#his shitty parenting is almost entirely retconned into the story. he was never really on tommy/tubbos side either so i don't hate him

[demonboyhalo]

The lines from this speech hit so hard - "IM A PERSON" will always make me side with Techno

LOYALTY

[bigskydreaming]

For the record: I fucking adore pre-Crisis Dick and Bruce and always have. And would have ZERO problems whatsoever with people focusing on the version of events surrounding Dick’s leaving home in that last reblog…if not for how often this is paired with the reactions and attitudes Dick was written as having in direct response to the OTHER version of events in which he was fired. Its literally just the mixing and matching that’s the problem for me. 

(And additionally for the record, this has absolutely nothing to do with that reblog or its OP or anything other than the fact that I’ve been trying to write this particular post for like two months and could never muster the spoons before now. But seriously, not really about that post at all, it just finally got the gears working in the direction I wanted them to go).

Anyway. Like I said, its the mixing and matching of cause and effects that are inherently just not MEANT to match up and go together, because the effect was not referring back to a specific cause, but rather a different one altogether....that’s the issue. That’s always been the issue.

Because when you leave out the key fact that Dick’s hostility in later stories is written with the explicit intention of referring back to stories in which Bruce instigated their estrangement, you make it look like Dick is just a spoiled brat who throws temper tantrums when things aren’t about him, when that is literally not the scenario he was being characterized that way in response to. 

My problem has never been with Dick and Bruce having a good relationship or Bruce being a good father who loves his eldest and expresses that in a myriad of ways. Its with the narratives that twist a specific sequence of cause and effect to shift the focus away from any possible reason Dick could have for being upset with Bruce….to spotlight SOLELY Dick’s upset, with all actual relevant context deliberately stripped away and replaced with the context of “Bruce is a good father who loves his eldest and never fails to express that in a myriad of ways.” 

And with the way this pattern has then been mirrored over the decades since it was initially applied by fandom to avoid dealing with the earliest stories where Bruce was written as abusive….and with the ripple effect consequentially being that it has become a fandom staple for the focus to be put entirely on what Dick’s doing at all times and never on WHY, so that he constantly keeps getting upheld as the problem even in situations where he was clearly the victim. Like with Spyral, like with Ric Grayson, like Mirage and tons of other times throughout this character’s history because once you establish a precedent and uphold it to the degree that we’ve so often seen with “Dick is really the mastermind of his own misery, because none of the things that he’s miserable about really happened to him, look see, Bruce is a fabulous father and always was”.....like, you get a lot of repetition at that point.

Because that, right there, ESPECIALLY when paired with the reality that the stories that this tendency is most commonly used to distract from, like Dick’s firing and NTT #55 and NW #30 and other issues where there were clear and obvious instances of abuse in how Bruce was written......intentionally or not, that replaces these narratives of abuse, but NOT with stories where everything’s all fine and dandy.....but rather, with a narrative of abuse apologism, even if it is largely unintentional.

Because when an abuse victim’s behavior in specific moments is called into question AT THE SAME TIME as the root cause of that specific behavior in those specific moments is shuffled offstage and KEPT out of focus, so that the abuse victim’s specific behavior is upheld as the ONLY issue at hand, leaving the abuser who they’re reacting to free to just keep on walking while no one pays them any attention now.....this is a fundamental cornerstone of abuse apologism in real life as much as in fiction. And it has nothing to do whatsoever if its INTENDED that way, its simply the reality of what results.

And its that last part that usually gets me and a lot of other fans so worked up because just like a lot of people turn to Bruce as their emotional support character because they relate to either his trauma or his coping mechanisms or a million other things about him.....there’s a shit ton of us who turn to Dick Grayson as our emotional support character because we relate to HIS trauma....which, like it or not, for many of us INCLUDES his at-times extremely shitty relationship with his parent.

The way people condescend about this in particular, acting like the ONLY POSSIBLE REASON anyone ever has for writing Bruce as abusive or writing fixes or codas or transformative response-takes on actual literal canon stories where he was written as abusive.....like, treating the situation as though people ONLY do this for the sake of angst porn or to smear Bruce’s character, like, they’re just in it for the drama and there’s absolutely no other possible reason to engage with those particular stories.....its aggravating as hell. 

Especially when this is paired with stuff like “oh, sorry I’m not addicted to making Bruce an abusive shithead, I have taste and am above click-bait angst lolol” like.....people really think they’re saying something there, but its probably not what they think they’re saying when you hold it up against the fact that most people saying this have ZERO problem with excessive angst and misery in literally any other context EXCEPT for ones where Bruce is to blame.

I like to refer back to the fact that people disparage any focus on Dick being fired as being ‘just a retcon’....because of how that coincides with the fact that Jason’s pre-Crisis stories were largely (though not completely) retconned as well. Because its not just the fact that Jason’s origin as an acrobat was retconned to him being a street kid that’s significant here....but rather, the fact that HOW he became Robin was retconned as well. Since originally, pre-Crisis, just like it was Dick who chose to move on from Robin himself, it was Dick who chose to make Robin the name Jason used as Batman’s partner as well. 

So I’d be fine with people being like “oh I don’t engage with the retcon of Dick being fired because it was just a retcon” except for the fact that they DO engage with a huge part of that retcon still. They engage with the part where Dick is bitter and resentful of not being Robin anymore, just not the REASONS for it, because they’ve supplanted all the history for the version of events where Dick is resentful with the history from when Bruce was nothing but supportive. And then ADDITIONALLY, they still engage with the part where it was Bruce who made Jason Robin, not Dick, as this is then linked in fanon to WHY Dick is allegedly so resentful of Jason as Robin.....even though that too is a retcon, and if they just went with the original story where Dick gave Jason his name and costume before Jason ever debuted as Robin for the very first time.....voila, no resentment or bitterness from Dick towards Jason would ever exist.

See what I’m saying? Its frustrating hearing over and over that people don’t like the firing retcon just because it was a retcon and they like the original....AT THE EXACT SAME TIME as they continue to interact with and engage with literally every part of the retcon EXCEPT for where Bruce did stuff that Dick understandably could be upset about.

And that people claim this is to avoid the more negative aspects of things between Bruce and Dick and make for a more positive family dynamic....except then they still KEEP Dick being estranged and not coming home and sniping at Bruce as WELL as keep Dick being resentful and bitter about Jason so its like.....Error 404, More Positive Family Dynamic Not Found, its almost like you’re totally fine with Dick being the fly in the family togetherness soup, just so long as Bruce comes across fine.

And this is the pattern we see over and over, and that’s why the frustration Dick Grayson’s fans have with a lot of the rest of fandom are not directly interchangeable with the frustrations fans of any character have when its their favorite character in the hotseat. Because its not the simple fact of other fans not liking his character or stories about his character, its the HOW and WHY of the reasoning, and how often that’s telling people who relate to parts of Dick’s narrative that include the uglier bits with Bruce, that like....the stories we’re upset about don’t matter, or aren’t relevant, or didn’t happen, lmfao.

Because here’s the thing: nobody has to engage with parts of canon they don’t like. We all come to these stories and characters for different reasons and if Bruce written abusively is totally counter to everything you love about the character, OF COURSE you don’t want to engage with those takes! Of course you find that out of character and view it as shitty writing that should never have happened. And that’s FINE!

But its not about whether or not you just choose not to engage with these stories or ones based on them.....its about how often people then TALK OVER the people who DO choose to engage with these stories or ones based on them.....and belittle their validity in existing at all, try and paper over the stuff that people are directly trying to address by way of fic by arguing points that aren’t in contention.....because we’re not disputing that there’s a version of events where Dick left home happily, we’re literally just saying THAT’S NOT THE STORY WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.

Like, if I go on a post where people are just having a good time with good wholesome father and son interactions between Bruce and Dick and say something like “wow wish this was real and that Bruce wasn’t actually an abusive shithead”....I’M THE ASSHOLE THERE. Lol, make no mistake. But the flip side of that is when people go on posts where people are talking about times and places and ways the dynamic between Bruce and Dick is shittier, and say stuff like “wow good thing this isn’t real and everyone with taste knows that this is just angst bait and Bruce is actually the Best Father”.....uh....what exactly is the difference here?

(Especially, and I CAN NOT stress the hilarious irony of this enough....when they then just go back to making another Whumptober entry. LOL that’s fine! The part that’s hilarious though is condescending to people who write abusive Bruce Wayne takes as just being in it for the misery business when like......umm. Like I have a point here, but I’ll let people reach it on their own. The dots though. They’re extremely connectable).

Also also, I would just like to point out that Batfandom in particular has always leaned heavily on the “sometimes people write things to cope” in regards to rape and incest fic, etc........so as long as certain corners of fandom are willing to lean heavily into that argument to defend any and all kinds of sexual content in fic, they might consider extending that very same logic to “sometimes people write things to cope” in regards to abuse survivors writing about abusive dynamics within the Batfam to work through their own shit with abuse.

But I’m just extremely tired with the “but its a retcon/its bad writing” arguments rearing their heads anywhere people are like “here is a canon story I would like to engage with because hey I thought fanfic was supposed to be about us being able to fix shitty canon or address shitty canon or just lampshade that shitty canon is shitty”.....particularly when that awareness of things being a retcon seem to be devoid of any awareness of how retcons WORK.

Because the thing is, we all know and get how retcons work. We understand that retcons act as an insertion point for a second version of events that later stories can refer back to or act upon INSTEAD of the original version of events.

This is why literally nobody in fandom writes stories about Jason as the Red Hood and tries to like....use them to make points about Jason’s childhood as a circus acrobat. Because everyone gets that the issue there isn’t whether or not Jason’s early childhood was retconned, and there only being ONE TRUE VERSION of that you can go with......no, people get that it doesn’t matter IF they for whatever reason prefer Jason’s original story.....literally no canon story about the Red Hood has been written with the intention of referring back to THAT origin instead of the street kid Jason origin. No story about the Red Hood is attempting to SAY anything about or DO anything with Jason the child acrobat instead of Jason the street kid.

So why does that awareness vanish the second that stories about how Dick RESPONDS to the retcon of being fired come under scrutiny....with people acting like they just don’t get how retcons work all of a sudden, and its fine to argue the point about how that second inserted sequence of events isn’t relevant and everyone knows this so clearly there’s no problem treating Dick’s reactions to those events as though they’re just reactions to Bruce and Dick fighting over college?

Every character has at least two versions of themselves, tbh. A canon version and a fanon version. And obviously with a shared universe as old and having passed through as many hands as DC has....you could argue that there are many canon versions of Dick’s character. 

I would argue however that there are two distinct fanon versions of Dick’s character as well. And to be clear, each of these fanon versions encompass a spectrum unto themselves, there’s a wide range of varying DEGREES of these two fanon takes.....but there’s two specific fanon Dick Grayson STARTING points.

One of these of course is the happy-go-lucky, air-headed, never worried about anything in his life, cereal-munching, fashion disaster, sails through everything without a care in the world other than his care for everyone but himself Dick Grayson. 

I mean, I don’t particularly care for that one, but it is what it is, and like I said, every character has that fanon take that has a lot of their fans going Lol wut a mess, like plz just no.

The fanon starting point I’m usually more concerned about is this one: the Dick Grayson who grew up in the lap of luxury but never really appreciated it or what he had, who is territorial and possessive, prone to fits of anger with very little provocation prompting people to walk on eggshells around him, who cares about other people but is often oblivious of his effect on them because he’s just so reckless, so impulsive, that frequently he jumps into situations without thinking about how other people will be impacted by what he says or does, and then is too proud to take it back.

The reason I’m bothered so much by THIS fanon Dick Grayson is because I flat out don’t believe we get to him by looking at canon....but rather by extremely selectively AVOIDING looking at canon, but only specific PARTS of canon.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who never really appreciated his childhood or what he had.....as evidenced by the Dick Grayson who at times takes shots at Bruce for how he raised Dick......but without ANY examination of or awareness that the way those shots are written in canon, are with the intention of referring back to specific stories in which Bruce DID fuck up in certain ways while raising Dick....rather than a Bruce who was nothing but supportive and nurturing and did no wrong ever.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is territorial and possessive....as evidenced by the way he’s been less than graceful about ‘sharing’ Robin with certain of his siblings, or even Bruce himself......but without ANY examination of or awareness that the reason he’s written as ungracious about these things in these specific moments is because they were written with the intention of referring back to specific stories where something he built from the ground up - Robin - was stripped from him and given away without consulting him, or when he had to watch others enjoy a specific aspect of their relationship with Bruce that he was never (or at least not yet) ever offered himself......rather than just because Dick’s spoiled and selfish and never learned to share because he has only child syndrome.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is prone to fits of anger with very little provocation prompting people to walk on eggshells around him.....as evidenced by the way he blows up at certain people at certain times....but without ANY examination of what they said or did to him just BEFORE he blew up at them, or awareness that the reason he said awful things or displayed such anger is because he was specifically being written as reacting to things that very understandably PROMPT such anger, or he was written standing up for himself in the face of people saying or doing shitty things as well, or even outright attacking him......rather than just because Dick has a hair-trigger temper and anger management issues, and nobody’s ever said or done anything that justifies him getting angry at them ever.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is oblivious to his effect on other people because he’s just so reckless and impulsive that he jumps into situations without thinking about how they’ll be impacted....as evidenced by the way he does things like fake his death without thinking through what this will do to others......but without ANY examination of the fact that the stories in which he’s originally written MAKING the decisions to do these things, he DOES think through how others will be impacted, like how in NW #30 he did nothing BUT argue how it would affect his siblings and Barbara, or awareness of the fact that the reasons these arguments don’t change the outcome of events is because they’re deliberately written as not being ALLOWED to change the outcome, as Dick’s objections and concerns for other people are actively overriden and over-ruled.....rather than because he doesn’t make these objections in the first place or think through how other people will be impacted by things.

And thus we get a Dick Grayson who is just too proud to take things back when he fucks up.....as evidenced by the way that he either doesn’t apologize for certain things, or his apology seems hollow or insincere, or his apology doesn’t preclude him from doing something similar again later down the line....but without ANY examination of the fact that the reasons for all of these more often have to do with the fact that the crimes aren’t his to apologize for in the first place, its often him that’s owed the actual apology, and he simply won’t be ALLOWED to not get into the same situation in the future because the entire reason this pattern persists so frequently is because there’s zero sincere examination of what the pattern actually consists OF and just WHY it is that Dick in specific is so frequently stuck in this particular pattern....rather than just because Dick’s simply too proud to ever acknowledge when he fucks up.

Does that specific fanon interpretation of Dick Grayson sound at ALL familiar to anyone else?

And can you understand how the frustration with it could stem from not simply the fact that it exists, or that its not canon based....but rather the fact that it in order to exist at all, it REQUIRES building upon a foundational cornerstone of abuse apologism and outright ignoring and disregarding stories where he is the one victimized in order to prioritize that no blowback for the canon instances of abuse impact or reflect badly upon the actual victimizing characters in fandom conversations about these things?

Because speaking solely for myself now....this is and ALWAYS HAS BEEN, the ONLY issue I have in this matter. I have zero problems with good dad Bruce Wayne content, with prioritizing takes where Dick wasn’t actually fired, with simply not wanting to engage with canon or fan content where Bruce is abusive....none of these things have EVER been my problem or ever will be....as long as they like....don’t go hand in hand with making an abuse victim his own victimizer and everyone else his hapless victim whenever the specific instances of when he’s been a victim of other characters in canon comes up either in fic, headcanons, meta or just casual conversation.

[blushing-titan]

Eren as a father and Ymir as a mother motives theory never made sense. They were represented as emotionally stunned children in paths doing the Rumbling, not as adults. Ymir never cared about her children, she doomed them to suffer after her VERY SHITTY AND SELFISH CHOICE TO DIE because her abuser didn't return her "love". That was clear before Eren revealed it. She saved him and abandoned her children. She never gave a single fuck about them. She was always looking at HIM. (1)

For his part, Eren reverted to a child, talked about the sights with Armin which foreshadowed his motivation was mixed with his mental fuckery and timeless perspective. Dina and bird twist were foreshadowed via memory shards earlier. Krueger went on a rant about protecting Armin and Mikasa (and the "others") to Grisha. We've always known who Eren prioritized above all. Last chapter offered no twists, only confirmations. The story was always about EMA, Historia never had a place in the climax.

Hi! Thank you very much for writing 😀 I put my reply under the cut, so people who scroll down while searching tags don’t have problems with my long post (...because I feel like, unfortunetely, it’s gonna be another stream of conciousness from me, sorry about that 😅)

I really like your take on the "emotionally stunned children in paths" imaginery - I fully agree that it's a nicely-done symbolism!

To me, the whole Ymir sacrificed herself because of her unrequited love was not at all as clear and obvious as you say - especially before Eren revealed it. I still have a lot of problems with this plot twist, and how Ymir's feelings towards Fritz were portrayed in the end.

With the amount of abuse and mistreatment the king put her through, many fans tried to come up with different theories as to why Ymir kept on serving him. The way I interpreted it, after seeing her tortured expression over and over in many panels, was that she stayed by his side because of fear and emotional damages. With the way she was living, I was not surprised that she sacrificed herself, too - I thought that she honestly had enough, which added to the tradgedy of how she still couldn't find peace after that, and kept on being enslaved in paths.

I saw many takes and theories on her motives, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone betting on she was actually in love before ch. 139. I probably didn't search good enough, but again - with what I saw in the manga, I would have never bet on that either. My point is - before ch. 139 (...and after it too, in my opinion) Ymir was a walking mystery with unclear motives, so there were a lot of theories. Therefore, I disagree that the "parents" theory could never work - it obviously doesn’t work now, after ch. 139, but before that, her motivation could be anything really. I still wish it was something else, because what we got was too vague and problematic, in my opinion. 

I simply dislike Ymir's conclusion. I feel like there was so much potential in her backstory and motives + a few different ways to tie it back with different plotpoints and characters in the end to make it more meaningful, but what we got was a brief: She was in love with the person who abused her, I know it sounds unbelievable but I couldn't look deeper into her heart, so we have to take it as it is.

In general - I can't brush it off, but to me it feels like Ymir's end goal was rushed, not explored properly, and almost pulled out of nowhere. Unfortunately, I feel the same about Mikasa's involvement in lifting the titan's curse. Don't get me wrong - I'm not at all against her becoming the hero. Quite the opposite, I was rooting for her since the beginning, and hoped to see her develop and have a big moment, but this...this honestly also felt pulled out of nowhere and, in my eyes, didn't do Mikasa justice at all. I wish there was more proper build-up and foreshadowing done so I (...and, from what I've seen, a huge portion of fans) wouldn't feel that way, but here we are.

As for the Eren/Armin conversation, I like how they got to "see" the world together, even though just as a visualisation in the paths. My problem is the [...] Eren reverted to a child, talked about the sights with Armin which foreshadowed his motivation was mixed with his mental fuckery and timeless perspective part. Again, this should have been forshadowed (...and developed in general!) much sooner - not in the final chapter, right before we learn about this controversial motivation of his.

Instead, for many chapters, we were lead to believe that Eren was acting with his original goals and personal motivations in mind; that he had some character developement which caused him to start thinking his actions through, stop acting so impulsively - and finally, that he had a plan in mind, or at least was acting out of his own free will.

If you've never seen him in this light and his motivation/behaviour seemed in character in the last chapter to you - that's fine, all power to you! But if such a big portion of the fanbase felt otherwise (me included), then it means that there were some writing issues that led to this.

The Dina situation should have been explored more, as well. It's a huuuge plot twist, which puts our MC's motovations in an entirely new light, and creates quite a few additional plot-related questions. The way we're shown the situation: Berthold couldn't die just yet, so Eren directed Dina somewhere else, which ended up being his house.

...why not anywhere else? He could literally send her back outside the wall. On top of that - did he seriously sacrifice his mother in favour of his friends? I'd really like more information on this, but the topic is cut basically as soon as it appears. I find it especially unnatural, considering the way further dialogue goes:

Eren tells Armin about how he caused his mother's demise. Armin makes a terrified face, but drops the topic, smiles and casually proceeds with: "Let's go, Eren" - like his friend didn't just reveal one of the most controversial plot twist in the series. No, who'd want to hear an elaboration on that - better talk about Mikasa, so instead we get the entire (in my eyes - really forced) Eremika-themed talk. The priorities...

About the bird thing...if I remember correctly, there were three shards revolving around this theme. Two of them just show birds flying, one of them shows Falco from bird’s perpective. Sure, now that we know that some random bird in the end pecked on Mikasa's scarf, we can kiiiiiind of connect it to the Falco's shard...but honestly, why was Eren's soul transferred into some random bird after his death? On top of that, a bird that was already existing in the world while he was still alive, as a human...did that bird’s conciousness just go poof! one day, for Eren to take the vacant spot? Should we also look for other deceased titan shifters in barns or birdhouses? 😅 I can’t believe I’m overthinking it this hard...😆

That's some three-eyed-parasitic-jeager stuff, for sure.

Jokes aside, I guess what I'm trying to say is that foreshadowing is fun and great, but it should go hand in hand with proper developement - and, in my opinion, the examples above kinda lack it (...ok, I'd let the "bird Eren" thing slide because whatever, I don't feel the need to be that serious about it, it could stay ambigous in my opinion - but I'd definitely want some more closure as for the Dina situation or Ymir’s motivations and inner thoughts)

I've always said that Armin and Mikasa were two of Eren's closest friends - or, even more, the only people he considered family. I've also never believed that he would ever willingly sacrifice them, as some people theorized (...though guess what, now that I know what happened to his mother, I have to rethink my reasoning). I understand that EMA are the main characters, and was expecting that the story's conclusion will be tied to them somehow, but definitely not at the expense of logical character and story developement (...and sorry - to me the ending just felt that way).

As for Historia: if she was never supposed to be important in the end, then, in my eyes, it's a very poorly guided plotline that only led to unecessary drama in the fanbase. Why make her situation look sus with things such us:

Incorrect conception date,

The emphasis on how she didn't marry the father of her baby (...only to reveal in ch. 139 that she, in fact, did that),

The mysterious, cloaked figure observing her talking to the farmer,

The whole talk with Eren in ch. 130, and Eren thinking back to it while talking with Zeke.

All the Historia/Ymir parallels.

Seriously, what was the point? It would be so easy to simply make the situation clear. Why not just make Historia admit to Eren in ch. 131: "yes, I'm already pregnant with the farmer's baby - I did it to save myself."? Why not cut the bs with the "she didn't marry him" - because, in all honesty, what did that information bring into the story, aside from confusion and "misunderstanding" - and just make them married, instead? Even better - why not have at least one panel showing Historia and farmer being at least somehow affectionate with each other? Why not let go of all this retconned stuff and use these panels for shelling out other plotpoints?

The theories didn't come out of nowhere - they were based on what was shown in the manga. People wouldn't be disappointed with Historia's conclusion if it was never implied that she was still somehow important. We may argue about it back and forth, but the truth is - when so many people collectively "misunderstand" a certain plotline to this extent, then it means there had to be some storytelling issues that led them to this - simple as that.

To sum it up, I'm happy that you enjoyed the chapter and found it logical and satisfying. I absolutely don't want to take that away from you, or make you change your mind, but I also can't help the fact that I don't see it in the same light as you. You say that the final chapter offered no twists, only confirmations - to me, it was pretty much the opposite. Still, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to write your thoughts, and sorry it took me so long to reply! Hope you're having a nice day 😄

[sol1056]

found family asks

two in one, again:

maybe they only SAID it was about found family because they know its a very popular concept ... or possibly they really did want to write a voltron that was more sentimental and emotionally connected and kinda had absolutely no frame of reference for how to do so, unfortunately making it less connected than it was before.

 ... despite their frequently illogical way of doing things, Voltron would expect the exact same detachment out of Keith [as the BoM], maybe word it different, and only forgive failure to do so if it involved his blood family, the only family it's ok to refuse to let go of and behave irrationally for apparently.

I’ve had this discussion in DMs, and I think I might’ve mentioned in other posts. It all comes down to the fact that every story contains two stories: the one we set out to write, and the one we end up writing. And we do our best to make them as alike as possible, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. 

When you see EP/writer interviews, often what they’re speaking of is the story they intend to write. (This is true for most creators, I’ve found, especially in serialized stories like television or comics where the story’s still unfolding at the time of the interview.) It takes a lot of practice to see ahead of time that the story you’re actually writing has deviated from that intended version. 

Very early on in S1 (and echoed in S2), we got the stated theme of found family. Shiro speaks of Cmdr Holt’s declaration that a team is like a family; at several points, Allura speaks of coming to see the paladins as her family. Plus, Pidge chooses the paladins (her found family) over breaking away to find her ‘real’ family, and Hunk describes them as ‘brothers’ after training together.

With the exception of Pidge’s actions, the other instances are what we’re told, and not necessarily what we’re shown. It’s the story establishing its thematic element early on, and telling is the easiest way to do that. But then the story has to uphold that by going silent on the telling, and instead showing us how this impacts the characters’ actions and reactions. 

Unfortunately, what I see is a lot of... not really supporting this theme. 

In Pidge’s case, she endangered Shiro, Lance, and Slav by being so distracted by potential information about her brother. Later, she effectively takes vacation from the team, mid-war, to do a walkabout to follow leads. And in S5, she again puts her found family’s goals at risk by insisting they sacrifice a useful prisoner so she can regain her ‘real’ family. Pidge’s entire arc has been focused all this time on her real family, and her found family comes second in every instance but that two-parter at the start of S1. 

Neither Lance nor Hunk have had any conflicts that really pivot on the notion of family, found or otherwise. The one time we got Hunk pushing the team in any direction, it was for the sake of a quasi-love interest. Since almost the beginning, Lance rejected any siblingship with Keith, and has mostly focused (especially since S3) on Allura as a romantic, not familial, interest.

Most recently, there’s Keith, whose backburner search parallels Pidge’s; he heads off with Krolia for bonding time, and most of his discovery at that point is very much about his family. Keith’s interactions with his found family have been pretty brutal, for the most part. Lance’s bullying, Hunk’s micro-aggressions about Keith’s Galra heritage, Allura’s resentment and distrust that evolved into a rather high-handed tone in early S4. And, of course, the clone’s attempts to alienate Keith from the team, which worked well enough that the team never mentions Keith again, never appears to contact him, and frankly does just fine with him gone. There is no Keith-shaped hole left waiting for him, in his absence. 

There’s Lotor, as well, who’s introduced in a dynamic that reflects the paladins, flanked by his own found family. Except he ends up slaughtering one in cold blood, somehow concocts and carries out a plan with a second while keeping the remaining other two in the dark, and eventually alienates all three again. And none of them ever seem to recall their dead teammate (though admittedly we did see them mourn Narti for about ten times as long as any of the paladins mourned Shiro). Instead, Lotor’s journey has mostly been focused on his parents: defeating/killing his father, and then acknowledging -- and rejecting -- his mother. 

Or Allura, whose focus throughout has been on her father as a distant figure of admiration; in S5, suddenly she’s all about following in his footsteps, with the team’s priorities (y’know, that whole war thing) coming second. The team plays second fiddle to Allura's journey to master, and then use, the skills her father had.   

And then there’s Shiro, who was the first to not only speak of teams (as people who work/decide together) but also of teams as a kind of family. After S2′s disappearance and that unfortunate timeskip, his found family (excepting Keith) neither mourns him nor looks for him, and in fact are remarkably flippant about the process of replacing him. It comes as no surprise that when the clone kicks into action, the team apparently writes the clone off, despite possibly months of co-existence and a number of successful missions. And, as someone else pointed out in a comment on a different post, despite having firsthand experience with brainwashing, when Hunk was controlled by the underwater critter in S2E2. 

Frankly, these characters have created a rather shitty found family. Meanwhile, at least four characters’ journeys have pivoted on ‘real’ family, which undercuts the theme quite thoroughly. 

The story the writers set out to create -- based on what they tell us, early on -- was a story of a team coming together, and creating a family between them. A family that’d stick together, sacrifice for each other, and put each other first. That’s not the story they’ve written, though. 

What they’ve written is a story where five (well, seven) people are tied together by circumstance, whose focus remains pretty strongly on blood ties. It doesn’t matter whether the characters are discovering, affirming, or rejecting their familial connections; the focus remains on those ‘real’ families. Their found family consistently comes second.

I do expect that we’ll get some lip service along the way on the found family theme, but it’s a little late for the characters to be learning those lessons, now. We’ve passed the story’s midpoint; in another half-season (6-7 episodes), we’ll be entering the final act. Everything the characters need to know -- to defeat, well, whatever antagonist they finally face -- they should already know by now. They should have all the tools at their disposal, and it’s just a matter of girding their loins, picking up their weapons, and standing their ground. 

If being found family is one of those weapons that’ll make them strong enough to win the day, I expect we’ll just be expected to swallow the story telling us this team is a solid found family. Even if that means we have to mentally retcon to fill the gaps the story created while it was busy focusing on ‘real’ family, and ignore all the times the characters chose in complete opposition of that intended theme.

This is yet another place I see a certain amount of inexperience in the creators. They knew enough to establish a theme, but not enough to see that it must be used as a continual guideline when tackling character decisions. I can go into how we can set up theme and balance it with character choices, but that’s probably best left to another post. 

[tessatechaitea]

Dark Nights: Metal #1

I thought this series was going to be about how the meta gene is tied into Nth metal and not some fifteen year old metal head's idea of a cool black light poster.

Apparently time travel makes you vomit blood.

I thought the page after that scanned page was going to declare the new age was the Age of the Bat. But it didn't. It declared it was the Age of Metal! After reading that, you're supposed to make guitar noises with your mouth and bang your head and throw up some devil horns. You might even fuck a goat, if you're super cool. I'm not sure when the Age of Metal began. There was the Golden Age and the Silver Age and the Modern Age (and maybe some other metallic ages I don't remember). Perhaps the Age of Metal just means the time when superhero comics began? Or did the Age of Metal start when Peter David gave Aquaman long hair and a hook for a hand? Mongul currently has the Justice League battling for their life on his new Warworld. This takes place almost immediately after Mongul was punched into orbit by General Zod, so editorial demanded that Batman mention something about how this makes no sense, continuity-wise. He doesn't say it to help explain it! He just says it because editorial was all, "You know we're going to get buttfucked hard on this by the Fangenders¹, right? You need to get out in front of this shit." And Snyder was all, "Okay, okay. Batman will be all, 'This doesn't make sense!' But then Superman will be all, 'Stop over thinking things, you stupid fucking hypocritical moron living in your parents' basement and not adding any value to anything because all you do is destroy things with your Internet criticisms!'" And the editor was all, "Yeah, maybe that. But tone it the fuck down. You're sounding like Cullen Bunn anonymously defending his shitty Twat Lobo comics on harsh but hilarious blogs offering valid critical reviews." The Justice League's powers have been rendered inert by...well, it doesn't really matter what by. It's the same old shit as usual. The heroes are too powerful so to create dramatic tension, you remove their powers. Snyder does offer a few ways that their powers can be dampened by invoking red sons and vibration domination technology and Gorgon pasties just so the Fangenders can nod enthusiastically and think, "Yep! Yep! They should have seen this coming! This is just like Justice League #45²! Idiots." Of course, those are the powers with fairly easy explanations for how to suppress them. He doesn't explain how he's keeping Cyborg from utilizing his Mother Box technology. Or how Green Lantern's ring isn't working (although, I mean, really? It's probably just out of charge like in 95% of Green Lantern comic books). And how did he stop Aquaman from talking to fish? Oh, you know what. Mongul probably decided Aquaman could keep his stupid power. Oh, just so Scott Snyder doesn't feel like he was being too subtle, I got it. It's the Metal Age and the entire Justice League is being forced to wear armor by Mongul!

Some of it is super sexy titty fucking armor!

Toyman has also been captured by Mongul, probably because Scott Snyder needed enemies that the Justice League could kill without Batman getting on everybody's dick about murder. Toyman tells Mongul the name of the toys that will kill the Justice League is Fulcum Abominus. Mongul pulls out his dick and begins sucking it because he's smarter than me and that apparently means something to him. I shouldn't feel too stupid though because why should I have known what a fulcum is? I've never owned a Warworld and seemed to have missed the adolescent phase where Roman soldiers intrigued me as much as women's nipples. I suppose the name means the Justice League will be battling an abominable shield wall? A close formation made up of Yetis? Or maybe just a few transforming robots.

Judging by Mongul and the crowd's reaction, the Aegea Formation must be where the Justice League creates an illusion that they're running away. Either that or this is Greg Capullo's way of telling Snyder to fuck off because he's going to draw whatever the fuck he wants.

I'm not four years old so the crowd chanting "Do not run! Pain is fun!" doesn't amuse me. It does make me question why I've spent so much of my life reading comic books though. It's at this point during the battle that I need to apologize to Scott Snyder. It's my first apology of the new season but it won't be my last. The problem with writing the critique as I'm experiencing the "art" is that I tend to point out flaws before the artist has a chance to finish. It's like when I'm in the middle of cleaning a floor and somebody thinks they're the next George Burns and says, "You missed a spot!"³ So, um, my apology is that I assumed Snyder couldn't think of ways to dampen the powers of the other Justice League. But he continues explaining how they've all been shut down. Green Lantern's gauntlet has a mini-black hole. And you know what they say about black holes when they're not making anus jokes, right?! Not even Green Lantern light can escape! Plus it's a mini-black hole so don't worry about how heavy and dense it is. Even though it must be even denser than a non-mini black hole if it can still capture light in its gravitational pull. And Aquaman has lost half of his strength to the vambraces made from glass forged in the heat of Apokolips! Each creature in the Fulcum Abominus has been designed to counter one of the Justice League members. So not only do they not have their usual powers, they have to battle creatures that wouldn't care if they had those powers anyway! Wonder Woman can't even outsmart hers because it has a Cassandra Engine! And we all know what that means! Well, most of us do. Those who don't can always watch old reruns of Red Dwarf. I hope the solution to defeating the Fulcum Abominus isn't to switch opponents because that's been done fifteen thousand times. Although it would be more original than just having Batman defeat them all after the rest of the Justice League are incapacitated. That's been done about sixteen thousand times. I can't think of any other way this conflict might end. Maybe it'll have something to do with the metal! Or maybe Toyman will have programmed the Fulcum Abominus to turn on Mongul once he's done sucking his dick. He'll be drained and distracted at that point! Batman comes up with a plan to be eaten by Toyman's machines. He comes up with it the way Dr. House came up with solutions to his medical mysteries. You know how somebody would say just the right word and he'd sort of glaze over into a fugue state for a few seconds before snapping back and yelling, "I am a genius! You people are all idiots! And this show shits on the scientific process to pander to people who believe intuition is some magic panacea that comes out of the ether!" Anyway, Wonder Woman says "Formation" and Batman is all, "That's it! Formation! These machines were formated by Toymanster! If I reach into the gaping maw of this one, I'm sure to find a WayneTech Emergency Shutdown Switch!" Or something. I mean, there is a button in the creature's throat and it does have a bat on it and Batman does push it. But it doesn't shut the thing off at all. It just makes it eat Batman. By pushing the buttons in the throat of the creature (which Batman realized by knowing that the command to form the fulcum formation was done by a cry from the back of the throat (because Batman knows everything (which means Toyman must know everything because you can't give subtle clues to people who know everything if you're a dumbshit like me...I mean Mongul))), the Justice League turn the machines into Voltron armor. This allows them to "form up" like the Roman formation and turn into a giant robot. Batman is the head, of course. Aquaman is the balls.

Is that why Snyder introduced the stupid rhyming chant earlier when it made no sense because the Justice League wasn't running? Just so Batman can act childish now? Eh, works for me! I mean, I'm the guy who chose to write that Aquaman was the giant robot's balls.

Instead of saying "ass" on the next page, Snyder inserts the title page and credits. Apparently the logo for Metal is a Satanic Hexagram. Can hexagrams be Satanic? They made it into a six pointed star but not so that it looks like the Star of David. It's got some bend to it. But the star is enclosed in a circle with symbols at each point. Those symbols are combinations of Justice League symbols and the bat symbol. So Wonder Wobatman and Superbatman and Aquabatman and Black Computer Batman and Green Lanterbatman and the other one. It's totally metal. Also the word metal is textured like the bumper on a pickup truck. Is that metal? I mean, it's metal, literally. But is it metal, 80's figuratively? When the Justice League return to Earth, they find a mountain has appeared in the middle of Gotham. Apparently it didn't kill too many people because the city somehow made room for it. But Batman is still upset by it for some reason. Probably because he's thinking about how he vowed to never let anybody else be crushed by a mountain after his parents were crushed by that mountain in that alley. The Flash finds a door inside the mountain with a pseudo-Challengers of the Unknown symbol on it. It's an hour glass with most of the sand in the bottom half. That's probably not a good sign, right? Inside the door, they find a cryogenic pod with five people inside. I bet one is a white woman, one is a white man with blond hair, one is a white man with brown hair, one is a black man, and one is white man with red hair! Nearby the pod is Red Tornado. They don't seem to recognize him even though earlier somebody mentioned Aquaman's hook hand. If they remember that, they should surely remember Red Tornado! The Blackhawks appear, led by Lady Blackhawk, Kendra Saunders. Get it?! She's still a hawk! Oh, Scott Snyder! You're so fucking clever! I bet Geoff Johns hates the fuck out of you. It always hurts to be usurped. I imagine. Nobody has ever been able to usurp me. Or wanted to? Lady Blackhawk tells everybody that this is the start of an invasion but she can't tell them who is doing the invading. That's called dramatic tension! It's also called bullshit writing. Just fucking say it, you resurrected nutcase! Instead of revealing cool shit, she spends a few pages taking everybody to Blackhawk Island where she has a map of Grant Morrison's Multiversity. She's all, "Nth metal is this thing that's behind all these things. It's such a crazy thing! Hawkman, the most boring hero in the Multiverse after Aquaman, has been studying it his entire lives! Yeah, you heard me right! I said lives! He decided it didn't come from anywhere in the known Multiverse through assumptions and poor science. Unless over the course of all his lives, he had time to use good science? You know what? Who cares? Just believe me when I say it must have come from somewhere else. He didn't know where until he binged Stranger Things last year and Eleven turned over the Dungeons and Dragons map. That's when he was all, 'A-ha! That's the one place on the map I didn't search! The other side of it! The dark side of it! The Dark Multiverse! And now that I've decided that the known Multiverse is much like a two dimensional representation of it, the other side of the map must exist in reality! A Dark Multiverse!'" "I'm not the worst," mumbled Aquaman.

Ha ha! Wanting proof! How silly!

I like how Kendra wanted proof of Carter's theory which caused Carter to want to prove her wrong. What the fuck does that mean?! You don't prove somebody wrong who just wants some evidence that your theory is reality! You just prove your stupid theory. I already hate this new version of Hawkman. Yes, I'm biased because I've hated every version of Hawkman so I didn't have far to go to hate this one. But I hate him more passionately than I ever hated the other ones and I haven't even met this one yet! The other ones I just sort of hated for no real reason. This one is a scientific idiot. Kendra isn't much for science either. She just found the word wagon over and over again because a wagon would carry a dark beast named Barbatos from the Dark Multiverse into the Non-Dark Multiverse. And then she decided that Wagon was the root of the name Wayne (you know, wainwright? Wains! Wagons!) which must mean that the Wagon was Batman and he was the bad guy. That's when the Blackhawks pull their guns on Batman. But they don't shoot him in the face for some reason. Some heroes they are! Red Tornado begins screaming about the door being left open which probably saves Batman's life. He then flips the fuck out which means he'll be dismembered in a few pages. His stories always end in dismemberment. Batman steals Kendra's Nth Metal and races back to the Batcave to destroy the Multiverse in the pursuit of knowledge. The Nth Metal reveals Carter Hall's diary hidden in Wayne Manor. It's there to tell Batman he was right to pursue whatever he's been pursuing. The mysteries of the Nth Metal, I guess. And once he's been proving right, he's visited by Dream of The Endless. Well. I guess Snyder can still surprise me without me needing to make a snarky comment about how dumb his twist is. I don't know why Dream has appeared but it's pretty cool that he's been allowed back into the regular DC Universe. I'll say this about Metal: it's entertaining and interesting. But it's also built upon the dumb shit that Scott Snyder likes to build his retcons. So far we've learned that the Meta-gene is actually the Metal Gene because Nth Metal is behind all superpowers. We also learned that Nth Metal couldn't have come from anywhere in the DC Multiverse so it must have come from the other side of a two-dimensional representation of the Multiverse. I know that's just a metaphor but I bring it up because it's a metaphor from Stranger Things. The other big twist is that Wayne means wagon. In both the meta/metal and wagon/Wayne plot elements, we see the thing Scott Snyder bases almost all of his stories on. He starts small by looking at words and their meanings to expand those observations into a bigger story. Usually I'm just annoyed by them. But this time, he gets to really fuck around with the DC Universe by making this Nth metal/meta-gene connection and I'm always up for a good buttfucking of the DC Universe. Oh yeah! How can I mention all the word play without mentioning the Dark Nights title of the series? Oh, probably because it's been used before. But this time it's the Dark Nights bring the Dark Knights of the Dark Multiverse! It's boner and/or lubrication inducing! _________________________________________________________ ¹"Fangenders" is my inclusive term for what was once thought of as Fanboys. Being an obnoxious comic book know-it-all knows no gender boundary. ²I don't actually know what happens in Justice League #45. But if you were instantly angry at my lack of knowledge, you're a Fangender. That was the whole point, dum-dum! ³I have a floor cleaning business. This isn't just an analogy of a thing I rarely do. It happens all the time. I'm getting angry just thinking about it! I should probably footnote George Burns as well but what's the point? You have access to the fucking Internet, lazy!

[raywritesthings]

Arrow and Harry Potter

Arrow

my all-time ultimate fave character: Laurel Lance

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: I hated Quentin at first, and I lot of stuff he did/does I still don’t like but I’ve grown to appreciate his complexity and his dynamics with Laurel and Oliver. Of course now that Laurel’s dead he has like nothing to do so it’s just stupid.

a character I used to like but now don’t: Felicity was cute s1...she got on my nerves pretty quickly after that, though. I hate what Diggle has become. Like just look at him s1 compared to now and it’s just sad. I miss when Diggle was his own character.

a character I’m indifferent about: Can I just say any of the new recruits? Like, I just don’t care about any of them. At all. I didn’t start the show for them, I started for GA and BC, why is this so hard for the showrunners to grasp? I’m also pretty indifferent towards Sara, no lie. She’s just kind of there and then not and then there again. She drifts into the story and out and doesn’t really seem to have all that lasting of an impact. I mean she can literally be plucked from the timeline because she’s apparently of little enough importance history won’t miss her. And it totally undermined the whole “journey” aspect of characters when we met her and she was just insta-badass straight out of her new s2 packaging, now with 100% more blonde, some reshooting required. Maybe if they’d bothered to show her training--but that would have required them to actually show a wlw relationship and not just the angsty post-breakup stage so that wasn’t gonna happen. Like I don’t necessarily hate her but I don’t like her much either. She’s just kind of meh to me.

a character who deserved better: DINAH. LAUREL. LANCE.

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: O/F, Oliver/Sara, and lowkey Nyssa/Sara - Nyssa was always so much more invested than Sara from her first appearance to her last. Like you got her going on and on about her “beloved” and then Sara’s flirting it up and kissing people throughout time and space, the heck am I supposed to do with that? Also I haven’t liked Thea/Roy ever since Roy ditched her after sleeping together and left no forwarding address. Dick move, dude.

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: Lauriver, dear god, the beauty and the tragedy will haunt me forever

a cute, low-key ship: I liked Oliver and McKenna, I won’t lie. Moira and Walter were tragic but precious. Also if Tommy had lived I could’ve seen him and Helena having an interesting thing don’t judge me.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: Non-canon but I’m gonna go Lauryssa. Also Constantine/Oliver.

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: O/F, when will these writers learn that ship destroyed both those characters

my favourite storyline/moment: I’m in that rare minority that loved s1 so much more than s2. S2′s where it started going wrong, the fridging women left and right, Slade’s shitty motivation for being bad--he’s a mercenary, for fuck’s sake, it does not need to be about a woman he loved and lost, it’s not complicated--retconning the flashbacks left and right, but s1 was so good. Also loved Laurel becoming BC though I never got why the writers needed to start her off at square one when they showed she could fight the previous two seasons.

a storyline that never should have been written: Basically the entire s4 plot. Magic and nukes are not GA’s thing. Also killing BC on a GA show is such bs. Real GA would have rather seen himself killed first.

my first thoughts on the show: Ok, this is interesting! The fight scenes are good, I want to see how these characters become more like their comic book counterparts.

my thoughts now: Well that sucked.

HP

my all-time ultimate fave character: Oh man, how can you do this to me? TOO MANY, OKAY? I HAVE TOO MANY.

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: Dudley is so much more interesting after book 7. I like the idea that he finally started to realize that his parents and their abuse towards Harry was shit. I know JKR decided to not give Dudley a magic child in the epilogue, but I wish she had. It would have been so nice to see Dudley break the cycle of abuse in the Dursley family once and for all by loving and supporting his kid no matter what.

a character I used to like but now don’t: I don’t know if I dislike him necessarily but I definitely don’t like him the way I used to as a kid - okay, yeah, it’s Dumbledore. I mean he is soooo complex, and that’s a good thing. But a lot of the stuff he did? Not cool.

a character I’m indifferent about: Basically a lot of the OCs that masquerade in fics as barely-mentioned students. It’s fine if you wanna use them, but it’s weird to me when people start purporting their characterizations of them as fact if that makes sense? To that end, I’m also mostly indifferent about all the next gen kids with the exception of Teddy (there’s just a lot there to his character that would be so interesting to unpack - why was Cursed Child not about Teddy Lupin with a better plot gdi).

a character who deserved better: So many characters tbh. Ginny Weasley deserved better from both JKR and all y’all. JKR promised an awesome moment having to do with her being the seventh child of a seventh child (Arthur) and then never delivered. Fandom is shitty to her because she gets in the way of their ships (like especially H/HR and H/D shippers seem to love to demonize a teenage girl in their fics, just saying) and because they seem to think Hermione is enough female rep which is such bs. Ron also deserves soooooo much better from fandom. So, so much better. Hagrid deserved to have one of Harry’s kids named after him. Sirius Black just deserved a better life. Snape deserved not to be abused as a child. Harry deserved like basically everything better. The Weasleys deserved not to be poor - do you see where I’m coming from here???

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: A lot of the non-canon ones (H/HR - she’s like a SISTER to him, he LITERALLY SAYS; H/D - It’s implied in that bathroom fight scene Draco was about to use the CRUCIATUS CURSE like WTF also he’s just kinda shitty to Harry and his friends almost the entire series just saying). Obviously if you wanna write AUs where things are completely different, that’s up to you, but they’re just not for me.

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: Jily, Hinny, Romione

a cute, low-key ship: Deanmus is the gay/bi rep we deserved, not unhealthy and possibly one-sided Dumbledore/Grindelwald. I feel like in book 5 at least Luna might’ve had a thing for Ron which is kind of adorable. Although I also like Ginny/Luna. Also I lowkey think Harry might’ve had a crush on both Cho and Cedric at the same time. Teenage years suck.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: I mean Romione seems to be unpopular with a lot of fandom but I love it so sucks to suck

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: I’m pretty much ok on all the canon ships. I mean I wish JKR hadn’t tried to push this whole “Snape loved Lily” thing. More like “Snape was obsessed with Lily and never got over her”.

my favourite storyline/moment: ahhhhh I don’t know, maybe Ron coming back to save Harry and destroy the Horcrux.his insecurities? Such a great moment for his character, and his and Harry’s friendship. I also just love how Harry’s whole outlook on life completely brightened up in HBP during the time he was dating Ginny. It was so lovely to see him happy for once. And I love all of book three, it is my favorite. Also the Moody-is-really-Barty Jr. twist remains one of the greatest of All Time and the movies ruined it but I digress.

a storyline that never should have been written: Like I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been written, I just don’t like how Snape’s backstory has given rise to this idea that he did Nothing Wrong, Ever and it was Lily’s fault for ending the friendship that he turned to the Dark Side. Like fuck off, he was already there and it was not her job to be his “savior” when he sure as hell didn’t want saved. Also all the movies. Damn you, Kloves.

my first thoughts on the show books: This is such a great story and world! I love the characters and I can’t wait to see what happens next! (or something along those lines - I was young, okay?)

my thoughts now: While there’s certainly plenty of issues (lack of rep for many marginalized groups, for example) it still holds up as a really strong series. Must resist temptation to begin yet another reread.

[zemymoon-blog]

Sailor Moon: The Viz Dub - Episode 1

I’m excited for this, you guys. I know I always say how stoked I am to watch the DiC/Cloverway dub because it’s notoriously bad and all, but there’s a part of me that’s hoping the Viz dub is going to be equally bad but for different reasons: I feel like the harder you try to repair something like this and make it not terrible, the unintentionally worse it ends up being. It’s like how Hollywood keeps trying to redeem the DC Universe but they just keep making it worse.

I’ve also never seen a complete dubbed episode of Sailor Moon before. I don’t know if I can handle hearing anyone but Kotono Mitsuishi speak whenever Usagi opens her mouth, so this will be interesting. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind dubbed anime, I just know about this particular show’s reputation when it comes to American adaptations, and I know that it usually involves a lot of people groaning and saying “Just watch the Japanese version”.

Anyway, here we go! “Moonlight Densetsu”, it’s been too long. I haven’t touched the original anime in ages, honestly. I have to say, I kinda missed it!

A voice-over narration is telling me that the name of this episode is “The Crybaby: Usagi’s Beautiful Transformation”, which is not the usual translation of this episode’s title that I’m familiar with, but okay.

From what I remember about the title cards, it’s always Usagi reading the episode title, so I’m going to assume this is Usagi’s dub voice I’m hearing. So she’s not as high-pitched as Kotono Mitsuishi, but then again, who is?

We open on the ever-classic shot of Usagi oversleeping, and immediately we get this gem: “Hi, I’m Usagi Dzoo-kino.”

Excuse me? What the hell did she just say? Usagi Zucchini? Usagi Digiorno? Is Viz retconning Usagi’s name because she eats a lot? I would have gone with Usagi Tortellini personally, but that’s just me.

Ikuko Linguine barks at Usagi to get up and the stereotypical “oh no, I’m late for school!” scene from every anime ever commences, sans toast-in-mouth. Ikuko tells Usagi not to forget her lunch, cueing the dorkiest “thanks, Mom” I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m starting to feel like maybe Viz took the whole “Usagi is clumsy and a dweeb” thing a little too far when voice directing. Isn’t Usagi supposed to be immature but still cute? She’s kinda giving me Kimmie Gibbler vibes here, and not in a good way.

So Usagi books it down the sidewalk and comes across a bunch of shitty kids kicking a cat. Animal abuse aside, why are these kids not in school? Where are their parents?

After chasing them off, Usagi peels a Band-Aid off of the cat’s forehead and somehow it doesn’t rip a bunch of fur off along with it. If this show wasn’t already unrealistic enough, the cat just sits there and lets her peel the Band-Aid off. Usagi chooses to be weirded out by the cat’s crescent moon-shaped mark on its forehead rather than the fact that this is the most passive cat that has ever existed. Seriously, it doesn’t claw her eyes out or anything!

So the cat does a sick backflip and then Usagi runs off to school, loudly wailing and ruining her vocal chords along the way. Her teacher, who also cannot pronounce “Tsukino” correctly, makes Usagi stand outside in the hallway.

I’m going to pause here for a moment so that I can bring up how much I love how stubby Usagi is in the first season. Remember how she looked in Stars? She was like 7 feet tall! Being a Sailor Senshi must provide an excellent source of vitamins and minerals because everyone else gets tall as hell, too. Shit, even Chibi-Usa is WNBA material by the end of SuperS.

Anyway, Usagi stands out in the hallway and her teacher, Haruna, comes out to scold her, and for a brief moment she almost has a Brooklyn accent, which got me super excited because I know Naru in the old dub had a similar accent and I find unnecessary obnoxious accents hilarious and wonderful. Haruna gives Usagi shit for failing a test, which is big talk coming from someone who is leaving their entire class unsupervised so that they can go yell at a 14-year-old for not understanding their schoolwork. Stay in your lane, Haruna.

Naru and Usagi are talking outside when suddenly Umino shows up and HIS VOICE IS SO BAD, YOU GUYS. Like, way worse than I ever could have imagined. It’s really terrible. I can’t even describe it in words. Usagi is so uncomfortable with Umino’s voice that she becomes even more stubby. Naru’s voice is surprisingly bland, which I guess is preferable to “awful”. Maybe it’ll grow on me in time. I hope so, because Naru is the best character in the show (after Usagi’s dad, a.k.a. Yung T$ukino).

Naru brings up Sailor V and Viz had the audacity to replace the classic “SAI - LOR - V” sound bite with what I assume is Sailor V yelling her own name really awkwardly. Did that really need to be dubbed over? It wasn’t even in Japanese.

Speaking of which, why won’t Toei just suck it up and animate Codename: Sailor V already? It’s the perfect story length to be an OVA.

So Usagi pretends not to know who Sailor V is, which I have a hard time accepting because Usagi’s entire life revolves around video games, television, and comic books, and Sailor V is supposedly a hot media franchise in the Sailor Moon universe. There is no way Usagi hasn’t heard of Sailor V before. Even Umino has heard of Sailor V, and Umino doesn’t come across as the type of person who would keep up with media celebrities.

Naru immediately begins sympathizing with some jewel thieves that Sailor V caught because apparently “jewelry is just so beautiful, I can totally understand why someone would want to steal some of it”. Doesn’t your mom own a jewelry store? Don’t you see and handle jewelry basically every day? You’d think someone who is around something all the time would be unfazed by it, and aside from that, wouldn’t someone whose family relies on their jewelry store’s business to survive be a little less sympathetic towards jewel thieves? Whatever Naru.

That high-pitched, early 90′s, “dungeon-level-from-a-SNES-RPG” music is playing to signify the scene switch to the Dark Kingdom, and I’m honestly terrified of what Beryl is going to sound like.

Queen Beryl asks if anyone has found the Silver Crystal yet and I’m relieved to say that her voice is actually pretty decent! On the other hand, the group of monsters responding “No!” is hilarious and awful.

Jadeite shows up and just sounds absolutely aroused at the very thought of being an evil villain. His voice is dripping with uncontrollable lust as he explains that his monster, Morga, is busy collecting human energy, which is a thing evil villains do, because of reasons.

Suddenly the scene changes to Naru’s mother’s jewelry store, which is packed full of people taking advantage of their big sale. I bet I can guess where the human energy is gonna come from!

Enter Usagi and Naru, who are both a little weirded out that Naru’s mom is way too into selling off all this jewelry. Naru’s voice is starting to feel a little too mature for her character in my opinion, though at least she’s actually attempting to voice act, unlike Usagi, who sounds like she is just now reading her script for the first time. You remember in school when you had to read in front of the class and whenever you had to read a character’s dialogue you would put the tiniest bit of effort into sounding like a person emoting, but not too much, and still ultimately sounded like someone who’s just reading text out loud? That’s what Usagi sounds like through this whole episode.

Predictably, Naru’s mom is revealed to the audience as Morga pretty much immediately.

And then she says it. She actually says it. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but these words really come out of her mouth, straight out of a 12-year-old’s fanfic:

“Foolish humans.”

She really says that! And then she mentions a “great ruler”, which I assume is supposed to be Metalia, but the way she says it sounds like she’s in a cult or lives under a dictatorship or something, and it just sounds really awkward.

The jewelry starts sucking all the energy out of the women in the jewelry store, and I have to wonder, if the Dark Kingdom really wanted all this energy from all these people, why wouldn’t they just have Morga give the jewelry away for free? It seems like it’d be more effective, because I’m sure not every visit to this store results in a sale. This leads me to believe that Morga’s actually in it for the financial gain. Morga knows she could just give it all away, but she also knows that she can still make a hefty financial profit from marking down prices due to the larger influx of customers than usual, and with the extra money they’re making from the sale, the Dark Kingdom can start investing in stocks and bonds, and maybe someday they’ll be able to afford to not live in a cave, or at least have some plush carpet put down to brighten up the room, or something.

Naru gets her mom’s attention and suddenly Morga remembers that she should probably stop smirking and saying “foolish humans” in public, and she puts the “normal human woman” act back on. She offers Usagi a big discount on a diamond ring since she’s Naru’s friend, and then Usagi is promptly flattened by a stampede of sale-obsessed shoppers who are continuing to handle and try on expensive jewelry completely unsupervised in a very large store that has no visible security guards, metal detectors, or other employees. See, this is why jewelry stores get robbed in this town! Where’s Sailor V when you need her?

Usagi laments that although she’s pretty spoiled, she’s not that spoiled, and her dad, Big Money Kenji, will never agree to buy her expensive jewelry after the bad grade she got on her test. That’s okay, maybe he’ll buy you an iPad, or a better voice actress. Frustrated, she leaves the store and chucks her balled-up test at a random passerby’s head.

The passerby is understandably annoyed at having garbage pelted at him and calls Usagi “bun-head” in a way that for some reason sounds like he’s implying her head looks like a butt. Well, I mean, it kinda does, from the back. If that wasn’t brutal enough, he un-balls her test and immediately starts making fun of her shitty score and comes dangerously close to blatantly calling her a dumb-ass.

Usagi takes her test back and tells the guy he needs to mind his own business, which, quite frankly, I agree with. What kind of 35-year-old man ridicules a preteen for their test scores? Usagi proceeds to stomp away and says, verbatim, “stupid jerk and his purple pleated pants”, which is the funniest thing I’ve heard all night. She almost sounds offended that he’s wearing purple pleated pants, as if that’s the most problematic aspect of her interaction with him just now.

Usagi looks back at Purple Pleated Pants guy, or PPP, and sees that he’s checking out the jewelry store. I also can’t help but notice that suddenly the entire 50-person crowd that was outside the store 2 minutes ago has vanished. I also can’t help but notice that under any other circumstances, a guy wearing dark sunglasses and scouting a jewelry store in a town that is known for jewelry store robberies would be suspicious, but this guy didn’t smirk and say “foolish humans” to himself while menacing music played in the background, so I guess he can’t be all bad.

Usagi passes Game Center Crown, the local arcade, and notices this poster in the window, which I absolutely love. I wish there was a real-life reproduction of this poster for sale somewhere. I would buy it in a heartbeat. Just look at it! It’s got everything: an anime schoolgirl superhero, random mobsters with laser guns, Space Invaders aliens exploding out of the corner, and a minty green backdrop that just screams “early 90′s bathroom”. I’m a little uncomfortable with the guy inside the arcade, though. Not the guy playing the game, but the guy behind the counter. Who the hell is that?

Seriously, am I the only one creeped out by this dude?! He reminds me of the bartender from The Shining.

After whining about how jealous she is that she doesn’t get to live the high-activity, high-responsibility lifestyle that comes with being a crime fighter, Usagi heads home, but not before she’s spotted by that cat from earlier who apparently has the ability to speak, although not well enough to pronounce “Tsukino” correctly. This cat is relieved to see Usagi, which makes her the only character so far who views Usagi with any emotion besides contempt.

Commercial break!

I wonder if they’ll keep the--no, they dubbed over it. And boy, does it sound awful.

Over at Usagi’s house, which for some reason looks like a Renoir painting (check out Based Kenji’s purple pimpmobile!), Ikuko Frappuccino greets Usagi at the door and asks what grade she got on her test as if she expects anything other than an F. Ikuko seems legitimately surprised and angry that Usagi got a 30, but I mean, surely this can’t be the first time Usagi brought home a low test score. She’s also chronically late for school, forgets her lunch, and easily distracted. Instead of having Usagi tested for potential ADHD, Ikuko makes the rational decision of kicking her middle school-aged daughter out of the house. Usagi cries and bangs on the door to be let back inside, but then Shingo just walks right up to the door and opens it, so the problem isn’t that Ikuko locked the door, the problem is that Usagi is too stupid to use the doorknob and Ikuko knows this. Usagi decides to roundhouse kick the door like a caveman and instantly shatters her kneecap.

And man, Shingo has a shockingly deep voice! His voice is deeper than Jadeite’s, even! And he talks like a TOTALLY COOL DUDE while mocking Usagi and almost sounds like Sonic the Hedgehog while doing it. What the hell kind of 10 year old boy sounds like that?!

Back at the jewelry store, the shoppers continue to have their energy drained away by the jewelry they’re wearing, and...hey, that fat woman was there earlier, too! Damn, lady! You’ve been there all day! Don’t you have other places to be?

Bargain hunters start dropping left and right, and if the spooky purple tint over the store isn’t indication enough that something nefarious is going down, Naru’s mom finally reveals herself to Naru as a monster! Her “evil” laugh is really bad.

Logically, it seems like Sailor V should be around for this sort of thing, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Where is she? She was apparently on the scene recently for that other jewelry store robbery, but today when an actual monster appears, she’s just completely AWOL. Is “actual monster” just where Sailor V draws the line? Honestly, I can’t say I blame her. The monster even has its own Psycho violin screech!

Back at Usagi’s place, Usagi flops around on her bed while talking to herself about how exhausting it is to be bratty and spoiled. I guess the cops finally showed up and made Ikuko Rigatoni bring her pet howler monkey inside. Predictably, Usagi decides against doing her homework and takes a nap instead.

But then the window opens!

I dunno, man...With all these jewelry store heists and robberies going on in this town lately, I’d keep my doors and windows locked at all times.

But as it turns out, the intruder is even worse than a robber. It’s a cat. And it talks.

Usagi seems surprised that ��the cat with the bald spot” is in her room, and her voice actress really over-acts while attempting to sound...I dunno...dismayed? Shocked? Upset? Hungry?

The cat is quick to correct Usagi in that it’s not a bald spot, which sounds like something someone with a bald spot would say. She introduces herself as Luna and thanks Usagi for removing the Band-Aid earlier, but Usagi’s not having it and goes back to sleep. Like any spoiled brat, Usagi remains unresponsive until Luna appeases her with material goods. Luna literally backflips into the air and farts out a shiny piece of jewelry, and somehow this is enough to make Usagi suddenly trust this talking cat entirely.

You know who else is very forthcoming with enchanted jewelry? The Dark Kingdom.

Luna tries to explain to Usagi that some bad shit is going down in Tokyo lately, but Usagi just ignores her and admires herself and her new shiny trinket in the mirror. Then Luna calls her a “guardian” and I just...Ugh. “Guardian” is such an awkward translation and I hate it. When did everyone decide to start using it instead of “soldier”? I even would have taken an untranslated “senshi” instead of “guardian”. Maybe I’m just picky. Anyway, Luna explains to Usagi that she needs to find the other “guardians” and also their princess, and Usagi is surprisingly accepting of this new information compared to how accepting she was of a talking cat 30 seconds ago, which was “not very”.

Luna continues to lecture Usagi and then...Wait a minute! There’s a Sailor V book right on Usagi’s dresser!

Look, see? It’s right there! I knew Usagi was full of shit! She’s known about Sailor V this entire time!

Anyway, Luna tells Usagi to say “Moon Prism Power, Make Up”, which she does, triggering the first of many, many, many transformation sequences throughout this show. Sailor Moon immediately freaks out about having transformed, even though she seemed super stoked about it before she did it. What is there to even be upset about? You even got your own theme music, which is more than you can say about any of the other Sailor Senshi this season. Her voice actress rather unconvincingly yells and whines during a scene where her character is meant to sound confused and upset.

Sailor Moon’s Stranger Danger™ hair bun shields start flashing and she can hear Naru crying out for help, and I just realized that she never, ever seems to have this ability ever again for the rest of the show. Were they just one-use-only, or what? Is that why Luna ends up giving her a communicator device later on? Sailor Moon seems strangely calm about the fact that Naru sounds like she’s in grave danger, and Luna tells her that it’s her duty to go save her friend. Wouldn’t it normally be Sailor V’s duty to fight bad guys, or has Luna just given up on Sailor V doing her damn job?

Across town, Naru is actively being strangled by her mom, because we all know best friends like to get competitive, and Naru is trying to one-up Usagi on who has the worse mom.

Except it’s not really her mom, it’s a monster! A monster with incredible business sense!

Morga’s exact words after this are “I’ve locked your mother up in the basement, and after I’m done killing you...I’m gonna kill her too? And then send the both of you! To the world of the dead!” and it’s delivered so poorly I had to pause the video until I could stop laughing.

But just when all seems lost for Naru, Sailor Moon arrives on the scene!

Sailor Moon introduces herself as a “pretty guardian”, showing unwarranted confidence for someone who makes bad grades and has a head that looks like a butt. Morga responds with, “Are those stupid catchphrases supposed to scare me?” which is something I’ve always wanted a monster in this show to say, but the fact that it’s a dubbed-in line and not part of the original dialogue somehow makes it a little less satisfying.

Morga awakens the zombified customers and they all start attacking Sailor Moon, including Big Mama who is still rocking those emerald earrings. Sailor Moon suddenly realizes that being a crime fighter involves fighting, and she starts to panic, knowing that the only thing she’s ever destroyed was an entire cheesecake in one sitting. Then this one lady comes at her with a broken bottle, like it’s a bar fight! Holy shit!

Luna expresses dismay that Sailor Moon isn’t fighting back, but it’s not like you bothered to teach Sailor Moon any of her attacks, so this is partially your fault too, Luna. Sailor Moon starts crying, sorta, though she mostly just sounds tired.

But then out of nowhere, someone throws a rose at the ground like a dart! I guess this is enough to placate the monster, because it stops trying to kill Sailor Moon.

The source of the rose dart introduces himself as Tuxedo Mask and, in the same breath, tells Sailor Moon that crying isn’t going to solve any of her problems. This immediately turns out to be false, because Sailor Moon starts to cry even more and somehow her Stranger Danger™ hair bun shields amplify her bad voice acting into 100% WEAPONIZED WHINING.

Somehow this causes the army of bargain-hunting zombies to faint, and I guess the one-use-only rule applies to this hair bun power as well, because this is the only time I remember it happening.

Luna finally tells Sailor Moon to throw her tiara and say “Moon Tiara Action”, and sounds surprisingly pissed while doing so! Damn, Luna, what’s gotten into you? The animation sequence for Moon Tiara Action starts and...am I crazy, or is the background for this sequence not usually green? Usagi Fettuccine throws her tiara like a hot pizza pie (a joke that is going to come back and bite me when she actually does throw a pizza in Stars) and hits Morga with it, turning her into dust.

Can I just comment on how huge Naru’s mom’s jewelry store is? Naru’s family must be loaded! Jadeite, who I assume is supposed to be hanging out in the Dark Kingdom instead of actually helping Morga, curses the Youma of Wall Street for failing him. To be fair, she was doing a pretty good job of collecting energy (and money!) until Sailor Moon showed up, and this is literally the first time Sailor Moon has ever appeared anywhere, so how could Morga have predicted that would even happen? Morga’s not really to blame here. If you were so worried about her safety and success, why didn’t you send a couple more monsters to act as backup? I blame Jadeite for this one.

Tuxedo Mask congratulates Sailor Moon on a job well done and tells her he won’t forget what happened here tonight in a tone of voice that sounds really creepy. Instead of immediately calling the police, Sailor Moon decides she’s in love with him, and hearts fly out of her eyes. Wait, what’s the appeal here? You could barely see his face, and he didn’t even do anything aside from throw a rose at the ground. He didn’t even participate in fighting the monster. He literally just showed up in his Abraham Lincoln hat, gave some bad advice, and then jumped out a window. Whatever floats your boat, Usagi.

The next day at school, Naru (who suddenly sounds 20 years older) gushes about the cool dream she had last night: a superhero named Sailor Moon showed up and saved her from a monster! Two other nameless girls apparently had the exact same dream, but I have to wonder...If all of these girls were at the jewelry store last night when Sailor Moon fought the monster, wouldn’t they have been passed out by then? Did they somehow retain some level of consciousness while physically comatose? Not gonna lie, that’s pretty horrifying. Naru tries to get Usagi’s attention, but she’s just so incredibly tired! “Nighty night.” Ah, classic Usagi. Roll credits!

I don’t know, you guys. I was hoping this new dub would be really bad, and it was, but aside from a couple moments here and there, it wasn’t bad enough to be funny. It was just kind of boring. Somehow the stilted voice acting of the protagonist and the strangely-casted voices of a couple major characters just made the entire episode feel really plastic and hollow. All of the charm of the original was lost behind a constant need to talk really slowly/loudly or just howl uncontrollably, and half of the characters just sounded like they were reading off of cue cards. I mean, from an objective standpoint, it’s a better dub than the DiC adaptation from the 90′s, but it’s also a lot less entertaining. I think Queen Beryl’s voice was the only one I actually liked immediately.

So, there you have it! That’s Episode 1 of Sailor Moon with the Viz-dubbed English audio enabled. As bland as the first episode was, I still have high expectations for later episodes when the show has more characters. Hopefully the other Sailor Senshi will sound at least half competent and will drown out the sound of Usagi enough that it’ll actually be a watchable dub. Or maybe it’ll just sound even worse, and it’ll be awful enough that I’ll find it funny. Who knows? Either way, here’s hoping Episode 2 has more to talk about.

Until next time, pasta fans.