically say dumb things that most people would only mean as snark. I kinda like it; it’s cute and amusing and fitting for his character.

Agumon:  “If this is junk food, then I’m happy to be a garbage dump!”

And here’s that other dub-added trait of Agumon’s that I don’t appreciate as much: somehow knowing about human concepts he really should not know about yet. Though calling this one a “trait” is debatable when it’s more like the dubbers not thinking things through.

Sayuri:  “Really, where were you last night? I thought you got in trouble with the police again! I was so worried!”

~~~~~

Sarah: “Well… you’re busted, that’s what’s going on. Fess up! While you were out getting into trouble, I was up all night worried sick! Now where were you?”

Sarah’s line here has a bit of a difference from Sayuri’s, which you can also hear in her voice – she was still worried, but she’s focusing this a lot more on being stern and angry at her son for misbehaving. I liked that Sayuri wasn’t really that angry at Masaru despite having plenty of reason to be, and I’m a little sad to lose that.

Sarah also doesn’t imply any prior trouble with the police, but the dub of episode 1 did add in a few little things that already implied that, so I don’t mind.

Marcus: “Hahaha! What trouble? I don’t even know the meaning of the word! You really oughta buy me a dictionary!”

I enjoy this line. It is appropriately dorky and ridiculous and obviously-trying-to-distract-from-the-truth.

[Agumon tumbles out of the closet he was hiding in]

Agumon: “Why d’ya keep shoving me into small places?”

Aww, of course Agumon wouldn’t like being kept in small places after his time being held at DATS! The original implied something like this with the animal cage, but it didn’t bring it up for the closet (and implicitly also the box), too.

Sayuri:  “Masaru, remember our promise?”

~~~~~

Sarah:  “I hope you’re not forgetting the promise we made.”

Sarah, again, sounds sterner than Sayuri here. It’s like she thinks Marcus would potentially just forget all about the promise because he never really cared about it that much. Like she had to nag him into even agreeing to keep it in the first place. That’s absolutely not the point of their promise to tell each other everything until his dad comes back, not in the original; it’s a way to help keep the family together in his absence that Masaru would have been 1000% on board with wanting to keep, in principle.

Kristy: “You don’t mistake a thing like seeing a giant lizard, *Mom*!”

Kristy has a lot more attitude here than Chika did.

The Japanese kushikatsu that Yoshino compliments Sayuri on gets called a corn dog in the dub, which is fair enough localisation; they do look similar.

Yoshino:  “So that’s why I’ll be freeloading off you here for a while.”

~~~~~

Yoshi:  “So I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, since I now have to keep an eye on you two guys.”

Sadly, Yoshi does not make a point of the free food she’ll be getting out of this.

Marcus:  “No way! You’re not taggin’ along with me, toots!”

Can we not? I thought this stopped after the first episode; I guess I was wrong. Sigh. It does still stop soon, I’m pretty sure.

Marcus: “Just great. He even eats in his sleep.”

This makes it seem a lot more like Marcus is only disgruntled because of Agumon’s loud sleep-eating, and not because Yoshi is sleeping in his bed and he gets the floor.

Agumon: “And what is school again?”

Marcus:  “…A place where there are tons of people to fight.”

It’s basically the same line as the original, but Marcus’s tone sounds a lot more bitter, less like he’s actually trying to make Agumon think this, and more like he’s just grumpily thinking “I wish it were but actually it sucks”.

Yoshi: “And safety rule number one says: Keep your Digimon stored!”

I doubt this is an actual written rule anywhere at DATS. And if it is, surely it should be a secrecy rule, not safety? It’s not like a well-behaved Digimon, like all partners of DATS members should be, is inherently unsafe just by being out and about.

Marcus’s squawks as he rushes out the door because he’s going to be late, again, sound a lot more bitter and grumpy, like he just hates going to school. There was none of this impression given with Masaru! Sure, I don’t think school is particularly Masaru’s favourite thing either, but it doesn’t come across like he’s upset about having to go there. Apparently the dubbers have just decided that, because Marcus is A Jock™, he’s obviously meant to be the kind of teenager who hates school, right.

Marcus:  “If you’re gonna follow me, you could at least give me a lift in your car!”

You know, he has a point here. Masaru didn’t think to ask that.

This car conversation is the first point at which Yoshino starts calling him Agumon, but meanwhile Yoshi is still calling him Raptor-1. I guess sharing a meal with him as if he’s actually a person or something didn’t do anything for her.

Yoshino:  “I won’t have to look after you guys either… but I guess that’ll never happen.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “And, the best part of all is that I wouldn’t have to babysit you guys any more.”

Despite having the same snarky look on her face for this line, Yoshi is not actually snarking at them here. I am disappoint.

Kristy: “When he came in to feed the chickens and rabbits this morning, they were all gone. Nobody knows where they went.”

So the dub is going for the insistence that the animals definitely just disappeared mysteriously. No Animals Were Harmed, guys. I guess the Kunemon just… kidnapped them?

Which… is fairly understandable. It does mean we lose out on that cute line where Masaru commented that it was terrible.

Agumon:  “I couldn’t get used to being inside that cramped Digivice!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Please, Boss! All these cramped places are making me claustrophobic.”

The dub makes more of a point of connecting together all of Agumon’s experiences in being put in cramped spaces, which is some extra nuance that I appreciate!

Yoshi: “You know, Agumon, there should be a rule about leaving your Digivice without permission.”

…I thought there literally was? Safety rule number one, wasn’t it? This should count as part of that. Yeah, I figured that dub “addition” wasn’t going to be an actual thing that mattered.

Lalamon: “Frankly I don’t know how you slept with all his snoring, but…”

Lalamon has some added sass here, wow.

Marcus & Agumon: “The ultimate team! It’s fightin’ time again!”

“The ultimate team” is a cute thing for these two to start calling themselves, but I find it a little bit of a stretch that they’re doing so this soon.

Marcus: “Kristy! Don’t! Worry! We’ll! Get! Whoever! Did! This!”

Marcus somehow manages to be even more embarrassingly dorky than Masaru was here. Maybe it’s the lip-flap’s fault that he’s yelling it so awkwardly like this?

Agumon: “What is it with you and these cramped spaces, Boss?”

This is as Agumon is locked inside the animal cage. I still appreciate how they’re connecting all these together.

…Though at this point, since Agumon has expressed his dislike for these so many times, it becomes more of a dick move deliberately ignoring Agumon’s wishes for Marcus to still be doing this anyway.

Agumon:  “I hate being cooped up. Locked up like a criminal.”

Connecting it even more to Agumon’s experiences at DATS! Without actually explicitly saying that this is why!

You know how I brought up in my commentary of the original episode that Agumon not liking this is probably to do with that? It’s actually only because the dub made more of a point of this that I picked up on it. Though I still believe that was probably meant to be the point in the original, it was perhaps a little bit too subtle about it. The dub being actually good at subtlety in ways that weren’t there in the original is very decidedly not going to be a common theme here, so let’s appreciate it while we have it.

Masaru:  “What are you doing out here so late? Did you come to check on the cages?” [The kid doesn’t respond.] “Hey, say something!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “You come to check on the cages or somethin’? Well, thanks, but you shouldn’t be here. Now go home.” [The kid doesn’t respond.] “Hey, did you hear me? Get outta here!”

Marcus is a little harsher to this kid than Masaru was; it’s there in his tone of voice, too. It does make sense to tell him to go home, because Digimon secrecy etc, but I do like how Masaru didn’t actually care about that and was just curious as to what was up with this kid. Masaru is good with kids. It comes across like Marcus is significantly less so.

Takashi:  “I wished they would just disappear! And then, this guy…”

~~~~~

Takashi:  “I wished they’d all just disappear, and then they did! Thanks to him…”

(Takashi’s name is not actually mentioned in the dub, so whatever, let’s assume he’s still called Takashi.)

Something about the way dub-Takashi expresses this reads a little differently to me. It feels slightly less like he’s conscious of the fact that the Kunemon came and got rid of the animals because of his wishes, and more like it was just a happy coincidence. The fact that he actually admits that the animals disappeared and says it’s “thanks” to the Kunemon also suggests more like he’s actually happy about that happening.

…Though, him admitting “and then they did [disappear]” might be part of the dub scrambling to reassure viewers that No Animals Were Harmed. And since that is apparently literally what happened and they really weren’t killed, I guess Takashi would be less traumatised and more just satisfied that he got his wish.

If he is less traumatised, there’s less explanation for why he passes out, but, eh.

Yoshi: “Stay back.”

Marcus:  “Do *what*?!”

I love the incredulity in Marcus’s response. What do you mean, don’t fight a thing?!

Masaru:  “Don’t be stupid! There’s no way I’ll turn my back on the enemy and run like a coward! No matter how difficult it gets, I’ll stand firm without taking a step back! That’s… how a man should live!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “No, I’ll never run away! An ultimate fighter never shows cowardice! No matter how difficult the fight might be, I stand my ground. That’s what a winner does! Fightin’ time agaaain!”

I’m going to be doing a lot of complaining about the dub messing up most of Masaru’s manly speeches that I adore. This one, though, is okay – it’s pretty simply don’t-give-up stuff that there isn’t much to mess up about.

However, what is very different, you might notice, is the lack of this being about what a man does. I pointed out a couple of bits in episode 1 where the dub basically kept the mentions of manliness or even added one in where it wasn’t there before, but I also mentioned that this is very rare for them. Because this here is usually what they do – remove the references to manliness altogether.

They probably mean well with this? They probably think Masaru’s manliness thing is some kind of toxic masculinity that they don’t want their kids’ show protagonist to be espousing. But here’s the thing: it isn’t toxic masculinity. If the dubbers assume that’s what it is just because they heard the word “man” being used a lot, without even bothering to, you know, listen to what Masaru is actually saying when he talks about this, I am very disappointed in them.

Masaru’s concept of manliness is one of the most interesting and distinctive things about his character, and I’m sad to see the dub water it down. Even while removing the references to manliness, some of the general principle of it can still be kept (though the dub will often be losing even that, as we’ll see), but without one central word that he always connects these ideas to, the whole thing seems a lot less pointed and cohesive, and it’s a lot harder to realise that it’s A Thing about him in the first place.

(And we also lose the delightful connection that it has to the thing with his dad, which I could already pick up on the implication of at this point on my very first watch. Without the specific mention of manliness here, I wouldn’t have figured out what makes Masaru tick nearly so soon, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed my first viewing of this series quite as much.)

Marcus: “Ready to fight, Agumon?”

Agumon: “Yeah!”

Marcus: “All right, then!”

Marcus’s tone of voice with the “all right, then!” sounds weirdly sinister and not at all like an excited dork ready to go win a fight alongside his new best friend. What on earth were the voice directors doing here.

(I’m tentatively not going to blame this on Marcus’s voice actor, because he’s generally really good at his job.)

Old man:  “This human world must be too small for you to swing around these fiery fists of yours. How about it? In the Digimon’s world, you’ll find plenty of formidable opponents to fight to your heart’s content.”

~~~~~

Old man:  “If you want to become the ultimate fighter who fights the ultimate battles, then you’re not going to find it in this world. But in the Digital World, there’s an unlimited number of opponents who will test your fighting skills, and make you the best fighter on *two* worlds!”

Um. He was not originally supposed to be literally talking about the Digital World here. This is supposed to be, at least on an in-universe level, just the old guy saying something that’ll help Masaru realise he wants to join DATS. The Digital World has nothing to do with that, because DATS isn’t supposed to involve him necessarily ever going there.

Marcus: “Then I’ll be… the ultimate…!”

Credit to the dub, they are actually remembering that change they made in episode 1 where Marcus just wants to be an ultimate fighter and doesn’t feel like he is one yet. This is still consistent… for now.

Masaru:  “Please! Let us join DATS!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Well… Guess what. We’re gonna do you a favour and join DATS.”

I liked how sincere Masaru was about really wanting to join, knowing that they have every reason to refuse him. But Marcus? Is just being an arrogant prick about it. Apparently he doesn’t know how to swallow his pride. And this is despite him having the same humble, pleading body language as in the original, which this attitude does not remotely match with.

Satsuma:  “Daimon Masaru, I figured you would come to us one day.”

~~~~~

Sampson:  “I knew it would happen. Frankly, I’m surprised that it took you this long to ask, Marcus.”

With Sampson’s phrasing about Marcus asking, this is specifically just about him expecting Marcus to want to join since he met Agumon. The implication the original had that he’d already been expecting to Masaru to end up here before Agumon even showed up is completely missing. Another implication that apparently went right over the dubbers’ heads.

Masaru:  “Now we can fight against as many strong guys as we want!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “And just think of all the bad guys we’re gonna get to beat up!”

Marcus specifies that their opponents will be bad guys, which is not the point in the original. Masaru isn’t particularly doing this to feel like a hero; he’s just doing this because he wants to challenge himself.

I imagine the dub made this change because they want to emphasise that, hey, our kids’ show protagonist who fights people a lot is definitely not a bad person, really, see, because it’s only bad guys he fights!!! But that isn’t necessary. Masaru’s fighting thing is already perfectly honourable, because he only fights people who want to fight him.

Tohma:  “It’s been a while since I’ve last seen it… Mom’s homeland, Japan.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “After so long… I’m coming home… at last.”

Tohma’s words implied that he didn’t quite think of Japan as his own home, but apparently Thomas is completely fine in seeing it that way.

We also lose the mention of his mom being from Japan, which is a little nugget of information that I think we otherwise wouldn’t have for quite a few more episodes. Though I suppose simply the fact that he thinks of Japan as home implies that part of his family must be local despite his more prominent Austrian heritage that we’re going to learn about soon enough.

Overall differences

This episode isn’t that significantly different overall; most of the differences are just the usual lost nuance or less sense-making or Marcus being less interesting, and also people generally being a bit sassier.

I genuinely like the added focus on Agumon not liking cramped spaces, implicitly because they remind him of his time imprisoned at DATS. An actually good addition, and decent subtlety!

Marcus is vaguely more of a jerk in some bits, and also I guess he hates school because he’s A Jock™ or whatever.

The mention of being a man is removed from his speech. I’m specifically noting it here because this is the first time we’re seeing it happen, but this is also going to be a regular thing that I’ll probably stop mentioning in these summaries before long.

I suppose technically the biggest change in what actually happens is that No Animals Were Harmed. Which is something I understand them doing, but it also does mean Takashi loses a bit of interesting nuance because he’s not accidentally a murderer.

[maddiebiscuits]

Personal Opinions on FFXIV Villains (in general order of appearance)

As a note, I will not be including any pre-A Realm Reborn villains (as I did not play the original Final Fantasy XIV) nor will I be including any one-off primals, raid bosses, etc. I will be trying to focus on villains as they appear in main or side storylines, in cut scenes, that have some over-arching influence on the story they participate in with something akin to a clear presence - Garleans, Ascians, and so on. Also SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS.

Rhitahtyn sas Arvina

Rhitahtyn gets the shaft out of Gaius’ three main players in A Realm Reborn. A conscript from a Empire-conquered land who rose to power and respect, directly honored by Gaius himself, and possessing an even temper and noble ambition really helped to level out Nero and Livia’s general nonsense. Unfortunately, Rhitahtyn is provided almost no screen-time, development or exploration, and as years have passed, his in-game 8-man trial can now be completed in a regular synced party in mere seconds. He deserved a lot better than what he got, yet remained too sidelined to really leave me feeling invested in wanting to see what sort of story this character could be used to tell.

Livia sas Junius

When first playing through A Realm Reborn my feelings on Livia were...tepid, but optimistic. Of Gaius’ three main players, Livia was easily the most active and ruthless, lacking the shady “long game” and self-serving ambitions of Nero or the more honorable, measured personality of Rhitahtyn. Suffice to say, the dawning (and then confirmed) realization that Livia’s sole motivation seeing the plan of the man she loved through to completion by any means, to the point of tunnel-visioned, murderous intent, was...disappointing. Add to that Livia was raised by Gaius in her backstory, the man being a father figure to her, and the romance motivation becomes even more unhinged (especially since it is largely considered to be a reciprocated romance, at least physically, by Gaius - barf)

Nero tol Scaeva

Nero has become a fan favourite character over the years, thanks to his continued development into Cid’s boyfriend foil rather than outright villain of the main storyline. This development was easy to spot early enough though, as it was clear Nero’s fealty to Gaius was largely self-serving. He didn’t care much about conquering Eorzea or felling primals/eikons - he just wanted to show that he possessed the brilliance to build weapons capable of doing so. His speech/squabble with Cid during the Praetorium sequence paints that picture even more clearly if the players missed the not-so-subtle implications for Nero’s character already. The man lived, breathed and seethed with inferiority when compared to Cid, and in the end he did ultimately prove his engineering mastery, even if the Warrior of Light took it (and him) down. Ultimately though, Nero serves as a much better supporting and “redeemed” character than a villain, so I do have to rank him pretty low.

Gaius van Baelsar

Aside from whatever...weird...thing was going on between him and Livia (again - barf), Gaius in A Realm Reborn was a pretty solid villain, with clear-cut motivations that I actually understood, and begrudgingly agreed with to a small extent. As legatus, Gaius was still the tyrannical arm of the Garlean Empire, but a level-headed one who was more interested with the purging of the primal/eikon threat from Eorzea than subjugating other peoples. Further development of this character into something of an anti-hero and glimpses of how other characters viewed him in flashbacks in later expansions ends up providing his A Realm Reborn rendition with more strength in retrospect. The heads of the three city-states deciding to accept Gaius off to willingly join the Empire is a pretty good sticking point for the validity of his plan as well. Ultima Weapon is...you know, pretty impossible for Ul’dah, Gridania and Limsa Lominsa to face down if they refuse, but more enticing is its ability to, indeed, single-handedly defeat primals/eikons - something the city-states desperately need at their disposal, having been plagued by such threats constantly, for years and years.

Gaius cuts a pretty direct swath to the truth of the Twelve as well - they’re no different than the primals/eikons he seeks to eradicate, and the more stock Eorzeans put into them, the more empowered they become should someone ever try to summon one, making Eorzeans no better than the beastmen and their ‘gods’. Join the Empire and have protection from such powers, and put faith into the leadership of man, versus that of fictional deities that can be given terrifying form...in the world of Final Fantasy XIV, that’s not a terrible proposition. But it would still subject thousands of people to the Empire’s tyranny, so even if Gaius has the oft-coveted ‘Point’ that most villains wish they had, he still must be stopped. Eorzea will simply find other ways to endure the primal/eikon threat rather than bend the knee, and I like that defiant angle the Warrior of Light represents to counter Gaius’ character. Also, Ascian meddling and Hydaelyn shenanigans, sure, but I don’t feel that takes away from the core conflict that Gaius presents. He was a good villain, and I’m happy to see him return and go through the motions of penance for his past deeds and aid the supporting cast now, elevating him even higher into a good character, in general.

Lahabrea

I admit I have a soft spot for Lahabrea, only because he seems to be a universal punching bag for heroes and villains alike in Final Fantasy XIV. He lacks the more subdued, long-term planning of Elidibus or the explored nuance and sympathy of Emet-Selch - he’s sort of the odd one out between the trifecta that make up the unsundered Ascians. Just a blindly-tempered zealot of Zodiark, seemingly more enthused by the ancient primal’s return than the promise of the world being set back to how it was before The Final Days. Even the other Ascians don’t seem to like Lahabrea that much - Elidibus seems keenly aware that Lahabrea has gone off the deep end, constantly needing reminders and wrangling-in to keep the plan in motion. But I will admit, he serves his purpose well enough, and the additional side-story that reveals that Lahabrea was a brilliant scholar unmatched in the Amaurotine field of ‘phantom creation’ was a nice touch to explain why he’s pretty dang good at getting people to try and summon primals and conjuring or corrupting monsters himself. By no effort of Square Enix themselves, I sort of feel bad for the guy. He really was just Doing His Best, and getting no respect for it. His end was also anti-climatic, but by the time it happened, there were far more interesting characters and stories to tell, and he was unnecessary - it was just better this way, Lahabrea.

Nabriales

This one-bit player served one substantial purpose, and it was to see an Ascian get obliterated permanently and thus provide the means and understanding to battle Ascians in the future. Except that the cost to do so was a throw-away villain, a throw-away damsel-in-distress 8-man trial, and turning Moenbrya, a character with a lot of potential to be great, into a throw-away character who has to make an untimely sacrifice because the script says so. Nabriales you’re boring, you’re bad, you’re a waste of time and your mutton chops are dumb as hell.

Ilberd Feare

You know what, I like this villain. I absolutely want to punch his face in, but I figure getting that sort of rise out of me on sight is intended, since, you know: villain. His motivations aren’t bad either, even if his methods are deplorable. The speech he gives at the very end of A Realm Reborn to rile up Raubahn is pretty effective too. Despite both being refugees of Ala Mhigo, Raubahn fought his way to wealth and status, and Ilberd was never afforded that chance, or at least never quite managed. Raubahn pledged himself more to Ul’dah and the Immortal Flames with his new privileges, however, and Ilberd was perhaps right to resent that, with Ala Mhigo still under the yoke of the Empire, and so many refugees left to flounder in The Black Shroud and Thanalan both, Raubahn seemingly unwilling to step in. Ilberd saw the opportunity to change the status quo and took it, and proceeded to rally others to reclaim Ala Mhigo. If the city-states would not help, then they would be forced to help, and for all his dirty tactics, punch-able face and Shinryu-summoning finale, Ilberd’s plan did work: he forced the hand of the city-states to fight against the Empire to reclaim Ala Mhigo, and did indeed remind Raubahn and other passive Ala Mhigans that there was still an important job to do. So, good job Ilberd. Gold star. Now perish.

Teledji Adeledji

I thought the politics at the very end of A Realm Reborn were intriguing, and Teledji’s heel-turn pretty fun, since of all the Monetarists, he seemed to be painted as the most reasonable. Though I found his game plan a bit...suspect. Yes, a poisoned goblet assassination attempt on the Sultana that he could frame on someone else, while usurping control of the Crystal Braves so he could make a bid for full Monetarist control of Ul’dah (with him at the helm) makes sense on paper, but I’m not sure why he sought to frame the Warrior of Light for it, and implicate the Scions either. While it’s true that the Warrior and the Scions would be an obstacle and want to investigate the death, and would prove tenacious foes, if you think about the scenario a bit more, it seems unnecessary. The Warrior and Scion efforts were likely going to start swinging towards Ishgard and the Dragonsong War, to better embellish the northern city-state’s relations with the Eorzean Alliance, nor are the Warrior or Scions people you’d want to make an enemy, especially with the Warrior being one of the only people who can defeat primals (a very active threat in Thanalan).

Framing Lolorito would have been a wiser idea, as he was already disliked and untrustworthy in the eyes of many, powerful and dangerous to compete with though he is. If Lolorito had been framed, Raubahn and the Scions may not have questioned it, and Teledji could have enjoyed planting himself in the eye of the power vacuum that was to come while the Warrior of Light focused their energy up north. Instead, Teledji bet on the wrong chocobo and paid dearly for it - his plan fell apart (and so did he) in more ways than he could anticipate, but on the whole? This was a pretty intriguing and entertaining storyline, I enjoyed it.

Lady Iceheart / Ysayle Dangoulain

I debated putting Ysayle on this list because by the first act of Heavensward, she’s not a villain - but, she certainly was in A Realm Reborn and going into Heavensward, so we might as well just keep representing how good Heavensward is and include her here. Aside from Minfillia, this is one of the only ever characters you meet early(ish) who shares The Echo with the Warrior of Light. Unlike Minfillia or the Warrior, though, Ysayle doesn’t really adhere to the call of Hydaelyn. Instead, her powers allowed her to hear and learn the truth of Ishgard’s history: that it was a lie, and that King Thordan broke the peace in a bid for power for Ishgard, turning Nidhogg to rage and setting the Dragonsong War into motion. Having witnessed Ishgard’s cruelty at a young age when her home was destroyed by snow and ice after the Seventh Umbral Calamity, and knowing what she knew and maintaining close bonds with dragons throughout her life, it’s sort of easy to see why Ysayle would be set upon the path she is. She wishes to end the war much like how Thordan does: ending it, with the dragons as the victors.

Her slap in the face is when she confronts Hraesvelgr though, her bid to sort of not only take the form of Saint Shiva but embody her memory being dismissed as a pale imitation. Saint Shiva wished for true peace, whereas Ysayle demands it through bloodshed - she realizes this, and changes her current course. This is why I debated to list her as a villain, because her gradual change into a supporting character and hero is a logical conclusion as she and Heavensward’s story develops. She starts a villain and dies a hero.

Igeyorhm

Full disclosure: I completely forgot this character existed. And I still don’t actually know why they exist. They’re a second to Lahabrea during the events of Heavensward, and is easily shut down by the Warrior of Light before being annihilated permanently by Thordan. Despite this, I don’t find their existence as offensive as Nabriales’, so...that counts for something.

Archbishop Thordan VII

When I first encountered Thordan (”pope grandpa”, if you will), I thought “oh, he’s evil”, because “church bad” isn’t exactly and uncommon trope and it’s apparent that Ishgard is a broken and unjust society, with this man sitting at the highest seat of power and consorting with Ascians. Yet to my surprise Thordan was...pretty reasonable. At least to start. He makes his audience with the Ascians known and seems unaffected by them and their schemes, is polite and cordial to the Warrior of Light...he doesn’t seem so bad. But the gut feeling remains, and slowly builds as Thordan’s true plan is revealed, becoming a primal-esque deity. And much like Nidhogg, I do get his motivations. Trying to broker peace with the dragons, to him, is just not going to happen - in fact, it’s insulting to ask dragons and Ishgardians both to make a bid for it, when so many people have died and live with the burden of hatred and grief. His solution is more direct: end the war entirely, by winning it for Ishgard.

After assuming his new form and powers, him and his Heavensward have the power to thwart any dragons that oppose them, perhaps even Nidhogg himself if the dreadwrym were to re-appear. Fueled by the generations’-worth of prayers from the Ishgardian population, Thordan was set on ending the war and ousting the dragons from the land, ushering in peace and prosperity. But the Ishgard he sought to protect and defend was built on a history spun of bloodshed and lies, and the dragons were not the true enemy and did not deserve to be put to the sword. Thordan’s plan would have worked in the way he envisioned it, and he made a good argument for it, even if it was ultimately wrong, and that’s a good villain.

Nidhogg

Having come to Final Fantasy XIV from World of Warcraft, a giant, scary black dragon that rants on and on about suffering and misery and pain and vengeance was something of a red flag for a Very Bad Story. Imagine my surprise when Nidhogg was given the screen-time to be properly fleshed out and explored, his motivations and hatred more sympathetically-human than his giant dragon body would have one believe, his presence menacing and well-paced, and his overall being representing the true, dark heart of the Dragonsong War: the cycle of hatred. For dragons, centuries are like days, and the pain Nidhogg feels is no less than what he felt when the Ishgardians brutally broke their pact. Because of this, with each re-emergence of him and his brood, the wheel of suffering turns anew, breathing new hate-filled life into the ongoing Dragonsong War, generation to generation. Time has no effect on his turmoil, and his existence ensures that no other Ishgardians will ever be able to move on from the war either, even as generations continue on.

I find Estinien being consumed by Nidhogg’s rage very thematic as well, Estinien truly embodying the countering hatred the Ishgardians feel towards the dragons, and it makes the final trial with Nidhogg bittersweet. He defeats Hraesvelgr, because as long as Nidhogg exists even the brightest hope for peace will be squashed under the cycle of malice and war. The Warrior of Light must put him down because he cannot be saved - but Estinien still can, and can choose to move on and pursue the peace that Nihogg strived to prevent and Ysayle died to see come to fruition. And he does, and it’s touching, and Heavensward is SO FUCKING GOOD I LOVE THIS EXPANSION.

Quickthinx Allthoughts

I don’t care much for timey-wimey storylines, but I found the Alexander plot easy enough to follow, and the timeloop it creates to be manageable. The truth about the Enigma Codex and the journal Quickthinx has isn’t exactly hard to figure out though once time travel becomes a part of the plot, and beyond beind a fun goblin with a cute kitty cat friend...there’s just not much in the way of compelling character writing here for this gobbo.

Diabolos

Big ancient demon is revived and wants to wreak havoc. Uninspiring, but its also not necessary for Diabolos to be anything more than what he is either. The heart of the Void Ark storyline is the tribulations of Cait Sith, the sky pirates and the history of the Mhachi, Diabolos just being an excuse to explore those characters and lore.

Regula van Hydrus

Regula deserved better damnit. This is the last Garlean villain with nuance and humanity before Stormblood turns everyone who is so much as associated with the Garlean Empire into a cartoonishly-evil, absolutely twisted, reprehensible confusing mess of a person.

Fordola rem Lupis

Stormblood has a lot of story, pacing and character problems. A lot. It has its moments and some people love this expansion, but I do not and its villains are a very large reason why that is. Fordola, for example, had the potential to be quite interesting. She was raised to believe in what her father did: that Gaius and the Empire were not all bad, and then watched her father die trying to protect her from angry, almost barbaric Ala Mhigans who decided that pelting a little girl with rocks because her parents were Empire-sympathizers and supporters was an okay thing to do (as the Garlean soldiers just watched on and let it happen without intervening because they didn’t feel like it - a fact that Fordola knows and remembers). You would think this event would have a sort of polarizing effect on her, feeling betrayed by both her people and the Empire her father believed in, feeling caught in the middle, in need of finding her identity and sense of self. Instead she...basically throws her entire stock in with the Empire, deciding that if she’s a good little soldier for the Empire, then Garleans will have to change their minds about Ala Mhigans and respect them because, see, look: an Ala Mhigan is a respected Garlean asset.

Except this backfires over, and over, her Ala Mhigan team nothing more than vicious dogs that never bite the hand that feeds them, turning their teeth on their own people instead. Fordola is constantly belittled and ridiculed for her heritage and even her gender by the Garleans, and at no point does she ever stop and go “wow maybe the Empire sucks hot ass and I’ve been terribly wrong about my motives this whole time”. And yet, no...Zenos offers her power in some magitek-aether experiment, she kills her own Skulls team, she finished the expansion jailed for her crimes, believing until the very end that the Garleans will win (they did not). She utilizes her anti-primal abilities once, and vanishes from the plot entirely, only to re-appear in a bad side-story where the Immortal Flames have her hooked up to some penalty-of-death submission collar so she doesn’t act out so they can use her synthetic Echo abilities to fight a re-summoned Ifrit.

Bad character, bad writing, and a waste of her new, game-changing anti-primal abilities.

Grynewaht pyr Arvina

This is such...a stupid character. His design, his voice and dialogue...I can’t tell what Grynewaht is supposed to be. Is he comedic relief? Because he’s not funny. Is he a character that you’re supposed to pity or despise? Because I felt nothing towards him. Is he supposed to be a rival? Because...no. I had to look up what his name was. The only thing I can clearly remember about him is that he was the final boss of the Doma Castle 4-man dungeon. That’s it. If you removed him from the plot entirely, nothing of value would be lost.

Yotsuyu goe Brutus

Between the two female villains of Stormblood, Yotsuyu is the more popular. It’s easy to see why: she has a cool design and a lot more screen-time and development, with a big 8-man trial to finish things off. But like Fordola, something is just off about her writing.

I don’t understand her motives or how she even came to feel the way she does about Doma, specificially. And anything bad that could happen to her, has happened to her. She suffered an abusive childhood under her adoptive parents, was sold off to an abusive husband, then sold off again to a brothel after her husband died to repay his debts. She later became a spy for the Garleans, rose in rank and was appointed acting viceroy of Doma, to keep the masses terrified and under her heel. At first, it seems pretty reasonable for her to turn against Doma, and lash out as she does on its people - her Doman upbringing left her used, abused and powerless, and with the Garleans she found power and strength. But this reading falls apart when you quickly realize that Doma was already occupied by the Garleans during the course of her upbringing, her family obedient to the Empire and her suffering just as much the fault of the Garleans. There’s an argument to also be made that not enough time was really spent portraying Doma as the disgusting place Yotsuyu sees it, as from the onset of Stormblood’s story journey into the Far East, Domans are only ever portrayed as a terrified, broken people, scared of the Garleans and Yotsuyu. I also don’t personally care for “character was abused, so now they’re sadistic and crazy” clichés either.

What does work well for Yotsuyu is the theme of power and control. Yotsuyu is a woman who lived a life not her own, weak and frail, until she obtained power. Now that she has it, her drive is to do anything to maintain it and survive - yet for some reason the story is written in such a way as to downplay this much stronger theme of her character, and play up this slightly confusing, all-consuming hatred for Doma instead. Her transformation into Tsukiyomi is also a bit odd (though decently thematic, with her ‘cold, uncaring and distant as the moon’ comparison), with not enough time paid to explore her understanding of Doman deities and why the mirror would trigger this change (and why would she even keep Doman deities in her mind, with her supposed hatred of Doma?)

I also take some issue with her “Tsuyu” arc, where she reverts back to the last time she was ever truly good or innocent, and has the personality of a child while still being an adult woman (and suffering amnesia). I find these infantilizing tropes pretty offensive, especially when Yotsuyu’s arc here is largely just to reinforce and reiterate what cartoonishly terrible people her family were, and provide Gosetsu with some development instead. Aside from killing Asahi and having a cathartic death herself, everything about Yotsuyu just baffles me. Every time I think I like something about her, athe bad writing twists it around.

Zenos yae Galvus

I don’t like Zenos, he’s a bad character, and I hate that Square Enix decided this limp-haired sullen-faced clown was going to be their poster-boy villain for Final Fantasy XIV.

What is the appeal of this character? Yeah, some people find him attractive. I don’t, but I also didn’t find Sephiroth attractive so, okay, whatever - like what you like I guess. But what else does Zenos have going on besides people seeming to think he’s their buff bishonen thicc daddy or whatever the kids are saying these days? His entire character can be summed up in one sentence:

“While the Warrior of Light was practicing empathy, Zenos studied The Blade.”

He’s a Garlean lordling with a bland and cold upbringing who likes katanas and blood sport. That’s it. He’s a sociopath, finding no joy or meaning in life for whatever reason: he just wants to collect Cool Swords and push his bizarre love-hate fight narrative on the Warrior of Light. Because they are opposites, you see: the Warrior of Light is a cardboard cut out of a Good Guy and Zenos is a cardboard cut out of a Bad Guy. He’s not even entertaining about it. He doesn’t want to watch the world burn, he just wants to fight the Warrior because the battle will make him Feel Something. Meanwhile, all I feel whenever I see him in-game, either in a cut-scene or when I’m locked in an unskippable “survive the drawn-out battle!” sequence with him, is a groan coming on. And sometimes villains who are evil just for the sake of it can be fun! But Zenos is not fun - he’s dull, he doesn’t get me hyped up for a fight...I feel nothing.

When he died after using his uber-synthetic Echo to possess Shinryu by taking his own life I thought, “well, at least that’s over” and I felt relieved. And then he came back, bigger and worse than ever! Yippee! I love confusing, unrelatable, boring villains who are recurring. Whatever Square Enix wants to do with Zenos, they need to hurry up and get it done. I care so little about him and just want to explore other stories and characters. I’m assuming he’s going to like, possess Zodiark or something, and then the Warrior will possess Hydaelyn, and there will be some big anime light fight showdown where Zodiark and Hydaelyn both shatter for good and Zenos dies and the Warrior lives another day and uuuugggghhh. How the hell did an expansion like Stormblood follow up Heavensward? Who let this happen?

Asahi sas Brutus

Bowl-cut twink hates his sister because he’s a Zenos fanboy and is angry Yotsuyu got all of Zenos’ attention instead of him. Filled with spite and piss, cartoonishly evil just like everyone associated with Yotsuyu or the Empire in Stormblood. Rest in pieces you little shit.

Varis zos Galvus

I’m lukewarm on Varis. He’s a better villain than Zenos, but that’s like saying a flat three-day-old glass of soda is better than sewage water. The bar is set very, very low. He’s ruthless, but not entirely unfair in his thought processes. Hell, he doesn’t even seem to like his own son (and really, if Zenos was my kid, I wouldn’t like him either). But Varis is a bit too...static, in my opinion. He doesn’t feel like a major player, and his batshit “let’s all just burn so the world resets and we can stick it to the Ascians” is pretty asinine and plays so transparently into the Ascian’s hands. I was originally bummed that Zenos killed him pretty unspectacularly, but...like with Lahabrea, it was probably better this way. 

Omega

I don’t have much to say about this villain, really. The heart of the Omegascape storyline hinges on Cid, Nero, Alpha and the abstract concept of free will and accepting imperfection. It’s almost hard to say if Omega really is a villain, simply acting out a series of programs and statistics in a cold, robotic way, not really with malicious intent, so I think where Omega sort of shines is just as a being to build this sort of story off of, and provide a lot of fun boss fights as well. 

Ran’jit

I had no strong opinions on Ran’jit for a long time, so I guess he improved for me as I now have An Opinion of him. He’s fine. He’s an okay villain. His Zenos-esque “survive the timer” encounters are annoying, but I find his persistence and presence more inspiring than any time crummy ol’ Zenos showed up. The biggest issue with Ran’jit is the lack of time devoted to developing him. This is a man who lost his home in the Flood of Light (which was the First’s equivalent to the Source’s Far East), and has essentially trained and raised numerous Minfillia reincarnations to battle Sin Eaters, just to watch these poor girls he saw as his own daughters die and die and die again. That cycle of loss would break down anyone, and make Vauthry’s postulations of paradise in Eulmore until the end finally comes appealing. Ran’jit pursues the Scions and Minfillia/Ryne not because he’s resolute in following orders, but because he just wants to bring this one psuedo-daughter back and keep her safe - something he could never do for the others who came and went in his tenure.

Naturally, this protectiveness leads to giving in to Vauthry’s nihilistic promises and stifles Minfillia/Ryne as a person. Thancred eventually learns to let the Minfillia he knew go so that Ryne could floruish into her own person - she was not ‘his’ Minfillia and it was terrible of him to ever impose that upon her. But where Thancred can move on and let Ryne develop into the wonderful person she is, Ran’jit cannot. And I’m disappointed this aspect of his character couldn’t be more at the forefront of his narrative.

Vauthry

If you ask me, this is more in line with how I figured Zenos might be. Vauthry lived a life or privilege and power, a child born of divine providence with no true regard for life, just his own desires. He’s spoiled and unreasonable, but his nihilism isn’t really nonsensical in the world of the First. All but a fraction of the world is destroyed, and Sin Eaters are a constant, devastating threat, so why not just relax in luxury, in the safety of Vauthry’s control over the monsters, and live in peace until the world truly ends? The battle against the Sin Eaters is exhausting and has no hope of victory anyway (until the Warrior of Light/Darkness arrives, that is). Even without the meol subplot, it makes sense why so many would flock to Eulmore once Vauthry takes over. Goofy as he can be, I do think Vauthry’s embodiment of just giving in to nihilism, hedonism and annihilation stands as a good thematic contrast to Shadowbringers strong themes of stubbornly striving for hope in even the darkest, bleakest hour. His trial is also fun and a slight swerve. All the Light Wardens up to that point had been monstrous, and Sin Eater transformations the thing of nightmares (Tesleen), so to see Vauthry take on the form of Innocence (ironically appropriate, as he truly believes he is blameless in all he has done) and become a golden-haired, angelic being of beauty - how he likely has always seen himself - is very entertaining, and defeating him feels great.

Emet-Selch / Solus zos Galvus / Hades

Ah yes. The Big One. Most people like Emet-Selch and his involvement in Shadowbringers. He’s sardonic, he’s entertaining, he’s honest, he’s explored, and he’s even sympathetic. The revelation of how Zodiark (and Hydaelyn) came to be, Amaurot and The Final Days is truly tragic. Emet and the rest of the Convocation were trying to save their world, and the cost was staggering - the lives of so many of their own, their minds, and eventually even their own world in the Amaurotine schism that followed. Being able to see a shadow of what Amaurot and its people were like really helps drive home the sorrow of it all, and Emet himself admits that he did try to learn to appreciate what the fragmented world had become. He’s also one of the most “successful” villains in Final Fantasy XIV - his intertwined association with death and masterful ability to raise up and lead empires like the ancient Allagans and modern Garleans to their self-destructing, Calamity-inducing downfalls (of which he was almost successful did with Varis and the Black Rose in the latter’s case) is pretty impressive as far as villainous plans and activity is concerned. Being forced to work alongside him in Shadowbringers because your goals are aligned while attempting to guard yourself from his inevitable schemes - which he’s pretty blunt about admitting he has - is an interesting way to develop him as a villain too. He spends most of Shadowbringers actually helping you rather than outright antagonizing you.

His conundrum is sympathetic as well, if not entirely relatable. If you had the ability to bring back your world, your friends and loved ones, at the cost of countless lives that are trivial in the grand scheme of the cosmos and start again, anew, in a better world that could repair and rebuild, would you do it? Tempered by Zodiark or not, Emet would, and while I don’t agree with him, I don’t entirely blame him either, for feeling how he does. Similar to Ran’jit and Vauthry too, Emet is nihilistic: he clings to something long-gone and will burn the current world down to get it back. To him, the Rejoining and Zodiark’s return is inevitable, and people like the Warrior of Light/Darkness are futile, frustating obstacles that cannot understand not only his plans, but just how he feels. They don’t remember what they lost. Emet does.

And yet in his final moments, Emet seems at peace. He seems to realize, as he is fading into oblivion, that the Warrior of Light/Darkness isn’t just the reincarnation of Azem, but what Azem believed in that made Azem part from the Convocation. Fractured life is still life, and Azem believed that the world and its beings was worth learning about, loving and protecting, capable of great things even when faced with insurmountable odds. The last act of good will Emet can do after requesting that the Warrior not forget about Amaurot, is to free the Warrior from Elidibus’ binds so that the last unsundered Ascian can be put to rest at last. It’s a very emotional throughline for Emet’s character, rather than a more logical one, but it works very, very well and really helps push Shadowbringers into that amazing high its story can get to.

Elidibus

I never liked Elidibus all that much for the longest time. It’s not that his character was “bad’, per se - he’s polite, diplomatic, and enigmatic, providing a much more leveled, intriguing villain to counter-act Lahabrea’s more active plays and cackling. But Elidibus’ long game always left me sort of wanting: I was never really sure what he was trying to accomplish expansion to expansion and how it related to the Rejoining that would bring about Zodiark. His plans also seemed to just regularly...fall through. Sending the Warriors of Darkness to antagonize the Warrior of Light in the Source ended up bringing about the halt of the Flood of Light on the First entirely. Picking up Zenos’ body and squashing Garlemald uprisings while nudging Varis to make and use the Black Rose was promptly halted by the true Zenos making an unspectacular return. I don’t know, I just feel like any plan Elidibus sets into motion gets stopped before it really gets started.

My opinion of him did change, however, during the course of the Shadowbringers expansion. Being the heart of Zodiark, manifesting as the First’s...uhh, first, Warrior of Light, summoning them from across the other shards to wreak havoc and empower himself, only to finally be put out of his misery not just be the true Warrior of Light/Darkness, but Emet-Selch’s last act of will and revealing that he had been an over-working, sad youth who just wanted to save the world he knew was...well, sad. And his first (and last) real gameplay with the various hero summonings was a pretty amazing set piece too, though it also tells me how devastating Elidibus could have been earlier on if he’d taken a more pro-active approach, access to the Crystal Tower notwithstanding.

Valens van Varro

Much like how I wanted to punch Ilberd, because Ilberd is a deplorable person but an effective villain with decent motivations, Valens is just...I just want to punch him, in general. He’s just Disgusting On Purpose. And since we still haven’t shaken Stormblood’s insistence that Garleans are Evil So Evil Oh My God Evil You Guys they’re trotted out a demented borderline sex-offender who forces his child wards to brand subjects who are out of line with red-hot irons. Valens is...entertaining, I guess, in that regard. And Valens does serve as an appropriate counter-part to Gaius in this storyline, the themes of which seem to largely deal with fatherhood and penance for past misdeeds. I just...really miss Garlean villains with nuance.

Fandaniel

Oh god damnit Asahi is back. Square Enix stop doing this, stop bringing back bad characters. Though it is unfair to say Fandaniel is anything like Asahi. Oh sure, he’s using Asahi’s body (and therefore the Brutus’ family inheritance to fund his machinations), he fawns over Zenos, and he’s cartoonishly evil, but at least this go around there’s a certain...goofy charm to it. Fandaniel is a sundered Ascian - he doesn’t care about the Rejoining or Zodiark, he’s aware that he’s a broken being and he is, quite frankly, loving it. He lays his intent out pretty plainly to the Warrior of Light/Darkness: he’s evil, he loves destruction, and he’s doing it because that’s just what he feels like doing. Don’t reason with him, don’t try to understand him, just fight back and cry about it. On some basic level I appreciate that brutal honesty, so much so that I’m comfortable writing my thoughts about him now because I don’t think they’re going to change. What you see is what you get with Fandaniel, and he’s just having such a good time. He’s a terribly-written villain but gosh darnit I just can’t bring myself to hate him.

[famouskittychild]

Cheeky Mandos - ...and we're off

(Sorry I had a terrible writer’s block in the past 6-ish weeks - I went from reading fanfiction and being inspired by other’s visions to “I’ll never be able to write anything like these and I’m useless” in a single day :( I’m getting back into the groove finally, so I’m hoping to post more soon.)

There will be 18+ content (in the coming chapters soon) so if you are a minor, please don't read further.

Also the characters will be quite open and relaxed about things like gender, attraction, sexual activities, relationships etc, so if you prefer your Din (and their partner) possessive and/or monogamous , this won’t be a good read for you!

***

This pairing is  Din Djarin x gn reader / tall reader.  I’m short (and cis and woman). There’s so many short (and female) reader stuff out there, I wanted to write for people on the other end of the “why is your height not normal” / "definitely female" spectrum. If I make mistakes or you have advice, or ideas you'd like to see, please tell me!

Word count: 4267

Summary: You’re an armourer and some shiny guy just showed up.

First full piece/chapter/course! In which people seem to catch things. Thoughts? Viruses? Dropped facts? Who knows!?? Also contains a dilettante’s attempt at space electronics and some barely-canon-reminiscent Mando world-building. Still no spiciness sorry, marinating is a long process :P

Rating: T for some mentions of heavier topics.

CW: Mentions of mandalorian history, playing somewhat loose with canon lore (as in, my SW knowledge is patchy. sorry.)

Author’s note: I tried to find more info but it seems like the mandalorian alphabet doesn’t have names for the individual letters so I used aurebesh (also I liked the little Dorn(e) meta in there). And sorry for the bad puns. They’ll keep coming.

Prologue

One - ...and we're off

***

You aren’t worried about taking a stranger on board, you’ve done that plenty of times before. You hope he’s willing to put in the effort himself, too, just as he promised at the assembly.

The stranger leaves behind his ship, saying a friend will come to pick it up together with whoever might want to join the cause. You spot him from the cockpit as he walks over with a repulsor pallet in tow. He stops for a moment when your droids surge past him, busy at their pre-flight tasks, before moving on towards the ramp.

All his baggage is a satchel at his hip and a small bag on his shoulder, and two large crates of weaponry. You put him up in the spare cabin, the one that had been Sal’ee’s, your former apprentice, before she went on to be a journeyman. He stands in the middle of the room, staring at the two cots on opposite sides of the room, the lockers, the fresher in the corner.

“All mine? Where will you sleep?”

You don’t understand the surprise in his voice.

“Over there” you show him, pointing at the cabin opposite from his. It’s much more lived in, some of the blankets and trinkets and pillows visible through it’s open door. “There’s a third cabin that I mostly use for storage but has more fold-up bunks in case I need to transport more people. That’s rare though.”

“Ohh.” He nods, then turns to look around his room again. “Okay. I thought all of these rooms were cargo space.”

You smile, and quickly think through your to-do list. You’ll have to rearrange your schedule somewhat but it’s not that big of a bother.

“Come on, I’ll show you around the ship.” Before he gets lost in its cavernous interiors, you might add - but you don’t. If his reaction to a separate cabin and his current ship - an old ARC170 - is any indication, he must be used to very cramped quarters.

***

Your trusty Brick, a beat-up YV 929, is armed to the teeth and ugly, just as you like it. The ship is a scavenged one, gutted from most of its original factory issue armaments, engines, and even wiring. It was perfect for your former master when she found it at a scrap heap: she wanted to rebuild it herself, deliberately piecemeal; panels sourced form here, engines from there, concealments added. She modified the inner workings of the engines so that the power lines could be redirected to a concealed forge.

That forge is your pride and the main reason you haven’t settled at a permanent place yourself. When your master retired from travelling, the ship passed to you, and you continued her mission of offering your knowledge and expertise to those of your people who otherwise had no access to an armourer.

…

The next standard month is spent with adjusting, both for yourself after getting used travelling alone again since Sal’ee left, and for the stranger who found himself a passenger on someone else’s ship. Apparently he used to live a very similar life to yours, with the exception that he was a hunter not a craftsman.

You travel together, share meals, research the places you are directed to. He joins in the effort that is maintaining the ship. Still - he is very taciturn at the beginning, keeping his words to the bare minimum. The first few days it feels as if you are still on your own aside of your droids. By the middle of the month, he progresses from short answers, through sharing information, to willingly starting to tell stories; but you know that chatting will never be his defining feature.

His armour seems to fill the spaces of the Brick’s corridors. You feel as if it’s not him who has the presence, but that set of glinting, perfectly made handwork of an armourer you already admire. Some of the pieces were sourced elsewhere, you can tell by the different shapes and designs; they seem haphazard and mismatched compared to the rest. Most of the set is the work of a single person. On those, there’s not a single uneven line, a broken curve, an edge at the wrong place. The angle of the panes of the metal, the ridges, the simplicity and elegance of them all - you have to hold yourself back from touching them, to admire them. You would give a lot to hold those pieces in your hand, to study them, to analyse them with your eyes and hands and with your tools.

You’re a master, yes. But so much knowledge was lost. So many masters gone, with their knowledge and their workshops. Apprentices became heads of Forges in the absence of the more skilled. The survivors still to this day have to piece together half-remembered lessons and forgotten details, experiment with techniques that were known before but the methods got lost as decades of civil war and occupation and murder kept eroding your heritage.

Sometimes a set of armour comes along that is just made in a way you never had an opportunity to learn. Often the person who forged them is long gone. Not the stranger’s armourer though. As far you can tell, she’s alive. Or at least was, when he last saw her. Not too long ago; though your usual method for guessing forging dates is mostly useless as it is based on the condition of the suit’s paintwork. Which he doesn’t have, so you can only guess from the small amount of scratches. You try to ask once, but whilst he’s forthcoming with general stories, he doesn’t go into details.

It’s a common theme with him. He talks about people and planets and events, and leaves out a lot - and you don’t even notice it first. Only when you try to glean information about his armour do you realize how well he fuzzes over those facts and nuances. It’s only up to the peculiarities of Basic and its use of gendered pronouns that you know his Armourer is a woman, or at least he considers them so. He doesn’t even tells you his own name, and when you ask your Elder in one of your communications, she tells you he didn’t gave it to them either. You keep introducing him as a friend, and that is the end of it for a while.

***

The visits to this first few coverts with him are… interesting. You can see him fidgeting from the corner of your eye. He always follows half a step behind and off to a side, as if not wanting to be in your way. He keeps quiet and doesn’t mix much, and around small children and droids, he is positively withdrawn. He only comes alive when he talks about his mission.

You had learned early on during your apprenticeship that keeping the helmet on is a safe bet when meeting with unfamiliar mandalorians. That led to later getting in contact with his type of believers too, despite their notorious secrecy even from the rest of the People. When you tell the stranger about that, he immediately showers you with questions, but you can’t give an answer to most of them. You never met with anyone from his particular covert, or heard of it. No name, no description seems familiar. It’s painful to watch his shoulders slump after daring to hope.

During the course of the month spent travelling, he gradually comes to be more social. He starts to stand and walk beside you. He doesn’t withdraw to the background anymore; he can actually be quite chatty if approached the right way. Droids still make him stop, though he warms up to kids in his own way. He’s good with them, at least in your opinion, though you know some would still call him aloof and distant. He isn’t a cuddler, nor does he crouch down to ask cutesy questions. He juts sits nearby them, and in that way of children having a good sense about adults, they know he’s trustworthy. They go up to him to chatter, to hand him a toy to hold, to ask him to fix a latch on their boots; than they go back to play.

He teaches you too, inadvertently at first during everyday conversations and later by his own volition, about his Way. About his Creed. It keeps throwing you off how much it differs from most that you had met before. Not even meeting briefly with people who followed the same Way as him could prepare you for the details that he does share. The degree of strictness, the loyalty, the barest bones Old Tradition beliefs and their willingness to follow them is very rare amongst the People as far as you can tell. Their devotion earns your respect.

At other times, your jaw hangs open and you can’t believe you are talking to an adult roughly around the same age as yourself, who by his own admission had spent three decades living as a follower of the Creed - not knowing about things children are thought through plays and songtime. His ignorance is so staggering, your admiration towards his unknown Armourer wavers. How could she keep so many things hidden from them? Why not talk about your own history? Your greats? Your artefacts?

About the many other who would call them vod’e, siblings?

You are an armourer, a craftsman, a person who makes a living by making things with your hand. You’re not a leader, or a scholar, or someone who decides what to tell your people. You do have a status within the community, but that is a status of service. From what the stranger says, their Armourer was a leader in every aspect: elder and lorekeeper and moral guide and more. All in one. It is something you can see developing from the old songs and histories amongst groups who take tradition more literally.

You are good at observing people, even at copying their habits to make them feel more comfortable with you, but less good at determining their underlying motives. The reason you think of him as “the stranger” even after travelling with him is because it’s so hard to figure out what drives him. There’s a melancholy to him that overrides the more typical mandalorian fight-readiness or aggression. You see how he gazes off to the distance sometimes, turning his head to the side and freezing. How he keeps to himself when he can. But you can’t tell why. Grief? Regrets? Determination to change? Planning something greater and being preoccupied with that?

He doesn’t pick fights to test you. He spars with you when you invite him to, he helps when you ask, and often even without it. He’s polite and considerate; he keeps conversation to practicalities and interesting stories, and doesn’t bother you with anecdotes or insistent questions about trivialities or your private life. He even does the dishes.

He’s deadly boring in his reliableness.

You are used to being on your toes around people all the time. When you meet a new group, it’s all unknown people. With ones you had already visited, the problem is having to remember them. They remember you of course, the ‘wandering armourer’; and surely you remember them too.

What is worse, when people stay the same but you don’t remember them, or when they change and you just can’t place them?

He becomes a good excuse after you’ve been to several coverts together. It’s interesting to notice how your dynamics change even further once you two get into a comfortable routine. You start to retreat to your forge and tools, and let him take all the attention. And he doesn’t just talk about his mission anymore, or lets little ones play around him whilst he’s quiet. He converses with people about news, about their children, about weaponry. You have more time to focus on your work.

Sometimes, people ask you what do you think of his mission. You tell them that you will follow what your clan decides, and that’s mostly true. It is something people don’t often debate, at least.

He quickly becomes a part of your everyday life. You are content with your usually solitary travels. You know that your family, your clan and your friends wait for you at home. They message you and you can find the time that suits you to message back. You don’t miss the constant hubbub of the covert most of the time. But now that you have someone that is not a droid, someone who is your equal in every aspect, on board again, it’s not even lonely anymore.

***

“So what’s up with you and droids?” you ask one day, after you got back from a covert and are safely in hyperspace to the next destination. You tinker with your astromech’s navigational systems. Poor 2-T keeps bumping into walls and crates. Again.

The stranger looks at you and your droid, than over at Mouse who for a change isn’t zooming around at foot level.

“Bad memories.”

“Gunk sat on you?” You tease. You hope it’s just something silly and not him having some sort of snobbish organics-are-better philosophy. He is quiet, and you focus on your work. He’ll talk if he wants to, that much you know already about him.

Inside the body of your astromech, a rivet from stars knows where is stuck between two circuit boards and blocks the access to a short-circuited piece of wire.

“Kriff. Toots, this will take a while, sweetie. Can’t access that kriffing panel.” He chirps back something and you read the translation on the small display. “No, it’s not that. My hand can’t fit in that small space. Let me find those pliers… should be in that other drawer somewhere.”

You search in the chest of tools, and despite your usually good organization, you can’t find them amongst the droids’ tools where their place is.

“Let me help.” The stranger’s voice beside you makes you jump. He can be awfully quiet. “Sorry. I think I might’ve put them back into the wrong drawer. I used them the other day when I fine-tuned that scope.”

He points at another drawer, where you keep your fine electronics stuff. No wonder he mixed them up. He stands beside Tootee a bit awkwardly until you find the tool.

“Here! No problem by the way. “ You turn back to him and to the droid, than have an idea. “Do you mind a bit more help? You can say no if you don’t want to work with the droid, I’ll understand.”

He doesn’t object yet, so you go back to 2-T and show the stranger the area you’re working on. You see him lean closer in your peripheral vision.

“That’s where I need to get that burned piece of wire out and install a new one, but first, I need to get that rivet out of the way.” You point at the root of the problem, than explain your plan, pointing out each part in turn. ”If you could hold those using this, than I could get here, remove this, with that tool, than have to get those bundles out of the way too, so than that wire there could come out. Easy.”

You look up at him, and his helmet is way closer than you expected. You can almost see your reflection in that black visor as it stares back at you for a second, and you almost apologize again, when the stranger starts to speak.

“Just have to hold the wires to the casing, or pull them like…” he moves his hand in the air, showing what he means.

“Hold them to that panel, there, with the pliers, so I have room to access the rest.”

He thinks for a moment, than he starts to tug one of his gloves off.

“You don’t need to take that off, just hold the pliers” you tell him, but he shakes his head.

“No, I can fit my hand in there, I’m pretty sure. If not we can try it with the tool.”

You realize that this is the first time you see his skin. Than it occurs to you that he might very well misunderstand this whole situation. You just asked him to hang his hand inches from yours in an enclosed space; inside a droid nonetheless, just after you basically told him you noticed he has a problem with them. It would be so easy to get caught up in there, to touch his hand, and hush it up as coincidence. Especially now that he took his glove off as well. He might even think that it was a careful plan of yours: have an area to work with were your slightly larger hands don’t fit but his might.

Your fingertips already tingle from knowing you can’t make mistakes. Which means you’ll probably do. He reaches between the panels and gets to the part where you got stuck. He wiggles his fingers a bit and scrapes around.

“Ha, found some wires. Are these the ones you need out of the way?”

You peer down into the quagmire of electronics, trying to find the best angle to see everything.

“Yes, those are the ones. Just hold them like that.” You try to focus on what you are doing, but after those earlier thoughts, your hands are jittery. You somehow manage to remove the obstructing rivet, than find the burned out part and replace it without accident, the stranger patiently holding things out of your way. You direct him here and there, occasionally stumbling as it’s a lot of instructions, or at least a lot of “could you please” and “thank you”. It gets particularly awkward when you stumble over the lack of name spectacularly.

“Could you pull those the other way, so they aren't that taut, please? Thank you, you. I mean thank you.”

“Din. Din Djarin.” Your head snaps up while the rest of your body freezes. “I should have told you my name sooner, but I’m so used to not telling it… and it just became more awkward to bring it up as time passed. I apologize.”

You close your mouth that of course was hanging open in surprise, than shake your head.

“I thought at first that I missed it when you said it so I was ashamed that I didn’t remember.” That did happen before, and it was one of your greatest worries about meeting new people. “I actually asked my elder. Sent her a comm. So when she told me you went nameless, I didn’t wanted to demand it.”

He doesn't answer right away. His voice is softer when he speaks a bit later.

“Thank you. For being considerate.”

You smile and try to wave it off. Which results in your hand slipping and pawing at his, still motionless and stuck in the inside of the astromech.

“Oh shucks, I’m sorry… didn’t meant to.” You withdraw your hand quickly, and start to look for your tools to cover your mistake.

He doesn’t seem bothered, luckily. You calm down, reminding yourself not to behave like you drank one too many glasses of your cousin Ree’s home-made tihaar, and finish the repair.

“You can let those go now, I’ll finish from here. Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome, any time.”

He sits back on a nearby crate and watches you work for a while, ignoring Mouse zooming around the room. You’re surprised a bit: you didn't expected him to stick around. And than he starts to ask about 2-T. How long you had him, is he temperamental, can you install a vocoder on astromechs, and why not. His tone is somewhat cautious, his voice stiff, like someone asking about a dangerous predator. You remember how you asked him about his distance with droids, but don’t want to push that question. He already told you his name today.

…

By the time you finish with the rest of the repairs, clean Tootee up and tidy around your workplace, interrupted by having to leave hyperspace and land at a spaceport, it’s the middle of the night in local time. You planned to have a nap and search out the local covert just before dawn.

You go to the galley to have a bite before turning in, and the stranger - Din, you remember, although his last name is less clear - is cleaning up some dishes. There’s another bowl in the middle of the small table, covered by a plate.

“That’s for you, if you’d like to have it. Used up the last of that spice mix we got” he tells you as you enter. You sit down and stretch your legs out one side. As you take the plate off from the steaming bowl, you think about how nice it is to find warm food on the table and not having to cook your own all the time.

“Thank you.” You pull the bowl close and take the spoon that he put beside it. You swirl the soup - it looks very good: clear broth with lots of veggies and other fillers in it - and gather your thoughts. “So ummm… I want to ask something before it gets awkward again.“

He finishes piling the bowls and cups and sits down on the seat opposite. You blurt the question out before you might change your mind.

“What was your name again? Din, that was clear, but the rest… sorry but it sounded something like “jarring”?”

He chuckles, and it’s a clear sound even with a vocoder, no snort or sigh to distort it.

“It’s Djarin. Dorn-jenth-aurek-resh-isk-nern. Djarin.” You nod, a bit embarrassed, and he continues. “Don’t worry, you aren't the first to ask. Probably not the last either.”

“Thanks for being patient. I’m not the best with names, to be honest.”

He tilts his head.

“Is that why you are always so focused when someone introduces themselves? I can ask them to repeat their names for me too if you want to, than both of us can try to remember them.”

You blink at him.

“That’d be…” Unnecessary, and don’t bother, and it’s not your job, you think - but stop yourself. That would actually help. No shame in accepting it. ”That would be nice. Thanks.” You are good at a few things, like making things with your own two hands. Not gaping when something surprises you, or remembering faces or names, any names, not just people? Nah.

You tuck into your soup, and the two of you sit in companionable silence. You wander if Djarin sits there because he wants to, or if he’s waiting for more questions from you. You asked a lot from him during the last few hours, and he was really kind with all his help and telling you his name and not being bothered when you misremembered it.

You are halfway done with your meal when he stirs. He leans forward with his lower arms on the table, and takes a deep breath. You wonder what his question will be - you commit to answer whatever it might be. He deserves that after today.

“So you asked earlier about me and… droids, right?”

Your hand with the spoon stops in the air. You weren’t expecting this question, at all.

“Yes…” You want to say he didn’t have to answer. But you already told him that. You’re sure he remembers that too - since he brought the topic up again. “Yes, I did.”

He shuffles on his seat a bit, and looks out to the side like he sometimes does. You lower your spoon and eat, letting him gather his thoughts.

“When I was a kid… I don’t know how old you were then, but during the war. The Clone wars.” You nod, understanding what he’s getting at, and he continues. “We were… the place I lived came under attack. Some separatist battle droids. Mandalorians saved me.”

You swallow your soup. That was the shortest possible description of someone having their entire life and probably everyone they knew ripped away from them and finding a new way of life for the decades to come.

“I’m sorry” you say, because really, what else is there to say. He nods, and gazes off again. Than he shrugs his shoulders, as if he wants to shake the weight of the past from them.

He gets up, and walks around the table on his way out. He stops beside you for a moment and hesitates, and you almost turn towards him to ask what he needs when you feel him squeeze your shoulder. Than he straightens and steps away.

It’s warm where he squeezed it, and you remember how long ago it was that someone touched you.

You need to talk to your friends asap, and hug at least some of them. He turns back from the door.

“Get some sleep before dawn, all right? Have to be sharp to remember all those new names.” You don’t see him wink but you’d bet he does behind his visor. You scrunch your nose at him and pout before smiling, and he dips out of the galley.

Your hand is still hovering in the air, holding the spoon, while you listen to his footsteps getting more distant as he walks down the corridor to his cabin.

It’s just your luck that you don’t need your wits the next place. It’s only two people with the same, simple name and you met both of them before.

[hexalt]

CW for discussion of suicide

- She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - What? No, I'm not. - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - That's a sexist term! - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - Can you guys stop singing for just a second? - She's so broken insiiiiiide! - The situation's a lot more nuanced than that!

There’s the essay! You get it now. JK.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the culmination of Rachel Bloom’s YouTube channel (and the song “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” in particular where she combined her lifelong obsession with musical theatre and sketch comedy and Aline Brosh McKenna stumbling onto Bloom’s channel one night while having an idea for a television show that subverted the tropes in scripts she’d been writing like The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses.

The show begins with a flashback to teenage Rebecca Bunch (played by Bloom) at summer camp performing in South Pacific. She leaves summer camp gushing about the performance, holding hands with the guy she spent all summer with, Josh Chan. He says it was fun for the time, but it’s time to get back to real life. We flash forward to the present in New York, Rebecca’s world muted in greys and blues with clothing as conservative as her hair.

She’s become a top tier lawyer, a career that she doesn’t enjoy but was pushed into by her overprotective, controlling mother. She’s just found out she’s being promoted to junior partner, and that’s just objectively, on paper fantastic, right?! ...So why isn’t she happy? She goes out onto the streets in the midst of a panic attack, spilling her pills all over the ground, and suddenly sees an ad for butter asking, “When was the last time you were truly happy?” A literal arrow and beam of sunlight then point to none other than Josh Chan. She strikes up a conversation with him where he tells her he’s been trying to make it in New York but doesn’t like it, so he’s moving back to his hometown, West Covina, California, where everyone is just...happy.

The word echoes in her mind, and she absorbs it like a pill. She decides to break free of the hold others have had over her life and turns down the promotion of her mother’s dreams. I didn’t realize the show was a musical when I started it, and it’s at this point that Rebecca is breaking out into its first song, “West Covina”. It’s a parody of the extravagant, classic Broadway numbers filled with a children’s marching band whose funding gets cut, locals joining Rebecca in synchronized song and dance, and finishing with her being lifted into the sky while sitting on a giant pretzel. This was the moment I realized there was something special here.

With this introduction, the stage has been set for the premise of the show. Each season was planned with an overall theme. Season one is all about denial, season two is about being obsessed with love and losing yourself in it, season three is about the spiral and hitting rock bottom, and season four is about renewal and starting from scratch. You can see this from how the theme songs change every year, each being the musical thesis for that season.

We start the show with a bunch of cliché characters: the crazy ex-girlfriend; her quirky sidekick; the hot love interest; his bitchy girlfriend; and his sarcastic best friend who’s clearly a much better match for the heroine. The magic of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is that no one in West Covina is the sum of their tropes. As Rachel says herself, “People aren’t badly written, people are made of specificities.”

The show is revolutionary for the authenticity with which it explores various topics but for the sake of this piece, we’ll discuss mental health, gender, Jewish identity, and sexuality. All topics that Bloom has dug into in her previous works but none better than here.

Simply from the title, many may be put off, but this is a story that has always been about deconstructing stereotypes. Rather than being called The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where the story would be from an outsider’s perspective, this story is from that woman’s point of view because the point isn’t to demonize Rebecca, it’s to understand her. Even if you hate her for all the awful things she’s doing.

The musical numbers are shown to be in Rebecca’s imagination, and she tells us they’re how she processes the world, but as she starts healing in the final season, she isn’t the lead singer so often anymore and other characters get to have their own problems and starring roles. When she does have a song, it’s because she’s backsliding into her former patterns.

While a lot of media will have characters that seem to have some sort of vague disorder, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend goes a step further and actually diagnoses Rebecca with Borderline Personality Disorder, while giving her an earnest, soaring anthem. She’s excited and relieved to finally have words for what’s plagued her whole life.

When diagnosing Rebecca, the show’s team consulted with doctors and psychiatrists to give her a proper diagnosis that ended up resonating with many who share it. BPD is a demonized and misunderstood disorder, and I’ve heard that for many, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the first honest and kind depiction they’ve seen of it in media. Where the taboo of mental illness often leads people to not get any help, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend says there is freedom and healing in identifying and sharing these parts of yourself with others.

Media often uses suicide for comedy or romanticizes it, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend explored what’s going through someone’s mind to reach that bottomless pit. Its climactic episode is written by Jack Dolgen (Bloom’s long-time musical collaborator, co-songwriter and writer for the show) who’s dealt with suicidal ideation. Many misunderstood suicide as the person simply wanting to die for no reason, but Rebecca tells her best friend, “I didn’t even want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop. It’s like I was out of stories to tell myself that things would be okay.”

Bloom has never shied away from heavy topics. The show discusses in song the horrors of what women do to their bodies and self-esteem to conform to beauty standards, the contradiction of girl power songs that tell you to “Put Yourself First” but make sure you look good for men while doing it, and the importance of women bonding over how terrible straight men are are near and dear to her heart. This is a show that centers marginalized women, pokes fun at the misogyny they go through, and ultimately tells us the love story we thought was going to happen wasn’t between a woman and some guy but between her and her best friend.

I probably haven’t watched enough Jewish TV or film, but to me, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the most unapologetic and relatable Jewish portrayal I’ve seen overall. From Rebecca’s relationship with her toxic, controlling mother (if anyone ever wants to know what my mother’s like, I send them “Where’s the Bathroom”) to Patti Lupone’s Rabbi Shari answering a Rebecca that doesn’t believe in God, “Always questioning! That is the true spirit of the Jewish people,” the Jewish voices behind the show are clear.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend continues to challenge our perceptions when a middle-aged man with an ex-wife and daughter realizes he’s bisexual and comes out in a Huey Lewis saxophone reverie. The hyper-feminine mean girl breaks up with her boyfriend and realizes the reason she was so obsessed with getting him to commit to her is the same reason she’s so scared to have female friends. She was suffering under the weight of compulsory heterosexuality, but thanks to Rebecca, she eventually finds love and friendship with women.

This thread is woven throughout the show. Many of the characters tell Rebecca when she’s at her lowest of how their lives would’ve never changed for the better if it wasn’t for her. She was a tornado that blew through West Covina, but instead of leaving destruction in her wake, she blew apart their façades, forcing true introspection into what made them happy too.

Rebecca’s story is that of a woman who felt hopeless, who felt no love or happiness in her life, when that’s all she’s ever wanted. She tried desperately to fill that void through validation from her parents and random men, things romantic comedies had taught her matter most but came up empty. She tried on a multitude of identities through the musical numbers in her mind, seeing herself as the hero and villain of the story, and eventually realized she’s neither because life doesn’t make narrative sense.

It takes her a long time but eventually she sees that all the things she thought would solve her problems can’t actually bring her happiness. What does is the real family she finds in West Covina, the town she moved to on a whim, and finally having agency over herself to use her own voice and tell her story through music.

The first words spoken by Rebecca are, “When I sang my solo, I felt, like, a really palpable connection with the audience.” Her last words are, “This is a song I wrote.” This connection with the audience that brought her such joy is something she finally gets when she gets to perform her story not to us, the TV audience, but to her loved ones in West Covina. Rebecca (and Rachel) always felt like an outcast, West Covina (and creating the show) showed her how cathartic it is to find others who understand you.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the prologue to Rebecca’s life and the radical story of someone getting better. She didn’t need to change her entire being to find acceptance and happiness, she needed to embrace herself and accept love and help from others who truly cared for her. Community is what she always needed and community is what ultimately saved her.

*

P.S. If you have Spotify... I also process life through music, so I made some playlists related to the show because what better way to express my deep affection for it than through song?

CXG parodies, references, and is inspired by a lot of music from all kinds of genres, musicals, and musicians. Same goes for the videos themselves. I gathered all of them into one giant playlist along with the show’s songs.

A Rebecca Bunch mix that goes through her character arc from season 1 to 4.

I’m shamelessly a fan of Greg x Rebecca, so this is a mega mix of themselves and their relationship throughout the show.

*

I’m in a TV group where we wrote essays on our favorite shows of the 2010s, so here is mine on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I realized I forgot to ever post it. Also wrote one for Schitt’s Creek.

[snlhostharry]

to be determined / one

harry styles x reader friends with benefits au

soon after moving to new york, you meet harry styles at a party. you convince yourself that there’s nothing between the two of you until it becomes too intense to ignore. if you keep telling yourself that he doesn’t mean anything to you, does that make it true?

a/n: hi everyone! welcome to my first harry styles series. This originally started as a challenge for myself to try and write a harry fic inspired by taylor swift songs so that’s where the chapter titles come from, it’s kind of become something bigger than that but I figured I would keep the theme anyway 

chapter 1: welcome to new york

The story starts in New York City. 

A place written about in countless stories, about love, about heartbreak, about giving up, about standing tall, and about putting broken hearts into drawers and slamming them shut. It’s easy to say that writing another story about New York is beating a dead horse, throwing characters into the same tired old setting and letting them live out the writer's wildest daydream. But it’s never been about the city itself, it’s always been about the people. Something about the city always manages to be the perfect stomping ground for people, for characters to find each other in a  whirlwind of A list parties and harsh billboard lights. 

Speaking of which you are suddenly very sick of said harsh billboard lights in the middle of times square. As someone who has read (and written) countless articles describing times square as a flurry of activity but also with some kind of inherent magical appeal, the center of everything it’s own small utopia, you know that everyone who wrote that had to be aware of their own bullshit. It’s a nuanced way of tourist trapping, smart, albeit annoying on a variety of levels. A gimmick to get wide eyed little girls to stand in the middle of chaos and think that maybe they could carve out a place for themselves here. 

You’re not trying to carve out a place for yourself, you’re trying to get to a stupid party. That and manage to not get any mud or other stains on this very nice dress you’re wearing. After what seems like forever of looking around and then suddenly looking back down at your phone just in case anyone wanted to even try to make eye contact with you, familiar faces appear out of the sea of people. 

You greet them with a look of disappointment, “Two questions: why did you want to meet here-” a tourist elbows there way past you mid sentence, inadvertently proving your point, “-and why aren’t we just taking an uber?” 

Molly, a tall black woman with objectively perfect hair (which is somehow gorgeous at all times), smiles and pats your shoulder like a kindergarten teacher, “I thought you would want to see Times Square.”

“I’ve seen it,” You shoot back, squinting again at the bright light coming from directly behind her head, and adjusting your jacket over your shoulders. 

She squeezes your shoulder quickly, “And also to teach you that any time someone asks you to meet them in Times Square  they’re fucking with you.”

“I figured you were fucking with me,” You tell her, “But thank you, god forbid the midwestern girl gets lost in Times Square waiting for someone to meet her who is obviously not coming.” 

Molly laughs, and so do you. She looks down at her phone briefly, and then back at you, “To answer your question, why would anyone ever try to get an uber in the city at seven?” 

You shrug, “What kind of self respecting party starts at eight?” 

Fletcher, who’s name admittedly sounds like it should belong to anyone but him, finally stops staring at the large elmo mascot a few feet away and jumps into the conversation. “The kind with an age range, twenty somethings to late thirty somethings, who no longer have the energy to go from nine to six am.” 

You sigh, “So boring then or-?”

“It’s about networking,” Molly says, “And also drinking, but mostly networking.” 

“One of those unique business opportunities where you get free food, and possibly run into celebrities, singers mostly.” 

You roll your eyes, “Wow you had me at various singers.” 

“Says the woman who did an interview series with Tik Tok kids who all live in the same house,” Molly snips, half joking. 

You shiver, half from the memories of that objectively terrible experience and half from a sudden breeze. Needless to say a significant portion of the reason why you’d left LA, was because their entertainment section was suddenly drifting away from profiles on actors and towards compilations of one minute videos made by sun tanned twenty somethings that somehow made them millions a year. That and after you’d spent two weeks semi living with ten of said twenty somethings for a story that had gotten a lot of buzz you never wanted to see anyone connected to the app ever again. 

You give Molly your best ‘I’ll kill you’ smile, “You have to decide what you’re going to make fun of me for, is it the midwestern thing or is it the Tik Tok thing because one of those involves you admitting that I lived in Los Angeles for a year which means I’m perfectly capable of handling Times Square in all of it’s elmo public urinating glory.” 

Fletcher looks again at the mascot who is not in fact publicly urinating, but honestly if it did suddenly start none of you would be surprised. 

Molly looks at you for a second and says, “Both,” She looks at Fletcher. 

He looks at you then back and Molly and nods, “Yeah. Both.” 

You roll your eyes, “So can we get going now or-?” 

The ride to the location Molly had all but refused to tell you was filled with talks of the impending deadlines on Monday for pieces that were anywhere from fifty to seventy percent finished. (your’s is at the lower end of the spectrum because there is only so much one person can write about an art installation that you found less insightful and more literal in the sense that the sculpture was literally just large amounts of clay pressed together in something that shouldn’t even be considered a shape with no metaphor or meaning behind it). 

Soon enough you’re standing in what looks like mostly a residential neighborhood, with one precariously nice building in the middle of the block. You turn to Molly, “What the-?” 

“Don’t finish that, just be patient,“ She interrupts as a response. “You are very impatient, you know that?”

“I’m a journalist,” You say, “I need to know all of the facts, including what the-” You take a breath, “-heck we’re doing in the middle of a nice little neighborhood, I was expecting something more Gossip Girland Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” 

“You’re definition of journalist is a lot looser than mine,” Molly says.

“Have you ever watched Gossip Girl? And isn’t Brooklyn Nine-Nine set in a precinct?” Fletcher adds. 

“No, and Jake and Amy live in an apartment.” 

“Beyond the fact that you’re a TV writer who has never watched Gossip Girl-” Fletcher sighs, even though you know he hasn’t watched it either beyond random snippets for a hit piece he wrote on it a few months back (not received well by the way), “The top floor of that building-” He points to the precariously nice building, “isn’t apartments its a loft, the floor is huge and only one house.” 

You squint your eyes, “You’re kidding.”

“And the rest are offices?” 

“How did they get zoning for that?” 

They both shrug at the same time. 

“Guys I want to know that if the police bust up this party, speaking of loose terms, I’m going to say that you dragged me here against my will.” 

“I always knew you had good survival instincts.” 

Molly turns to you, “Look when you’re getting special press access to the inside of the met gala you will be saying thank you Molly for bringing me here to catapult my career.” 

“I have catapulted my own career thank you, the Tik Tok thing-” You shake your head, “Nevermind can we go in and stop loitering, then we’ll really get arrested.” 

Party is a loose term but you learn that's not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not a rager with strobe lights and pumping bass but there is music playing albeit classical. People mill around at tables talking to one another, both twenty somethings and thirty somethings, you recognize a few faces from the media mostly. Fletcher was right about the food, and Molly was right about the drinks. You talk to a few people just to introduce yourself, a couple of them have heard of you, if only because your sudden cross country move to newspapers that aren’t necessarily competitors but might have a bit of a rivalry was something that people talked about. You’d made a couple thirty under thirty lists (no not the Forbes one) while in LA, which meant nothing to you if you were being completely honest but apparently meant things to other people which is fine.

When you’re finally exhausted at putting on a smile and nodding like you’re actively engaged in conversation and not thinking about something completely you hang out by the bar, not even drinking, just watching the room and all of the people there. You never wanted to get a reputation for being the quiet girl in the corner who just watched and listened because those kinds of people are always seen as weird or doormats or both but if you’re being honest this is where you’re the most comfortable. Making small talk just to get some opportunity down the road has never quite been your style. 

You turn to go and find Molly when you suddenly come face to face with someone you recognise right away. 

In that moment you realize that Taylor Swift was in fact onto something when she said, “Didn’t you flash your green eyes at me?” As weird as it is, the first thing you think when you meet Harry Styles is how that song is definitely about him, because those green eyes are striking and they are staring right at you. 

“Hi,” He says, quick to the draw. 

You take a step back just because of how close you are and say, “Hello.” 

He looks at you like he’s thinking about something, and then holds out his hand, “Harry.” 

“y/n,” You shake his hand. You recover from your initial shock quickly, and plaster on that fake conversation smile again, ready for whatever it is he wants to say, if anything. You came here to ‘network’ and you’re not sure what kind of advantage talking to Harry Styles could possibly give you, but for some reason you want to talk to him. 

“What brings you here?” He asks you. 

“My co-workers,” You shrug, “I would much rather be at home watching Succession on HBO and listening to the Beatles on my record player, like true people of culture would.”

He looks at you for a second, as you try to keep a straight face. Then he laughs, “Seriously?”

“Fuck no,” You say, “That’s my impression of the girl who meets Harry Styles at a party and has to convince him that she is not like all the other girls, she is the one for him.” You smile, “Was that good? Or should I try again?” 

He thinks about it, “I think you should try again.” 

“Because you think it’s wrong or because you think I’m funny?”

“What do you think?”

“Well if you think I’m funny, then I’ve already won, I’ve tricked you into thinking that I’m not like all the other girls with reverse psychology .”

“Are you screwing with me?”

“Of course I’m screwing with you,” You take a sip of your drink. “If I were home right now I would be playing Lizzo on my record player, and drinking something with a medically unsafe level of caffeine.” You pause, “What brings you here?” 

“Honestly,” He looks out over the room, “I thought that this was going to be a much cooler party. Instead it’s just a bunch of reporters, and editors and media people.” 

“Who are inherent mood killers?” You ask. 

He narrows his eyes at you, “Am I allowed to say yes to that?” 

“You can do whatever you want,” You tease him, “You’re Harry Styles, who am I to tell you what to say?” 

“I feel like it was a trick question, which means that you are also a reporter.” 

You laugh again, “That was funny, I’m going to write that down for my story. ‘Harry is genuinely funny which he tries to use to make up for the lack of small talk abilities’.”

“You’re screwing with me again.” 

“Of course I am,” You say, “I work in the arts section of the Times, well not the actual art anymore but the movies and television.” 

“TV critic?” He says, “So you’re harsh.” 

“TV critics are just harsh for attention, I don’t need to be because no movie snob or well meaning director is going to go to the Times to see what we thought of any given movie. I write honestly, sometimes under the influence of caffeine and try to contain my excitement at narratively unnecessary plot twists.” You explain, “That and I get paid to watch TV, and usually private screenings of movies.” 

He leans against the bar a sign that he doesn’t plan on moving anytime soon. You’re not going to say that you’re so awestruck by a celebrity that you have no idea what to say, or that he’s intimidating you but your hand shakes just a little as you clutch your fingers around the glass because he’s objectively attractive. Objectively attractive in the way that if he were on a dating app you would swipe yes and then put a lot of pressure on yourself to be funny and relatable even though you know that you don’t need him. 

“What did you think of Dunkirk?” 

“Oh!” You forgot that he acted, “That was before my time. I was working at the LA Times doing the music section then I think.” You know what he’s going to say next, “And before you ask yes there is a piece still posted of me reviewing your debut album. I think I reached out to get an interview with you, but I was suspiciously declined.” He looks embarrassed, “I was like under five years out of college I would’ve declined me too. They only gave me the story because it was the time where people weren’t sure that ex boyband members could make objectively good albums that meant something.” 

He tilts his head to the side for a second, “And? Can they?”

“I’m in no place to make a generalization,” You say, “But I think you did. Admittedly that album was something, very intimate.” 

“I don’t know if I should be taking that as a compliment.”

“I don’t want to give you a compliment because some people have a hard time with them, and this will get very awkward very fast. No shame, personally I have no mechanism to take compliments on my writing.” 

He laughs, “I think I can take it.” 

“Hmm.. okay,” You take another step back, “Okay are you sure you're ready?” 

“Yes.” 

“I think the entire album was very good, very unexpectedly good or at least I didn’t expect it to be. It was very open in that way that songs are vulnerable but still leave enough mystery that your fans don’t think you're a shitty person and I really like meet me in the hallway,” You say quickly, “In fact I listened to it just yesterday when I was working.” 

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and then fake sighs, “See I don’t think that counts because it was more of a backhanded compliment.” 

“What?”

“You said you didn’t expect it to be good, that’s not really a compliment then-”

“I was saying it pleasantly surprised me,” You say, throwing your hands in the air in mock annoyance. “You surprise me, Harry.” He doesn’t say anything, and for a minute neither do you, but you snap back to life just in time to say, “Is that compliment enough to embarrass you?” 

He shrugs, but you know he’s messing with you. “It’s something but I don’t know if it’s really doing it for me.” 

“You are impossible, just another out of touch celebrity, is nothing ever good enough for you people?” It’s by now that you realize that you inadvertently closed the gap between the two of you, and you’re standing very close. 

He seems to realize this at the same time as you, “I-”

“Are you going to ask me to have sex with you?” You deadpan. 

“What?” He looks offended for a second, “No.” 

“I had to ask,” You tell him, “It’s happened before.” 

“I was going to ask you for your number.”

“See usually when a guy asks me that they’re asking so-” 

“It’s not for that.” 

“Then what’s it for?” 

He looks at you with something in his eyes that you don’t know the meaning of, “In case you want to do an interview, so that they don’t reject you this time.” 

You know that’s not it, but you give it to him anyway because he’s Harry Styles (which yes is not a valid reason but this ‘party’ is very boring and this is the most interesting thing to happen to you in at least the past week). It takes you a minute to remember which one is your real number and which one is the fake number you give off if a guy is asking because he wants a booty call, but you eventually give it to him. Then you scurry off with a quick goodbye when you realize how late it is, and how you do have work to do. There’s a new episode of Big Little Lies out tomorrow and you don’t understand why but people are very into the show, and very into your episode recaps. 

You corner Molly away from some guy you think might have actually been able to get her press access to the Met Gala and remind her that she also has a deadline tomorrow. The two of you go off to look for Fletcher and find him very close to sealing the deal with an objectively pretty girl, but you politely remind him that he has work to do and is very busy. The girl looks sad but let’s him go without much whining. You would’ve understood if she tried to get him to stay with her, he’s a little bit shorter than Molly but to be fair Molly is above averagely tall, and is nice and fit and has brown curly hair which you know from personal experience is sometimes just kryptonite. (you’ve kissed Fletcher before, long story, and can also say he’s on your top list of good kissers as well right up there with a guy you hooked up with in LA only to realize later that he was Robert Pattinson). 

Somehow the three of you are only able to make it back to your apartment. So the night ends with Molly and Fletcher in the living room on the couch and in a sleeping bag respectively, and you are comfortably in your bed. Your phone sits on your nightstand, suspiciously silent. You’re not waiting for Harry Styles to call you, nope, definitely not.