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nightwingmyboi · 4 years

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Can I ask why you hate Batman and Robin Eternal? (it was my first DC comic ever, my dad bought it for me in one of his trips even though I didn’t know anything about the batfam or comics in general lmao). It’s been so long since the last time I read it I don’t even remember what it was about (I do remember enjoying it in that moment but it may have also been because it was a gift and the drawings were cool lol)

Aww, that’s very sweet. There are certainly bits of the comic that are enjoyable. I’m pretty sure that I’m actually in the minority when I say that I don’t care for it...but since you asked lol, there are several things about these comics that really rub me the wrong way. This is pretty negative (and way longer than I’d planned), so be warned.

For starters, Dick Grayson was just...not treated well by his family members in these comics. It felt particularly brutal here specifically...I think because Dick would say very harmless things, and his family’s responses in return were so abrupt and unreasonably harsh. Like, Dick says that he’s glad to see Batgirl, and wonders what some kids are doing dressed as Robin...

Batman and Robin Eternal #4

And Batgirl bites his head off. Or, there were times where Dick would just be hanging out in the general vicinity, and people would just take shots at him out of the blue for seemingly no reason.

Batman and Robin Eternal #3

It felt like he could barely breathe without someone criticizing him for it. At one point, Dick confesses that he’s feeling discouraged, and Damian’s response is to punch him in the face.

Batman and Robin Eternal #22

Which is a pretty good summary of the family’s treatment of him in these comics to be honest. Just literally, lashing out at him for zero reason while he just takes it.

One scene in particular that really frustrated me was this one:

Batman and Robin Eternal #5

You know, that other time in this comic series where one of Dick’s family members punches him in the face while he, once again, takes the hit and does nothing to retaliate. Good times.

For context...the big bad in these comics is a villain known as “Mother.” Her speciality is brainwashing. She placed several of her “children” in high-profile positions in order to enact her plans, even managing to infiltrate Spyral. In a message left for Dick, Batman specifically explains that “Anyone could be under her control, Dick. They could be people you know. People you love…they probably will be” (Batman and Robin Eternal #1).

Unlike in Pre-52, Tim’s background is largely a mystery. He’s acting suspiciously. So, Dick takes it upon himself to investigate and ensure that Tim’s not one of Mother’s plants.

On Tim’s side of things, he’s upset that Dick investigated behind his back and found out where he’d secretly had his parents living for their safety. Dick unintentionally brought danger to their doorstep (though, notably, no one was actually hurt). But Tim’s pissed, and punches Dick in the face.

Not gonna lie, this was hard to take. I mean, even if Tim was in the right in this argument (which he lowkey isn’t in my eyes), that still does not make it ok for him to just punch Dick out of the blue when Dick is, as pictured above, just talking to him.

And the hypocrisy that Tim is displaying here is stunning. How he had previously told Dick off for keeping secrets from the family by going undercover with Spyral, when he in fact had a whole secret family tucked away in a corner. How he tells Dick off now for invading people’s privacy, when just earlier in this very comic he had planted surveillance devices in Stephanie’s apartment without her consent.

Batman and Robin Eternal #2

How Tim storms off and goes on a solo mission with Jason because Dick’s supposedly too personally invested and thus compromised, when he just got so emotionally unhinged that he lost his shit at Dick and punched him. Once again, may I just say, simply stunning.

But does Tim ever face any consequences for this behavior? Oh, of course not! Instead, we get Jason joking about how great it is to punch Dick in the face when he is not even fighting back.

Batman and Robin Eternal #7

And everyone collectively piling on to Dick and blaming him, even though he had legitimate concerns. Awesome.

Batman and Robin Eternal #6

Batman and Robin Eternal #7

And Dick just continues to take it. Not once does he stand up for himself. It’s so hard to read him continually get shit on, I’m sorry. And it’s crazy how they treat him this way, and yet still ultimately look to him for encouragement and rely on him to save the day in the end? You hate to see it.

I also didn’t like what they did with Cass. I know, I’m just full of complaints. But they really watered her down. With Pre52 Cass, you could actually describe facets of her personality. She was compassionate, had a very refreshing, sassy sense of humor, etc. She wasn’t just...mysterious action girl who has a dark past and cries occasionally. I mean, there were moments where I could see glimpses of personality (the time she visited the ballet being the main one), but on the whole she punched people when needed, and otherwise just stood there as people talked about and around her. Essentially a prop for the story.

Batman and Robin Eternal #24

Another thing that makes me so uncomfortable (that I couldn’t pin down until I read this post here) is the fact that this comics version of events makes it so that Cass’ own backstory no longer has her as the focus; it’s not about her emotional struggles and journey. By having Cass kill Harper’s mother rather than a random man, it makes the story about Harper, and about Cass gaining Harper’s forgiveness. So...more using Cass as a prop...as an element of someone else’s story in what is supposed to be her origin!

Honestly, I have no idea why Cass would want to stay with the Bat-family in these comics anyway...her previous mentorship with Barbara Gordon is nonexistent. She’s no longer Batgirl. The two people who were once her closest friends treat her horribly.

Batman and Robin Eternal #3

Batman and Robin Eternal #4

As if she’s barely a person. Once again, sooooo hard to read this. Why.

Yeah, I could go on forever nitpicking here. You probably got a sense of it already, but I absolutely despise how Tim is characterized here. Most of the time, he’s an ass. Jason also had pretty inconsistent characterization. And I really don’t like how the whole comic treats Robin like something Batman owns and is meant to benefit from, rather than as something Dick created. I don’t like how Cain was “redeemed” in the end, and that Cass took on the name Orphan instead of Black Bat or Batgirl. Once again, how is she connected to the Bat-family exactly? And I don’t like how Dick’s time as Robin is portrayed.

The existence of this comic...drives me insane...

It’s also the worst time to be doing a “Does Batman treat his kids like child soldiers?” arc considering it is coming on the tail end of Spyral, aka that one thing that Dick did because Bruce beat the shit out of him and forced him to.

Nightwing #30

Looking through Batman’s speech to Dick there...some of the things he says to Dick are so uncomfortably close to what Cain says to Cass. Really horrible parallel there. Why DC.

I really don’t know why Dick was so certain that Bruce didn’t do something shady with Mother, as was implied throughout the comic, when Bruce had pulled the Spyral crap fairly recently. Idk why they didn’t play into that side of things. Like, the fact that this arc ends with Dick comforting Batman about them not being child soldiers:

Batman and Robin Eternal #26

Instead of Batman stepping up to reaffirm to Dick that he was a good partner and a trusted ally when he spent the whole comic being insulted by his family and being told this stuff by his enemies (and flashback!Batman):

Batman and Robin Eternal #8

Batman and Robin Eternal #12

Just sucks. I mean, Dick had just recently sacrificed everything (his family, his friends, his life, his identity, everything) to do as Batman wanted and go undercover, only to hear this over and over? To hear that none of it was enough? That he could never be enough? And Dick never gets reassurance that this isn’t true. This comic is just agonizing in so many ways.

Obviously, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I am not criticizing this to be a killjoy? Just venting. If you enjoy these comics, you are free to continue to do you. But I am never going to like them. And when I see people championing these books as the best the Bat-fam has to offer...oof is that hard to hear lmao! Surely we can do better than all this.

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agentnico · 4 years

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021) Review

It all started with Sonic’s teeth. Ever since fans successfully bullied a studio into reanimating their titular hedgehog character after the abomination shown in the first trailer, fans realised that rallying together (on Twitter) can make a difference. So you’d think it would mean we could all come together to restore world peace and get rid of racism, injustice, poverty, war and negativity of all kind? Nope, nope it does not. But at least we get a better version of a bad DC movie that came out in 2017. I mean, baby steps I guess.

Plot: Fuelled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman's selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists newfound ally Diana Prince to face an even greater threat. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to recruit a team to stand against this newly awakened enemy. Despite the formation of an unprecedented league of heroes -- Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and the Flash -- it may be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.

I recall my younger simpler self in 2017 at the early age of 20 soon to be 21, sitting down and watching the new Justice League film with zero to no expectations, as by that point the DC Extended Universe was a trainwreck and was a franchise that was literally falling apart before out unblinking red hay fever filled eyes. However, after watching Justice League I was baffled at the fact that I still managed to be disappointed after having zero expectations! With zero expectations this film took me into the minuses, and we all know I’m not great at mathematics so boy are we in the danger zone when we hit the minuses! Looking back at my review of the film back then, I used extreme yet fitting comments like “generic”, “predictable” “messy” and plain “dogsh*t”. Which is what it was. 2017′s Justice League is exactly how I’d imagine a dog’s poop would look if it was turned into an abstract film! It was truly abysmal. After that I thought I’d never have to talk about this film again. How wrong I was. But, in a rare turn of tables, I am glad that I was wrong...

A little history lesson first. Alright, settle down kids, settle down.... Rob, put the paper plane down, do not throw it, I said DON’T THROW IT! NO! Stop! Stupid child!! Headteacher’s office right now! Also, say hi to your mother for me, okay? I’m having brunch with her on Saturday and you better not be there as you should be doing your homework watching the 4 hour cut of Justice League and questioning your life choices!! Anyway, now let’s have ourselves a history lesson. The topic is - What In The Flying Fudge Happened Behind-The-Scenes Of Justice League For DUMMIES: Condensed Edition. A really condensed version as honestly none of us have the attention span to read loads and I’m probably losing the vast majority of you due to this overlong rambling session. So anyway, to the last couple of readers left, here we go! Following the success of Man of Steel, Warner Bros. gave Zack Snyder the reigns to oversee and create a DC cinematic universe to rival the success of Marvel. And so came Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, which turned out to be a bit of a hodgepodge, receiving mixed to negative reviews and though was a box office success, earned diminishing results to what Warner Bros. originally anticipated. However, by the time Batman V Superman released, Zack Snyder was already hard at work on the big superhero team up film Justice League (which was meant to set up many characters and future films for the DCEU) with a lot of filming already underway, so Warner Bros. couldn’t particularly pump the breaks on it by that point, even though they evidently lost trust in the Snyder formula. To be honest, at that point I too lost trust in Snyder’s vision and the DCEU as a whole, but my opinion doesn’t class for a single dime, whilst the opinions of Warner Bros. executives make millions, so there aren’t any hard feelings on my behalf for them not enquiring on my thoughts. Anyway, midway through production Zack Snyder was hit with a family tragedy with his daughter committing suicide, so Snyder naturally had to depart the project to be with his family during this grieving time. Warner Bros. had the option to pause production and await for Snyder’s return, or progress at their own accord. Naturally they decided to do their own thing cause they are a business and want that dollar dollar bill baby!! So they hired Joss Whedon who was riding fresh off the success of two Avengers movies and obviously had experience in cinematic universes and such, to rework the Justice League movie by condensing it into a 2 hour film (from the over 4 hour material that Snyder shot) and reshoot scenes to fit the smaller runtime. So you cannot particularly blame Whedon for taking out so many great scenes as he had a contract to fulfil with Warner Bros, but then you look at the many forced jokes and unnecessary reshot scenes and you realise how self-indulgent Joss Whedon was during filming, as he basically was spitting on everything Snyder did and was trying to do his own thing. Low and behold, the mess that is the 2017 movie is created, where its the visions and creative minds of two director with evidently different styles clashing and not really mixing well at all, and as such we have a messy movie that doesn’t really make sense and is a bit of a middle finger to DC fans and honestly everyone and all. Also, there was that little aspect of Henry Cavill’s deformed upper lip due to the fact that during reshoots he had a moustache that he’d grown and was contractually obligated to have for his Mission Impossible role, so the visual effects team had to digitally remove it in post production and the result is, well, see for yourself...

Yes, they made the dashing handsome my-sexuality-questioning Henry Cavill look stupid, and that is UNFORGIVABLE. Funny, yes, very funny but unforgivable!! So for this and many other reasons the 2017 film turned out horribly. Then after that many months later, Zack Snyder and cast and crew members began teasing of this mythical version of the movie that was befit of Snyder’s original vision. You see, apparently before he left the project, Snyder actually filmed everything he wanted and it was only awaiting to be reworked with visual effects and edited properly, but then Whedon came in with his scissors and cut everything mercilessly with a cheeky grin and his ginger beard. Speaking of his ginger beard, is Joss Whedon Irish? Or has Irish roots? Honestly, I would Google it, but wait, I don’t think I really care. So anyway, Snyder still had all of his filmed scenes saved on his ridiculously oversized hard drive just waiting to be looked at again. This is where the fandom did its magic by creating a Twitter hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut and began spam posting for Warner Bros. to let Zack Snyder release what he originally intended to. Honestly, who would have thunk it, but this actually worked!! Warner Bros. allowed this, and not only that, but gave Snyder an additional $70 million to finish up the visual effects as well as to film a couple of additional sequences and gave it the prestigious honour to debut it on HBO Max, so as to boost the subscriber rating on Warner Bros. new streaming service. And here we are.

Honestly, I thought seeing this Director’s Cut of sorts wouldn’t bring much to the table as I didn’t believe that a film that was so broken had originally been in any way good. After finishing this 4 hour Snyder vision I must admit though that I was pleasantly surprised. Completely baffled by the studio and Joss Whedon, but really happy for Zack Snyder. The guy was fighting for it and finally was able to accomplish and bring out his true original vision, and though Zack Snyder’s Justice League has its flaws, its so much better than what we got in 2017, and in fact is a soaring science fiction sci-fi epic that literally feels epic!! It takes time establishing the characters and every single plot point as well as building out this rich mythology of this world of the DC Extended Universe, and so as you move into the second half of the film, there’s a feeling of pay off. You actually care about the characters and understand the plot points and it doesn’t feel rushed. Its truly astounding that there are producers out there who thought it was a good idea to get rid of all of that and instead bring out whatever the heck Joss Whedon did with the 2017 version. Look, I quite enjoy Joss Whedon’s work, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel to Cabin in the Woods and his work on Marvel, the guy obviously has a talent, but also he obviously does not belong to the dark and brooding style of DC. Zack Snyder on the other hand, though makes his mistakes, truly embraces the epic feel of the DC material. And it seems once you give Snyder enough time and space, he can actually bring out something like this:

The main characters are all given so much more to do, or at least those that got side-lined in the 2017 version are given more to do here. One of my complaints with the original was how pointless the League turns out to be. Basically in the theatrical version the main team all end up being useless and only once Superman shows up he saves everyone’s asses and literally does EVERYTHING. Might as well have called the film Man of Steel 2 (feat. Justice League). However in this new version, every main character serves a purpose. Well most of them do at least. Cyborg and Flash are much more compelling characters with more layers and backstory, and in fact are a prime reason to defeating the great evil in the end. You now understand why Cyborg actor Ray Fisher was pissed at Joss Whedon, as the guy literally got rid of his best stuff. Superman strikes a cool black suit and is still powerful, however as the finale shows, he isn’t all-powerful and does need the help of the rest of the team. Wonder Woman gets a lot more to do in this theatrical cut, and in fact this is probably Gal Gadot’s best performance as Wonder Woman and she really shows herself as a powerful female superhero! Aquaman’s role stays largely unchanged, however to be honest Jason Momoa’s character was one of the only ones who didn’t suffer in the theatrical cut. That’s unsurprising seeing as Jason Momoa is such a naturally cool dude! A big panda that is friendly in real life, but when necessary can turn into a roaring bear. To be honest, the only League member that ends up a bit pointless is actually Batman. He still serves a purpose in the film in that he’s the one who assembles the team, but otherwise the rest of the group is so overpowered compared to him that in the end you do kind of think that he doesn’t really belong there. Still, Ben Affleck is great in the role and it’s a shame we won’t see much of him past Flashpoint film that will be released in the next few years.

There are a lot of characters in this film and one can still say the movie is overstuffed, but also seeing as the movie was originally intended to spring board the DCEU properly, all these teases are actually welcome. There are an abundance of cameos, and to be honest so many characters are so well cast that you do end up wishing that Snyder was given the opportunity to make his entire Justice League planned trilogy, but nevertheless at least we have this. There are truly an abundance of cool appearances here, from the menacing villain Darkseid (played by Ray Porter) to Willem Dafoe doing what Dafoe does best, only in this case underwater and I’m certain that’s gonna span many comparison memes with The Lighthouse. Joe Morton as Cyborg’s dad is given a lot more to do here and in fact is pivotal towards building up Cyborg into the important character that he is. There’s also a cameo from Jared Leto’s Joker, who in some ways redeems himself after his appearance in Suicide Squad. Also, we need to talk about Steppenwolf, who’s the main baddie in this film. In the theatrical cut the guy was the most generic one-note villain who also looked like a PS2 character. It was honestly embarrassing the way he was animated. Luckily in this version he’s been put through enough Skyrim mods to looks much more intimidating and is also given a better motivation. As we find out, the reason he does what he does is because he wants to go home. He’s been banished and he simply wants to earn his place back home, so it’s actually kind of sweet. Steppenwolf is a sweetie. I mean, yeah, he wants to destroy half of the world to fulfil his dream, but hey, haven’t we all taken something extreme measures to get what we want?

The film is far from perfect though. At the end of the day, the movie is just about a guy hunting down a bunch of magical boxes. That was the premise of the theatrical cut and its the same here too. Yes, there is more substance and gravitas to the proceedings, but at the end of the day the story doesn’t really surprise much. And with the entire thing running at 4 hours, it is definitely too long and there is the element where there is simply too much in this thing. Also visually, though the movie has plenty of gorgeous shots and Zack Snyder’s signature slow motion sequences are on full display here, there are still many sequences where the CGI and green screen are super obvious and look really fake. That being said there’s still so much visual goodness in this, and also I have to mention Junkie XL’s new music score that does reiterate the epic feel of this movie, in comparison to Danny Elfman’s weak uninspiring notes in the theatrical cut.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a massive surprise and completely changes the perception of what we saw in the original 2017 theatrical cut. It’s a sprawling massive adventure that’s a dream come true for any comic book fan. It shows how vital film editing is, and how important it is to have a cohesive plan when making a movie. Gone too are the silly forced jokes, and though there is still some humour here, it feels more grounded and fit of the setting and scenario. This is Snyder’s vision through and through, and though at times it is clunky, it overall is incredible to behold, as it’s this one guy’s mind and his love for the DC lore. It’s a credible achievement, and I’m actually sentimentally happy for Snyder that he finally managed to complete this. He even during the credits dedicates this to his daughter Autumn that passed away, and I found that to be truly bittersweet. Justice has indeed been served.

Overall score: 7/10

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pokelolmc · 4 years

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10 Danny Phantom Episodes with Good Concepts that Sorely Disappointed Me: “The Ultimate Enemy” (Part 2)

Alright, here I am, everyone—part two of my critical analysis on “The Ultimate Enemy”, and how its faulty writing let down a good episode idea. For those stumbling across this for the first time, I am in the process of composing an analytical list of ten Danny Phantom episodes whose concepts I liked, but didn’t like the execution of. “The Ultimate Enemy” is the first on this list. Due to the size of my complaints with the episode, I’ve split my arguments into multiple categories across multiple posts; I highly suggest you start from the beginning with part 1 here before moving onto this post. It covered the main introduction, and Category A of my problems with the episode: the plot points that were primarily irrelevant to Dan’s character.

For those of you continuing from the first part, I apologise for this part being overdue. I proposed I would edit and upload part two roughly a day after part one, but those days dragged on due to constant re-editing and problems with my mental health. Parts three and four shall probably take longer than a few days to edit and upload as well, as I discovered arguments in the essay that needed massive overhauls before posting. I can guarantee they’re coming eventually (the whole thing essay is fully written, point-wise); I need to rework and trim the fat off some paragraphs.

Without further ado, this post will take a look at everything I’ve chucked into Category B—my issues with Dan’s characterisation, and how what the episode showed us about who deserved responsibility for Dan contradicted what it told us about how Dan was created.

(Also, because of my saltiness seeping in when I was writing, my captions for the images got a little too snarky for an analytical essay, but I am too tired of re-editing this section to remove them. Hopefully, they’ll serve as humour; if not, I apologise.)

1. The episode incorrectly portrayed Danny as the only one responsible for Dan’s existence, and for the wrong reasons (the wrong events in the timeline). Upon scrutiny of the actual sequence of events that led to Dan’s creation, the direct responsibility for Dan’s birth was either an even split between Danny and Vlad, or slightly more Vlad’s fault (depending upon the interpretation of the event that did actually cause Dan).

(Spoiler alert: No. No, it was not.)

The episode initially chose to establish Danny cheating on the CAT as the cause for Dan’s existence. While this was partially, indirectly true (since it set up the chain of events that led to Dan’s creation), it was not the event that directly caused Dan—yet, the episode treated it as a highly important tipping point, close to the point of no return that led to Dan. Looking at Dan’s backstory from the information Future Vlad gave (as dubious as it was), and working backwards, it was clear that Danny cheating on the test was not the vital “point of no return” by any means. Neither was the explosion at the Nasty Burger, for that matter (which the episode treated as the point of no return after Dan cheated on the CAT in Danny’s place, which required the episode to postpone the narrative stakes of preventing Dan’s creation to the Nasty Burger fight).

(Well...not exactly--it didn’t ruin Dan’s future, but it did ruin Danny’s. There’s a distinction.)

Kick-starting the entire chain of events that set up the eventual moment of Dan’s birth was not synonymous with directly creating Dan, and blaming the causality for Dan’s existence on Danny cheating (the leap of logic that “Danny became evil in the future because he cheated on a test”) or even his loved ones dying at the Nasty Burger was incorrect.

To demonstrate the argument, I’ll shift to an in-universe hypothetical:

Imagine yourself in Clockwork’s shoes: an “evil future version of Danny” has been created, and you have to prevent Dan’s existence by searching through the events that led his creation to find as many openings between key events as possible, in order to change one and subsequently avert all the events (including Dan’s creation) that followed.

To lay it out in full, the chain (separating the events based on intervention windows) was as follows: (1) Danny cheated on the CAT -> (2) Mr. Lancer met with Danny’s parents at the Nasty Burger to discuss it -> (3) they (including Sam, Tucker and Jazz) died in the Nasty Burger explosion -> (4) a grief-stricken Danny went to Vlad in Wisconsin -> (5) Danny requested that Vlad numb his emotional pain -> (6) Vlad split Danny’s ghost half from his human half—only for the ghost half to immediately pull out Vlad’s own and fuse with it into Dan.

Dan’s existence being the result of (what was essentially) a disastrous line of falling dominoes made his origin more sinister, but also highly easy to prevent (at least, without taking into account the mess caused by the story’s poorly thought out use of time travel, which I’ll explain later in section C). After all, the more complex a system (the more elements necessary for a system to successfully operate and achieve a desired result), the more weak spots it has—as meddling with one part can affect all the other parts and lead the entire operation to fail.

Utilising any of the intervention room between the events in “The Ultimate Enemy’s” alternate timeline would prevent Dan’s entire existence. The only event, therefore, that could be labelled the direct cause of Dan’s existence was the event that immediately resulted in Dan’s birth, and the most dire pivotal point—which rendered Dan inevitable—was the event directly before that. The event of Dan’s creation itself (or the cause of Dan) was event number six—the removal of both Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves using the Ghost Gauntlets, and their subsequent fusion with each other. The event which led to this—event number five, which was Danny’s request for Vlad to remove his emotional pain—was the direct catalyst for the procedure, and therefore the important “point of no return” leading to Dan that the episode tried to make Danny cheating on the CAT (and once that was over, the act of losing his loved ones) out to be. (Technically speaking, it was one of possibly two options for the event upon which Dan’s existence truly hinged—number four was also a likely candidate).

Danny cheating on the CAT was not the cause of Dan (even if it set the eventual stage), because there were numerous ways to interfere after the incident of Danny cheating the CATs and still prevent Dan from existing. Clockwork could’ve interfered between events one and two, by changing Mr. Lancer’s parent-teacher meeting location to anywhere safer than the Nasty Burger, so no one died (he could’ve utilised Jazz to sway Mr. Lancer, perhaps—it’s safe to assume Clockwork was aware of her knowledge on Danny’s secret, and she was the one Mr. Lancer approached about Danny cheating). He could’ve interfered between events three and four—had Danny’s loved ones still die at the Nasty Burger but convinced Danny himself not to go to Vlad. He could’ve popped in between events four and five and convinced Danny, right after moving in with Vlad, to not ask for a way to numb his emotional pain. However, Vlad proved to be a dubious source in the flashback of Dan’s origin story, and was typically too much of a wild card, so preventing Danny from moving in with Vlad at all is likely the safest option.

Ergo, either event four or five should’ve been treated as the important point that led to Dan’s existence. On top of that, Vlad’s role in event six proved he was partially responsible for Dan’s creation, but the rest of the episode outside of the flashback neglected this fact in favour of pushing the “Dan was all Danny’s fault” message.

(Begin Vlad’s unreliable narratorhood in 3...2...1...)

However, Future Vlad behaved like an unreliable narrator of the “Dan’s creation” flashback, so his explanation of events shouldn’t be taken at face value. Assuming the basic outline of events was trustworthy, however, the episode indicated to us that Vlad was roughly equally as responsible for Dan’s creation as Danny. He conceded to Danny’s desire to escape his emotions and responded with the halfa-splitting operation that caused Dan’s fusion.

He stretched the reality of the event to Present Danny when he exaggerated the delivery of some (if not most) of his narration lines in the flashback. It was most blatantly clear in the line where he inflated his importance to Danny after the tragedy, “With nowhere else to go, you came to me—the only person left on the planet who could possibly hope to understand your situation.” He verbally emphasised the words ‘me’ and ‘possibly’, and the phrases “the only person left on the planet” and “could possibly understand” were hyperbole in their own right. Another was the line, “No more painful human emotions to drag you down,” where he spoke the italicised words with overt disdain for Danny’s emotions. It could be interpreted simply as Vlad’s typical habit of speaking in a dramatised manner, rather than trying to make himself look good to Danny by stretching the truth. However, even if choosing to interpret Vlad’s delivery as the latter, he still skewed his recount through vagueness and omission in the literal content of his narration (when linked to the visuals that ran alongside his lines).

According to Future Vlad, Danny asked for his emotional pain to be taken away; and Vlad removed his ghost half to “[honour] [his] wishes,” while the shot changed from Vlad’s sympathetic face at the grieving Danny to the procedure with the Ghost Gauntlets. Future Vlad never explicitly stated whether it was Danny or him that decided removing Danny’s ghost half was the course of action to take, Vlad only explained that Danny “wanted to make the hurt go away”, and then the shot cut to Vlad removing Danny’s ghost half with the only explanation that he was acting in accordance with that wish.

On top of not explicitly saying whose idea it was, (though, with Vlad’s knowledge and experience with halfa research far exceeding Danny’s, it was almost certainly his) the episode did not explain how his logic leapt from “remove Danny’s emotional pain” to “remove Danny’s ghost half”, which was an insensible method to solve Danny’s problems.

The “no more human emotions” line indicated that his intention behind the procedure was to remove Danny’s human emotions, yet he knew that the procedure entailed removing Danny’s ghost half.

It made no sense, in universe, for Vlad to competently assume that removing Danny’s ghost half from him would work to remove an emotionality rooted in his human half (the episode overall, by the way Dan referred to human emotions and sentimentalities as a “humanity” he gave up, implied that it intended to frame the emotional attachment to Danny’s loved ones as part of his human half). If it could be chalked up to an external fault, like the lack of clear research into the procedure’s outcome, and not Vlad’s failure to realise the logical inconsistency, the episode needed to give evidence of this. Without that information, the only feasible assumptions were either that he wasn’t making any sense in-universe, he was supposed to be sensible but the episode’s writing didn’t make sense, or he had an ulterior motive for convincing Danny into going through with the operation. Either way, it was yet another part of Dan’s creation that Vlad was responsible for, not Danny, and the episode’s message was illogical to contradict this.

Through potentially exaggerating his sympathy for the alternate Danny in his verbal intonation, and blatantly failing to mention the details of why he chose removing Danny’s ghost half to fix a “human” problem, Vlad told his version of Dan’s birth in a way that would minimise his moral fault in the incident to Present Danny. His only logically feasible motivation for this was to hide further moral accountability for Dan’s creation than what we already saw in the face-value version of the flashback.

To summarise this entire sub-category of arguments, the episode was wrong to pin Dan’s existence on Danny cheating on the CAT (and even on losing his family, as the second half of the episode changed gears to), rather than his desire to remove/escape his emotions (even if the deaths resulted in the pain that he wanted to remove in the first place, which I shall explain later in Section D). It was also mistaken to portray Danny as the primary cause of Dan, rather than acknowledge that Vlad was equally (if not more), responsible than him.

Additionally, the fact that Vlad, as an in-universe character, tried to minimise his moral role/accountability in the physical causality of Dan’s creation by skirting around the truth in his retelling was something that the episode itself should’ve acknowledged or called out, through more reliable information from a third-person or other characters’ perspectives such as Danny, Dan’s or Clockwork’s—but it didn’t.

2. On top of physical responsibility for Dan, the episode was wrong to pin Danny with the moral blame and identity of Dan. It treated the two of them as essentially the same person, and portrayed Dan as just a Danny from the future who turned evil because of a combination of Danny’s potential evilness (potential to do “selfish/evil” things) and tragic circumstances. Considering Dan’s backstory, it made no sense for Danny to be the sole owner of either Dan’s immorality or identity/personhood.

Dan’s backstory told us that physically Danny wasn’t solely responsible for his creation, but the rest of the narrative still deeply connected Dan to Danny alone by treating Dan as what would happen if Danny let his pre-existing moral flaws take over him—that Dan’s villainy (or evil nature) came from Danny.

Clockwork referred to Danny Phantom as “grow[ing] up into the most evil ghost on the planet” in the cold open (which, given that Dan was a product of a fusion, was blatantly false.)

“The Ultimate Enemy” attempted to build up the idea that Danny had the potential for evil, and that Dan was him realising his own evil, in the scene where the trio entered Clockwork’s lair. As they watched Dan’s carnage through the observation window, Danny excitedly admired Dan’s Ghostly Wail, completely oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, and Sam called him out for not reading the room.

(Though, Sam’s condemnation of Dan’s villainy was extremely underwhelming—calling a world-destroyer and (presumable) mass murderer just “kind of a jerk” in a snarky tone did not do the severity of Dan’s actions any justice.)

When they confronted Clockwork, Danny scoffed at him to find just “one” evil thing he’d done. The shot then immediately focussed onto “examples” of Danny’s “evil” in the time window—first, Jazz finding out Danny was going to cheat the CATs (which, as established in point one, was not as morally significant as the episode tried to portray it—that shall be further elaborated later in Section D). After Tucker sassed at Clockwork, “[I] bet you can’t find two!”, the time window changed to Dan standing atop his destruction in the alternate future, and Clockwork replied, “How about two thousand?”—implying that Clockwork was referring to what Dan did in the future as at least part of the (supposedly numerous) evil things Danny did (or would do). This made no sense unless the episode was implying that Dan’s immorality was Danny’s own. However, this implication was incorrect, leaving Clockwork to state that he had seen countless instances of Danny Fenton/Phantom being evil with no valid examples to show for it whatsoever.

Dan’s atrocities had no weight as examples of Danny’s morality flaws due to the fact that Dan’s evil was not primarily Danny’s to begin with, creating a feedback loop of invalidation; evidence for the argument was invalid because its own validity was dependent on the validity of the very argument it was supposed to be supporting.

(Danny, despite the episode’s reluctance to be fair to him with its accusations of his “potential villainy”, was actually justified in asking this of Clockwork. You know there’s something wrong with your story when your self-centred, short-sighted teenage protagonist is righter than your supposedly all-knowing Master of Time in this situation.)

(Cheating on a test is not evil, Clockwork, try again.)

(Nope, sorry, Dan’s evil is not Danny’s “evil”; your argument is invalid.)

(I typically put the “improvements/fixes” part at the end of each point, but for the sake of its direct relevance to the aforementioned example, I’ll put it here to avoid structural confusion in the essay:

“The Ultimate Enemy”, for some reason decided that its reason/foreshadowing of Danny’s potential for evil had to be self-contained; ironically, almost all (sans a small few) of the episode’s examples of Danny’s moral flaws weren’t “evil” at all, and they would’ve been far better off using actual events of Danny showing potentially villainous traits from previous episodes. Danny may have been justified in asking Clockwork to name one evil thing he’d done, because that accusation had no basis at that point, but Clockwork’s response should’ve been to show previous instances in the series where Danny took advantage of others with his powers.

For example, imagine if in the episode, when Danny demanded, “Name one evil thing I’ve done!”, Clockwork’s time window had switched to moments like the end of “Maternal Instincts”, where he manipulated Vlad into lowering his guard, or his acts of overshadowing Dash for petty revenge in “Splitting Images” or “Reign Storm”? Not only were they more legitimate examples of morally corrupt characteristics—tricking people for his own gain/victory and abusing his powers to the detriment of others—it would’ve given such a significant episode in the series more continuity with the previous ones. In fact, the examples in two of those previous episodes resulted in Vlad pointing out that Danny was becoming more like him, as a way to use Vlad’s relationship as Danny’s nemesis/character foil for the sake of tension. “The Ultimate Enemy” could’ve used those examples in its own narrative to turn Dan into a proper payoff of this long-term build-up of Vlad’s whole “We’re not so different, you and I” thing going on with Danny.

Also, it would add to the thematic irony of Dan being a fusion of Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves, if that aspect of his backstory was not altered in a rewrite of TUE.)

Vlad owned Dan’s evil nature equally as much as (if not more than) Danny because Dan was also half-Vlad. However, the episode neglected to acknowledge this outside of a few seconds on Dan’s birth in the flashback. While explaining the scene of the two ghost halves fusing into Dan, Future Vlad’s most honest lines of narration (because they straightforwardly confessed he was morally accountable for Dan to Danny, and thus had no motivation to be a lie) explained that, “My [ghost half’s] evil side overwhelmed you”. This implied that the reason Dan turned out evil in the first place was that Vlad’s evil took over Danny’s mind during the fusion.

Given that we trust Vlad’s line, Vlad (or Plasmius, as Vlad’s ghost half) deserved most of the accountability for Dan’s lust for destruction and lack of a moral compass, not Danny. So, calling Dan “Danny’s evil future self” was only accurate in the literal sense of “this is what remained of Danny’s mind/existence in the future—his ghost half—even though it’s only a part of a larger fusion with another ghost, and this fusion is evil”. Dan was not a warning that “Danny was going to turn evil”, because Danny was not the primary source of Dan’s villainy.

In regards to overall personal identity, rather than just morality, Dan was also not “Danny’s evil future self” on account of the fact that he was not “Danny’s future self”, period. He shouldn’t have been an “older Danny” (or essentially the same person as Danny but older and evil), according to his backstory’s statement that he was half-Phantom, half-Plasmius. Yet, for some asinine reason, Dan only identified himself personally as “Danny” for the duration of the episode (without mention of Vlad).

After travelling to the past under Danny’s guise, Dan referred to Danny’s bedroom and face in the mirror as his own.

(Whoops--another image where I goofed the subtitles, this time in formatting...and MS Paint’s lack of layers makes redoing it an unnecessary pain. Sorry about that.)

When he met Sam and Tucker in the future, he explained his cold response to seeing them again as a result of “[surrendering his] human half a long time ago”. His singular human half. Not plural…because even Dan himself wanted to pretend that he wasn’t half Vlad, for some reason.

Perhaps it could be chalked up to people behaving differently in different social contexts; in that case, it was understandable that—even if he was part-Vlad—his Danny-side and memories influenced him the most in front of Danny’s friends…but that alone didn’t justify him stating that he only had one human half as a fact. The only other option that made in-universe sense was that it was a deceit/falsehood on Dan’s part, and therefore knowingly untrue. Perhaps Dan didn’t want to admit that he had more than one human half to Sam and Tucker—because he was not obliged to divulge that information to them—or that he preferred to mentally distance himself from Vlad’s human half because the latter was still alive, and separate from Dan. However, it was still untrue to link Dan and Danny together as people, but not Vlad, with the idea of only owning Danny’s human half.

The assumption that Dan was a future, evil Danny in person (and not also part-Vlad in person, or a new person from either of them entirely) implied that the fusion resulted in Plasmius’s mind giving his evil to Danny’s and then disappearing into the aether. It implied that a fusion of two people resulted in a powered-up being that was solely one of them psychologically, in order to purport that Danny (or, at least Phantom as his ghost half) was still Danny in sense of self for the last ten years in the alternate future. This contradicted the more logically valid implication that Plasmius’s mind or identity still existed as a component inside Dan, and Dan was at least both Danny and Vlad mentally.

Vlad explained in the flashback, “[Vlad’s] evil ghost half mixed with [Danny’s].” The general interpretation of “mixing” implied that the two ghost halves merged together into a new being and their traits and minds blended together. His identity should, theoretically, be either a half-and-half joining of the two halfas, or a whole new person with Vlad and Danny’s ghost halves as mere fusion ingredients. Ten years of existence and experience after the initial fusion would also, theoretically, give Dan enough time to develop this new mixed mind into his own individual sense of self beyond who/what either of Danny or Vlad were as people (prior to the ghost half fusion). In that case, Dan was not Danny’s “future self” in identity, and had little reason to identify Danny’s face, room and family as “his old [life]” (or, at least his only one).

The next most obvious theory (about Dan’s psychological makeup as a fusion) is that one half was more dominant than the other during the fusion, leading to Dan to become primarily just one of them in identity. That dominant one had to have been Danny, based on how Dan identified himself in the episode, but that wouldn’t make sense. Phantom taking full control of the fusion and assimilating Plasmius into himself required that a grief-stricken fourteen year old was somehow capable of winning against a more experienced forty-something in a battle of minds, thoroughly enough to the point of absorbing the latter. Considering that Phantom was mentally weak enough to be the one “overwhelmed” by Plasmius’s evil (a single facet of Plasmius’s larger mind) almost immediately, that hypothesis seems unlikely. The notion of Phantom overwhelming Plasmius in the fusion to gain dominance, and Plasmius being the one to overwhelm him to turn him evil, contradict each other. Ergo, Dan being a mix of both Phantom and Plasmius was the most likely (and sensible) outcome of the fusion.

In that case, the episode was thoughtless and inaccurate to treat Dan as “Danny’s future self who became a villain”. Dan was not inherently linked to Danny in either the majority of his morality or his identity, due to the part Vlad played in Dan’s creation, and his mental component in Dan’s fusion.

2.5.A notable counterpoint, for the sake of not one-sidedly flipping all of the fault for Dan onto Vlad:

To be fair—as the idea of solely blaming Vlad would also be inaccurate to what Dan’s origin story showed—I should acknowledge a piece of evidence explicitly indicating that Danny still contributed some of his own darkness to Dan’s villainy, albeit less than Vlad. Once separated from his human half, Phantom ripped out and fused with Vlad’s ghost half of his own volition, all with a malicious grin on his face.

However, there was no clear motivation or reason for the separated Phantom to fuse with Plasmius (the physical cause of Dan that Danny/Phantom could be blamed for) —in fact, it made no sense for there to be any premeditated intention for Phantom to fuse with him, since he couldn’t have known that fusion with another halfa’s isolated ghost half was even possible at that point; it was an untried, never-seen-before method, hardly likely to mentally occur to Danny in the first place. Phantom resorted to attacking Vlad, stealing the Ghost Gauntlets and pulling out Plasmius for some unknown reason, but ghost-half fusion could not have sensibly been it. The Gauntlet attack simply demonstrated that Phantom took ill-willed pleasure from the act of hurting or depowering Vlad. After removing Vlad’s ghost half, fusing with it was the second step. Danny could be held responsible for his ghost half explicitly harbouring malice/potential evil in the attack (and his ghost half’s response to being removed was part of Danny’s responsibility in Dan’s creation), but that wouldn’t explain the crucial next step of the fusion itself.

This is where my ideas for potential improvements for the story of “The Ultimate Enemy” come in, as the exact extent of Danny’s contribution to Dan (in physical responsibility and mentality) wasn’t entirely clear—outside of this explicit evidence of Phantom’s facial expression. This uncertainty leaves the room for a do-over of the narrative to ask a lot of questions about how physically and morally accountable for Dan’s birth and evilness Danny actually was.

We could assume implicit evidence that Danny had some sort of inner darkness which contributed to Dan, even if only the minority, from the possibility that his grief at the loss of his loved ones (as well at helplessness at not being able to do anything to save them, and low evaluation of his own worth as a person) led to buried malice, anger and a desire for power to compensate.

Based on how splitting halfas apart worked in “Identity Crisis”, it made sense that Phantom had a sense of hostility and motivation to hurt Vlad once separated from Danny in “The Ultimate Enemy”. When Danny was split in half the first time, the halves took on the mental characteristics of the whole Danny’s momentary intents and desires. When Danny wanted his ghost half to do all the hero work so his human half could have the time to have fun, his ghost half took on an exaggerated hero personality and his human half an irresponsible teenager personality. Assuming this logic consistently determines the split halves’ personalities each time, and the fact that Danny’s desires in the alternate future revolved around escaping his emotional pain, it was logical that one of the split halves inherited a condensed majority of Danny’s pain (in this case, the ghost half), while the other half (the human one) was innocently blind to most of Danny’s grief and self-hatred—and that the suffering half acted out aggressively or malevolently as a result.

However, since we could logically assume that fusing with Plasmius was not the initial reason Phantom removed him from Vlad (and we assume the fusion was a spur-of-the-moment decision that occurred to him afterwards), why did he remove Plasmius in the first place? Was he intending to spite Vlad after all the grief he caused Danny in their rivalry? Was it a sense of inferiority telling him to tear Vlad down from his superior position? Was it to avoid letting Vlad stay a possible physical threat to Danny? There is such a large gap here, one could brainstorm countless possible motivations.

Furthermore, if that only covered his motivation to remove Plasmius, then what made him decide to fuse with him? Was he attempting to possess Plasmius as one ghost half trying to possess another for some reason? Was it internal panic? Was it a hunger for power pushing him to seize the opportunity that opened up? Why didn’t/couldn’t Plasmius fight Phantom off in the fusion scene?

These questions could be explored if the story of “The Ultimate Enemy” was redone. Present Danny, the Danny whose point of view we saw the episode from (rather than the Alternate Danny) hadn’t experienced the Dan future himself, so he didn’t know what was going through his alternate self’s head (human or ghost) during Dan’s creation. How much of it was his fault? How much of it wasn’t? How did he fill in the holes in the story Future Vlad told to him based on his own insecurities, and what did he blame himself for?

For that matter, why not get present Vlad wrapped up in it too? Have him take responsibility for what is HIS. If not, the episode should’ve at least acknowledged that Dan was not entirely “Danny’s evil”, and made it clear that he was cleaning up both his and Vlad’s collective mess by himself. If the message of the evil future self being Danny corrupted to the side of evil was so necessary for the episode, then simply remove the fusion plot entirely from Dan’s origin and have Danny become a villain by his own moral corruption. It weakened the impact of the future-self villain being a warning of “what the hero should avoid becoming” by having the main character only become evil by fusing with an already malevolent character.

3. The Observants’ conclusion that they had to kill Danny to save the world from Dan didn’t make sense, due to Vlad being primarily responsible for Dan’s evilness—but the episode, instead of acknowledging this inanity, actually reinforced the opposite.

Having now established that Vlad was half (if not more) at fault for Dan’s evil than Danny, the plot to kill Danny in the episode lost any of the ground it had to stand on.

(Nope...no, he didn’t have to.)

It was illogical for the Observants to assume killing Danny was the best way to stop Dan from existing when killing Vlad would equally achieve this (not to mention that either of these options were overkill, in the presence of the intervention methods mentioned in Section A). Without Vlad, Dan could not exist either. Eliminating Vlad would stop his continuous crimes against both worlds, and let Danny live to continue doing the good he’d done. After the events of “Reign Storm”, a large part of the Ghost Zone knew that Danny had saving Amity Park, and the entire Ghost Zone, under his belt—if an entire wasteland civilisation like the Far Frozen came to worship Danny for his victory against Pariah Dark (as shown in season three’s “Infinite Realms”).

(For that matter, where were the Observants hounding Clockwork to get on Vlad’s troublesome ass when he tried to steal the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage in “Reign Storm”, if Pariah Dark was so dangerous?)

If they were being somewhat rational, it was possible that they chose Danny as Vlad’s less powerful counterpart, and an easier target—even though they delegated the task off to Clockwork because intervention wasn’t their job, and they clearly acknowledged Clockwork’s power and competence to some degree. The Observants openly referred to Clockwork as the master of time while shirking their responsibility for fixing the future onto him, so whether or not killing Vlad would be too difficult for themselves would be irrelevant, since they made it Clockwork’s problem and became backseat commentators. Though, Clockwork would’ve probably foreseen Vlad’s importance in Danny’s emotional growth as his nemesis and also kept him alive anyway—but from a purely logical standpoint, it made little sense to execute Danny over Vlad, if they ever needed to kill anyone at all.

To be honest, the episode could’ve used the invalidity of the Observants’ plan to paint their incompetence more, expanding on Clockwork’s disdain for them and how he told the audience they “just observe”. However, to do that, the episode itself would’ve had to actually portray the Observants’ plan (not just the Observants themselves, but their actual plan to kill Danny itself) as nonsensical. The episode never did, however, as it had Clockwork—the character portrayed as bolder and wiser than the Observants—reinforce their proposition as worth trying and go along with their request for Danny’s demise. He sent two ghosts to attack Danny (although the fight with Boxed Lunch was more of a moral test about giving Danny the CAT answers, rather than an attempt on his life, Danny “failed” that moral test before Clockwork sent Skulktech after him—so, the latter at least counted as a potential hit on Danny) to the extent of attempting to kill Danny himself on the last attempt. That Clockwork went along with the Observants’ plan showed that the episode saw the plan as reasonable, despite its illogicality.

(While there is a possible argument for Clockwork’s knowledge of how the episode would end—insinuating that he knew Danny would never actually end up dying—justifying why he went along with the plan in the first place, the next section of the essay shall tackle that. Since Clockwork is the Master of Time, and the issues with his character were heavily intertwined with the effects the time travel lore had on the plot, that shall be addressed in Category C, the section covering the mess created by the time-travel in the episode.)

...actually, that just gave me an idea. You know what would be interesting, if a little too much to content to stuff into the narrative? Having an Observant character distinguished as their own individual, who doubts the other Observants’ unreasonable decisions and becomes a rogue element to the rest of the council, directly intervening in the timeline themselves. The rogue Observant could abandon the council of Observants to side with Clockwork, and characterise Clockwork by having him change his globalised impression of the Observants to understand this new, non-conformist one as an ally. Or, perhaps the Observant plays a more compassionate foil to Clockwork, choosing to himself save Danny’s life from the ghost attacks Clockwork sent after him?)

#danny phantom #danny phantom analysis #danny phantom essay #the ultimate enemy #danny fenton #vlad masters #dan phantom #the observants #danny phantom clockwor #time to get into one of the longest sections of this essay hoo boy #I apologise for the verbosity

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trashmancer · 3 years

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Again, been reading a lot recently, and here's some recent reads and my thoughts. (All very spoiler-free)

Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

I'd heard about this series for a while, but had always kept putting off reading it, and finally I was in the mood for some comedic (yet dark) shenanigans--and a villain protagonist as charming as Johannes Cabal really hit me just right. I really enjoyed the first of this series and the introduction to this 1920's-ish universe similar-yet-different to our own that Howard's created. His writing is crisp and clever--and Johannes is a villain protagonist worth cheering for. He's duplicitous, arrogant, and cold, yet sharp-witted and competent enough to be engaging, and even though he's amoral (driven predominately with an "ends do justify the means" mentality) there are glimmers of a conscious buried in there.

The basic gist of the first book is that Johannes Cabal is a necromancer dead-set (ba-dum-sh) on thwarting the biggest plague affecting mankind: Death. As such, he's willing to go to extreme lengths to hone and perfect his necromantic abilities. In the pursuit of this knowledge, Cabal sold his soul to Satan, but he comes to realize he actually needs his soul for his necromancy to work more properly (apparently without a soul it gets very unpredictable). In order to win his soul back, he strikes a wager with Satan: he will accumulate 100 souls for Satan in return for his own. Satan, ever the fair player (not), gifts Cabal with an infernal carnival to help Cabal reach his goal within the year. Shenanigans ensue.

While I read some books in-between this one and the next in the series, I'll write about the other here--

Johannes Cabal: The Detective by Jonathan L. Howard

So clearly I enjoyed the first installment enough to keep going, and I am glad, because I enjoyed the second one even more than the first. It feels like Howard got more comfortable with the characters and world than before, and in this one he expands his universe with some made-up countries that are similar-to-yet-different than countries on our Earth. In this one, Cabal does less fantastic tricks, as he dons the role of investigator (there's been a murder--on an airship!), but the plot was very fun. I will say this is one of the first books in a long while to genuinely make my world-weary ass laugh out loud in public. Howard truly does know how to turn a phrase and comes off with some great witticisms.

Guns of the Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky has been on my radar for a while because I have had Children of Time on my reading list for what feels like an age (and I still haven't gotten around to reading it, but I will soon). To prime myself, I looked up other works by Tchaikovsky. This was around the time I was look for good "stand-alone" Adult Fantasy novels as well, so the two linked up and I had this on my TBR for a while and got around to finally cracking it open.

I really loved this book. If I could describe it in any way, it would be sort of like Pride & Prejudice if Elizabeth Bennet got drafted into a war. Seriously. That's how it reads--and Tchaikovsky made the allusions to Austen's work very clear. The setting is very English-inspired, and the time period mimics Napoleonic times. Definitely the first "Flintlock Fantasy" I've had the pleasure of reading.

The themes of the book are about the caustic nature of nationalism, the blurring of truth during war, and what is true patriotism in the face of falsehood and horror. Definitely my kind of questions--and I love watching characters thrown into completely unfamiliar environments. A genteel woman (Emily Marshwic) being tossed headfirst into grisly, mosquito-infested swamps armed with a musket? It's a fascinating journey she undergoes.

Plus the novel featured a romantic subplot that hits my enemies-to-lovers buttons hard. (It's not at all like one of those tired YA enemies-to-lovers stories, but something more grown-up and messy, which I approve of, because I love drama.) But this is more of a personal note. It's definitely not going to be for everyone.

Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay #1) by Chris Wooding

After Johannes Cabal, I got into the mood for some steampunk, and I hadn't actually read much in the way of steampunk, so I looked up some recs and the Tales of the Ketty Jay series seemed to appear on a lot of lists for this kinda thing. The basic gist of this one is... imagine steampunk Firefly. That kinda gives you the whole vibe and feel. It's about a crew of disparate and colorful characters all running from something who meet on the ship the Ketty Jay and have to learn to work together to survive.

Overall, it was a fast-paced read (I read this 400 page sucker in a single day--while doing other stuff) and Wooding knows how to write action and interesting character interactions. The world had some glimmers of brilliance (the wizard analogs in their world--daemonist--were the most intriguing part), but otherwise it was very typical steampunk. I had no real quibbles with any of that (aside from the fact some of it read as very cliche and Wooding's inspirations seemed a little obvious--Fullmetal Alchemist and Firefly being the two big ones that kept hammering me over the head), but my main complaint was with the writing and treatment of female characters. First, there is only one main female character in the Ketty Jay's crew--Jez. I had no real issues with Jez's character or writing (in fact she's refreshing in some ways), but she's completely isolated from any other female characters (and is also the only crew member who isn't really allowed to be a complete screw up--she's somewhat sanitized, which, I guess the heroic women characters aren't allowed to be fuck ups like the men?). Second, the other predominate female characters, of whom there are only three, are mute/dehumanized (Bess), characterized as stupid and unhinged (Amalicia), and have rape-as-a-backstory-written-TERRIBLY (Trinica). All that said, as much as it was cringe, this was written in 2009, and I am sure Wooding has had some growth as a writer since then.

I liked this one enough to decide to check out the next in the series (even knowing the writing for the female characters leaves much to be desired).

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

A Fantasy taking place in an Americas-inspired world? Absolutely refreshing (and more please). The main gist of this one is that a cult sets out to resurrect a dead god (seriously that's the main plot crux) while political machinations are going on in the central city of this country where the resurrection is going to take place. As the novel progresses, it's like a countdown clock to game time. There's four POV characters we follow: Xiala (a Teek sea captain who is kind of an outcast from her native people and has a love for beautiful people), Serapio (the man who has been groomed since birth to be the vessel for the resurrected god, part of this process has included blinding him), Naranpa (the Sun Priest of the capital city who is trying to garner back control the priesthood has lost), and Okoa (who really doesn't even appear until way later into the book; he's been separated from his family to train to be a warrior). For the most part, I was primarily engaged (re: 90% engaged) with Xiala and Serapio's story. They were the most interesting characters, and the journey of them on the sea trying to get to the city before the ceremony was exciting and emotional. The political dealings in Naranpa's segments kind of bogged down the action--and I didn't feel anything for that. Overall though, definitely a thrilling read with a beautifully constructed world. If I had one big criticism, it's that it ended incredibly abruptly without any resolution. I knew going in this was a part of a greater whole, but I still felt the ends could've been knotted a little tighter. I'm left dangling! But I'll be sure to pick up the next one (if anything just to find out what happens to Xiala and Serapio).

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

As an unapologetic villainfucker, I had to read this one, right? It's about not just one, but two villains! How could I lose? And they're in an intense rivalry? Revenge? Betrayal? Superpowers? Gah! Be still my heart!

I'll say I enjoyed this book (fun characters, solid writing), but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would (I wish I could love yooouuuu!). Definitely worth a recommendation to anyone who loves villains and fast-paced narratives, but... there were a few things that tarnished what could've been sparkling. The biggest for me was the jumping around in the first half. For a length of time, the novel leaps between three different points of time, sometimes 2-3 pages at a time, and it was jarring (not confusing, mind you, but it was a jolt each time). I get it was done to create an air of mystique and intrigue, but it felt like I was getting dragged around by the ear. Along with this, the plot just seemed... very convenient? As various moments kept happening, it all felt too tidy and paint-by-numbers. The characters were certainly messy and fun (and I love messy and fun), but the action itself seemed to glide on well-oiled rails with no hiccups. This did lead to the magnetic pacing of the book (which I also read in a day), but it didn't do the drama any favors. Never once did it feel like the characters were caught with their pants down--and I think that's part of the point, but it kind of dampened the tension.

I liked it enough I am definitely going to check out the sequel Vengeful though. If anything I am reading for Sydney, Mitch, and Victor. I gotta know what happens to them!

Right now I am reading some fluffy fluff to cleanse my palette because I've been reading so much moodiness. I'm mid-way through the light and breezy Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater (and it's super cute so far) and then I am finally going to crack open Andy Weir's The Martian (because I have put off reading it for far too long).

#recent reads #book review #just jotting my thoughts down somewhere #seriously though i am itching to read the next johannes cabal but i gotta pace myself #i don't want to burn through those like i did murderbot lol

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alliterative-albatross · 3 years

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So, I sent you (@disgruntledspacedad) a pretty long ask a while ago (back when you had anon on) and I'm decently sure Tumblr ate it (or maybe you ignored it, in which case, feel free to ignore this one as well). But then I saw one of those "writers appreciate feedback no matter how long" posts, so I'm back here. Here is my mediocre attempt to rewrite my original review of your work. Bear in mind that English is not my first language, so if at any point my phrasing sounds weird to you, you know why. Mandatory disclaimer/apology: this might get a little too long 😅

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

I remember being SO mad at myself for not finding this sooner. I binge read it one afternoon with no thoughts for any real life responsibilities I might have had (and no regrets). Javiears is one hell of an unconventional relationship in the beginning, and I really love what you did with them. The whole premise of your story is quite refreshing, and you somehow manage to convey the trust and mutual respect there two feel for one another without explicitly showing us the beginning of their "entanglement".

Also, fuck you for what you did to poor Emilio, that man was a saint and he deserved better! I honestly can't believe that I got so attached to a character that appeared so little in the story, but it happened, and his death kind of broke my heart.

But the Javiears reunion + mild confession was lovely, and felt completely deserved. And of course the sex scene. I won't lie, I expected a bit better from Javi there, but I did like how utterly /human/ it was. Capturing that humanity, the imperfections in each character is something you're really good at (more on that later).

AFTERSHOCKS

Ah, my emotionally constipated babies who really need to work out their communication issues. I do love them, though. And this short series did a really good job of delving a bit deeper into Ears's and Javi's psyche. Kudos to you for dealing with the medical "aftershocks" of living through an explosion AND using that experience to move your emotional plot forward. These two need to grow a lot before they can get to a stable point in their relationship, and you really manage to convey their insecurity and fear of commitment/intimacy while making it clear that they're in it for the long run and that theirs is a relationship that WILL work out so help them God.

IF I FALL

Ouch. Punch me in the gut while you're at it, why don't you?

But seriously, "If I Fall" is SO FUCKING GOOD. Don't get me wrong, it's angstier than an image of Jesus on the cross (don't judge me, it's Holy Week and I just got home from accompanying my grandma to church), but it somehow works beautifully. You, my dear, play heartstrings like they're a fucking guitar and I AM HERE FOR IT.

You're doing an amazing job at making me feel everything these characters are feeling, which is both awful (bc pain) and impressive.

Also, if anything happens to Ana I will cry, because she is adorable and wonderful and has suffered way too much already and really deserves a break and some cookies.

Also also, if anything happens to Ears I will cry, because she is badass and wonderful and has suffered way too much already and really deserves a break and some cookies.

Also also also, if anything happens to Javi I will cry, because he is loving and wonderful and has suffered way too much already and really deserves a break and some cookies.

Basically, I am really invested in the well-being of these characters and can't wait until they're happy and safe again (please tell me they will be, my heart can't handle much more pain).

A quick note on the angst complaints: yes, this story is way angstier than most other fics out there and it can be a bit too much at times, especially considering how many chapters of pain it's been. BUT it's obvious that "If I Fall" NEEDS this amount of angst to get where it's going, to send the message it wants to and to properly develop its characters. The pain is as important to this story as flour is to bread. You may not like eating flour on its own (I don't think anyone does), but you love bread (because bread is amazing) and you must recognize that bread NEEDS flour to work. It wouldn't be bread otherwise. And eating the flour as part of the bread even makes you like the flour because the bread is just DELICIOUS.

I fully understand and sympathize with the people who have elected to table "If I Fall" until it's completed so they can binge read it knowing there's a happy ending in sight, but in case you're feeling a bit self conscious about all the angst, please know that your story is beautiful not in spite of the pain, but rather /because of it/.

PS: No, I'm not high/drunk, I just really like bread

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Silly thing to comment on, I know, but I do feel like it's important that you know how useful your ANs have been. There are many details in the story that I simply wouldn't fully get without reading your comments at the end of each chapter, and I appreciate your writing a hell of a lot more knowing how deeply you understand and care for each one of your characters. Plus, it is obvious how much work you've put into researching a country and a time period that are (from what I gather) unfamiliar to you, and I really do believe you've done an amazing job of it.

JAVIER PEÑA

My boy. I love your characterization of this complicated character, and I have eagerly read each and every one of your headcanons about him. I can't really say if your version is fully faithful to the source material because it's been a while since I saw Narcos, but your Javi most definitely reads like a real person. He's fairly consistent as a character, and I feel like everything he does is perfectly natural for him to do as a character. He makes for an unconventional yet deeply interesting romantic lead, and so far I have thoroughly enjoyed all his POV chapters/scenes.

OCs

I know you've gotten some flack for making her into an OC halfway into the story, and while I get why the sudden change may have felt like a disappointment for some, I don't share that sentiment. I firmly believe that this fandom is unfairly harsh towards Original Characters and their creators, and I don't really understand why. Listen, I love Reader fics, and consume many Reader fics. I have read dozens, maybe even hundreds, and I can safely say that I've only ever "inserted" myself in approximately 10% of those stories. Reader characters are not as blank as their writers may want them to be. They can't be. They're characters, and character have personalities and moral values and senses of humor and a bunch of other things. Reader characters may not have a backstory or a physical description attached (and even that's not guaranteed), but they're still characters.

And on a more personal note, pretending they're actual blank slates is naive at best and insensitive at worst. Reader characters are American coded 99% of the time, and white coded 95% of the time. Not every readers is white nor American, even if that's the predominant demographic on Tumblr. When I read a JavixReader fic about a woman who speaks exactly zero Spanish, I know she's not me. The story may be beautifully written and have an amazing plot and character development, but the Reader *isn't me*. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and some of my favorite xReader stories feature a "reader" who couldn't be more different from me, but it's something that enemies of OC fics should take into account. Particularly if they are white and/or American. But I digress.

HANNAH AARONS

Your character is amazing. She's strong, smart, confident, independent and an all-around badass. She gets kidnapped while pregnant and still focuses on problem solving and survival. But she's also overly guarded and mistrustful, and really needs to work on her communication skills. There are times when I absolutely love her and even admire her, and other times when I want to whack her with a slipper. She's no Mary Sue, but remains interesting and likeable throughout the story. She feels wholly human and real, and that's no easy task. I like her, I am invested in her, and I can't wait to see what's next for her. She's a compelling and three dimensional protagonist in a complex story who never fails to draw me in. I love her. She's your baby, and you should be proud of her.

Also, quick question about personality types: I know you've typed Javi as ESFP and Ears as ENTP (100% agree on both, btw), but have you given any thought to their enneagram types? I personally have always seen Ears as being somewhere on the thinking triad, maybe a 7 or even a 6w7, but I'm not too sure about Javi. 9w8 maybe? He could also be a 6w5 🤔

PARTING THOUGHTS

Basically, I love your story, your characters and your writing in general. You are a fantastic storyteller and wordsmith. You get into the heads of incredibly different characters personality-wise (Ears, Javi, Berna...) and manage to capture all of their complexities and quirks every single time. And it doesn't feel like it's something innate for you either. To me, it seems that you have put a lot of work and effort into understanding each and every one of your characters, who they are, why they do what they do and what they want. And let me tell you, all that effort has been more than worth it. "Better Love" is a fanfic, but it wouldn't be out of place in a regular bookstore, if I'm honest. I don't know what you do for a living or if you've ever considered writing professionally, but you clearly have the skills and the drive to create some masterpieces.

You are amazing and your writing is a gift. Thank you for sharing it with us, and have a nice day! ~ 🍪

My friend, I apologize for hoarding your first ask. I’ve been sitting on it because I’m not gonna lie, I enjoy going back and rereading it. It gave me a lot of comfort when I was in a pretty dark place, both personally and in regards to my writing, and I was reluctant to send it out into the the abyss of Tumblr where I might never see it again.

That’s not fair, though. You put just as much effort into sending me that review as I put into my writing, and I apologize for never responding to you.

Okay, anyway, so twice now, you’ve made me cry. In a good way, I promise!

I absolutely love your bread/flour metaphor. It made perfect sense. I want the emotional release of Javi and Hannah’s reunion to be earned, and in order to do that, the angst has to come first (there are also a few plot “ingredients” that have yet to make their appearances). Thank you very much for understanding that, and for voicing it so eloquently.

I appreciate your comments on my research and characterization. You’re correct that I’ve put a lot of time and effort into crafting a universe. In a lot of ways, I’m doing my best to stay true to the source material (regarding culture and timelines in particular), and in others, I’m branching into my own territory.

On that note, I’ve never once regretted fully embracing Hannah Aarons’ identity as an OC. She’s stayed consistent in my mind from the beginning, and it was a relief to finally share my vision of her with the audience. And for the record, I totally agree with you regarding “reader” characters. Every reader insert echoes the perspective of their author, no matter how vague the physical description. I can only imagine how grating that must be from the perspective of a non-white, non-american reader. Thank you so much for sharing your insight! I will certainly keep it in mind the next time I write a “reader insert” fic.

Okay, enneagrams! I am much less familiar with enneagram than I am MBTI, but I agree 110% that Javi is a 9 with a strong 8 wing. I waffled back and forth on Ears a little, but eventually landed on 8w7 for her. It came down to the eight’s deepest fear, which is being controlled. That’s Ears all over, and the fact that she and Javi share that eight willfulness means that they might butt heads a little, which also seems very appropriate for them. Big thanks to @remusstark for her insight into the eight frame of mind - our conversations helped solidify my decision on this. :)

Anyway, I’m just rambling now. The big take-away point that I want you to get is that I am so, so grateful to you, both for your insightful feedback and your dedication in making sure that I actually saw it. You are an absolute gem and a deep thinker, Cookie-Anon, and if you ever feel like sliding into my DM’s, I’d welcome the opportunity to get to know you better.

Mad love and soft hugs,

~ Jay

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ablogthatishenceforthmine · 4 years

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Unpopular The 100 Season 7 Opinions

1. People are too harsh on Echo. Yes, I think she was a poorly written character in seasons 5 and 6, but the character for her writing has much improved in Season 7. And the hate for her character has been far too venomous for just being a poorly written character. I feel like fans of the show never give her character a chance. Like when it was revealed that we we going to see an Echo backstory flashback in season 6. BEFORE THE EPISODE EVEN AIRED, people decided that they hated the flashback, and that it was going to be boring and a waste of time. I actually think the flashback was quite interesting, but think the show had problems framing it in context of the themes of the season. I feel like the same is happening in season 7. People aren��t giving her a chance, even though they are doing some really interesting things with her character this season.

And i think people put too much emphasis on “liking” and “agreeing” with a character. To me, it’s more important that I find a character interesting and engaging: I don’t have to agree with all, or even most, of their actions. I also don’t think the show is framing Echo’s actions this season in a positive light. So I really don’t get the complaint, “How am I supposed to like Echo when she does XXX bad/morally dubious thing.” I don’t agree with most of her actions either, but they make sense with her character, and I always understand why she does what she does this season. And I get it, emotional investment in a character is built. The show has done a poor job creating emotional investment in Echo in Season 5 and 6. But i think investment/engagement can work on two levels: emotional and mental. Mental investment is when you find the character, their storyline, and the themes explored with that character interesting. For me, in seasons 5 and 6, I wasn’t emotionally or mentally invested in Echo’s character. But in Season 7, I am mentally invested in her character. I am still not emotionally invested or care too much about her pain or if she survives because of the shoddy character work the show did for her in the previous 2 seasons. But I am interested in her character, and am excited to see her journey this season.

The show is doing a lot of interesting exploration or Echo’s character this season. But it seems to me like some people came into the season determined not to like or be interested in her character. They never gave her a chance to be interesting to them this season, which I think is a shame.

2. I don’t want Echo to be a spy; I want her to believe in Bardo and their teachings. I think it’s wayyy more interesting if Echo has actually drunk the kool-aid. And it makes sense for her character to actually believe in Bardo’s teachings. They have a lot in common. They both value loyalty to a troubling degree. They both believe in suppressing and having complete control over one’s emotions. After believing that Bellamy has died, I can see her wanting to bet rid of emotional attachments because they are just too painful. A love is weakness kind of thing. And I can see her deciding that it’s better to be loyal to the mission of saving the human race than to be loyal to individuals, because loyalty to individuals just brings pain. Honestly, I will be really disappointed if Echo turns out to be playing the Bardonians. If that’s the case, then it just all about the plot and plot twist. If what i described above it true, then this storyline is all about character and Echo’s internal life, beliefs, and transformation.

3. I don’t get why people are mad at the show for the lack of Bellamy. It’s not writers fault that Bellamy is barely in this season so far. The actor decided to take some time off. I get that it’s frustrating and disappointed, but it wasn’t the writers’ decision. The show is trying to do the best it can with the hand it has been dealt. And I don’t think it’s been doing that terrible. Bellamy is easily my favorite character of the show; has been since season 1, and every season since. But I don’t think the show is suffering that badly from his absence. Like, I miss him, but I don’t feel the show is empty without him. His disappearance is a mystery I am interested and invested in. And I am so excited to find out where he is and what’s been going on with him. For me, the far more frustrating absence is that of Clarke, who has barely had anything interesting to do this season. She feels completely decentered from the season. I wouldn’t mind her lesser screentime if they screentime she did have was devoted to more interesting things. She has had a few good scenes, but most of her plotlines have not been very interesting this season.

4. This season isn’t bad so far. It’s not one of the show’s better seasons, but it’s not terrible. There’s some very good stuff and some very bad stuff. I really like everything with Bardo and Sky Ring. I enjoyed these kinda self-contained episodes like 7x02. I enjoyed seeing new families and bonds form, and seeing character dynamics we haven’t seen before. Hope is a great new character and I am both emotionally and mentally invested in her in only a short amount of time. I find the mystery of Bardo very intriguing. I am excited for every new bit of information we get on the place and it’s way of life. It was super cool and interesting learning their philosophy and a bit about how they live in 7x09. I just really like the world-building that this season is doing. The bad stuff is, of course, sanctum, which is one of the worst, if not the worst, storylines the show has ever done. It’s boring, especially in contrast to the new and exciting world of the anamoly, Bardo, and other planets. And the Sanctum storyline just seems more of the same, except there are not enough people that we care about in the mix. They are too many new characters, and none are developed well enough. It’s hard to care too much about the warring factions, when we don’t care about most of the factions. Despite J.R. Bourne’s excellent performance, Sheidheda is not an interesting villian. And many of the characters are behaving stupidly and making bad decisions. So, yeah, this season is a mixed bag, but I don’t find it to be nearly as bad as people say it it.

4. I disagree with the “Nothing is happening” opinion. Things are definitely happening. Think about how much we’ve learned since the premiere episode. It’s A LOT. And yes, we have a lot of episodes that are more character driven or world-building driven than plot driven. But I actually like that! I don’t know why people want to speed through the plot. I think the plot can move slowly as long as the episodes are engaging and stuff is happening with the characters, even if its only internally. Think about one of The 100′s best episodes, in my opinion: Season 3 Episode 11, Nevermore. The plot barely moved that episode, but there was soo much good character stuff happening. So i really liked the plot slowing down to show the Octavia/Hope/Diyoza family form, and see Octavia find her peace. I liked the plot slowing down to show us the Echo, Hope, Diyoza, and Octavia’s journey through Bardo training. I liked that it slowed down to explore Echo’s grief and Hope and Diyoza’s difficulties in 7x07. But, that is not to say that this season does not have an issue with it’s plotting because it definitely does. For me, its not in the Sky ring/Bardo stuff, it’s with all the other characters. Clarke, Raven, Murphy, Indra, Emori, etc are soooo behind the viewers in knowledge that it’s frustrating to slowly see them catch up to things that the audience already knows. And the Sanctum plot is moving too slowly too with too much build up. And i do agree with people that yeah, it still feels like we are getting exposition for the season, which is a problem. However, i’ve enjoyed a lot of the ride when it comes to learning this exposition in regards to Bardo, so I do not mind as much.

5. I want Murphy to die. And it’s not because I don’t love Murphy, because I do. He has become one of my favorite characters of the show. And that is why I want him to have a great ending and arc. And I can’t think of a better one than him dying doing a heroic or self-sacrificial thing. Murphy started as an utterly selfish character who would do anything it takes to survive, no matter the cost for other people. Slowly, he has come to care for other people. First, specific individuals, and now, more and more, has has started to care for people as a whole. But, he still struggles with his selfishness and his do-whatever-it-takes-to-survive mentality. That’s why giving up his life for a good cause would be the perfect ending to his story. To go from someone who would survive by any means necessary to someone who willingly died to do something good for others. It would be beautiful and perfect, and i hope it happens no matter how sad it would make me.

#the 100 #echo #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #john murphy #octavia blake #hope diyoza #charmaine diyoza #the 100 season 7 #my posts #ablogthatishenceforthmine #the selfless king #the girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders #Cockroach #octagon

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kyluxtrashpit · 5 years

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TROS Review

Okay here is my extremely long (almost 4k words >.>) review of tros. And that’s without the 2k meta on redemption arcs I also have filed away lmao. First off: I am not leaving the kylux fandom. It’s not a good enough movie to warrant that. Second: I might make a post of things I wished we’d gotten later, but this is already WAY too long lmao. Warnings for spoilers, opinions, and general negativity

EXPLICIT RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

So. I have watched the thing. I went in knowing the spoilers and oh boy, am I glad I did. Still, overall this movie was… not great lmao. It’s messy and the pacing is off and there are some very weird and straight up Bad moments, but I’m not actually upset about it anymore. It’s more like ‘there’s a lot to unpack here’ except we’re not going to unpack it or even throw away the whole thing, it’s just gonna become that one box that’s still packed and untouched from when you moved 3 years ago. It’s there, but you rarely think about it beyond the occasional ‘maybe I should finally unpack that? Nah, too much effort’

I see a lot of people writing fix it fic and that’s totally valid but tbh… I don’t think it’s worth the effort for me. I think I’m just going to pretend it never happened and write my kylux the way I always have. Maybe I’ll do something with tros at some point, maybe some mean!Hux + redeemed!Ben because I’m awful lmao but for now, it hasn’t changed my plans at all. Which is actually a good thing tbh

Anyway. I’ll start with the good simply because there’s less of it lmao. Best thing about the movie? Everyone in it is looking like a fucking snack. It’s great. These people have always been hot, but this movie really nailed that. Also the trio stuff was fun and felt genuine. I LOVED the hints that Finn is Force sensitive, and I liked him in this movie even though I wish he got more story/time. I enjoyed Rey at the beginning, but her actions and plotline made less and less sense as the movie went on. Kylo was fun; I had gotten worried after that interview that said he’s calm now but he wasn’t lmao, like at all, so that was good. Also I didn’t like how Hux died but I’m endlessly grateful Kylo wasn’t the one to kill him. That might’ve actually ruined the ship for me

The visuals were excellent (save that strobing near the beginning; I’m not epileptic, but I had to close my eyes because it was too much). Some of the jokes hit will, as did some of the emotional bits (Chewie’s “death” was very well-executed and Rey’s scream broke my heart). Weirdly enough, C-3PO is kind of the heart of the movie, which I did not expect at all. Lando’s appearances were too brief but good. I also loved D-O a lot and he’s very cute. I liked seeing a bunch of new planets and environments, however briefly. The acting was also really great throughout on most accounts. I really enjoyed 2 of the Hux scenes (when he’s sitting in that board meeting making a face like he’s mentally eviscerating everyone in the room and when he gets so excited to finally get to blow something up and then Kylo shuts him up with the Force BUT WITHOUT HARMING HIM!!!)

That’s kind of it tbh. The movie overall is really messy. I’ve seen people say it feels like a fever dream and it really does. I’ve seen descriptions of people dreaming the plot of tros and they’re less weird. The pacing in the first chunk is way too fast and there’s way too much to take in. Then things get weird in the middle. Then, well, that ending. It feels like it’s trying too hard to be liked. It’s ‘joke’, ‘reference to past movie’, ‘joke’, ‘reference to past movie’, ‘mention of hope without showing it’, etc. etc. on and on throughout it. Some of those are fun, but it got tiring very quickly. And it made it impossible for me to suspend disbelief long enough to actually get into it

I also saw a lot of reviews saying if you didn’t like tlj, you would like this one. That was not correct. I disliked this for many of same reasons I disliked tlj, but it also managed to hold tfa’s weaknesses as well. Honestly, tros feels like the worst aspects of tlj mixed with the worst aspects of tfa, mixed with way too much nostalgia and then blended up with a good heaping of mania and desperation to keep it going. It tried so hard, wanted to be liked so badly, and you can feel that watching it. It doesn’t feel genuine

It also feels like every single movie in the ST was actually from a different trilogy. None of the 3 connect to each other. You can’t say tros is a successor to tlj or tfa; it’s totally on a different path, which I’m honestly not sure how they managed that. As much as I felt tlj wasn’t a true continuation of tfa, tros feels like its own trilogy mashed into one movie. There wasn’t one consistent plot or character thread to follow between all 3 movies

I think bringing palpatine back was the first fundamental mistake. It didn’t fit. And after creating Kylo and Snoke to be very specifically Not Sith, why bring the Sith back all of a sudden? Palpatine has had his day and he didn’t need this. No one did. Much as he was creepy as hell and that was well done, it didn’t feel right to have him there. Also, I really don’t like the implication he procreated at any point skdfjskldjk

As for Rey… I know I’m in the minority here, but I never found here to be a good narrative foil for Kylo. The connection between the two doesn’t really interest me at all (and this was one of the reasons I didn’t like tlj). It worked better if they were related, which was the biggest reason I was a proponent of Rey Skywalker, but that didn’t happen. The commonalities they have are just: 1) can use the Force, 2) have been lonely. The contrasts are: 1) light vs dark (sort of; this is less explicit in tfa and I miss that greyer view of the Force) and 2) had a family vs didn’t. And that’s pretty much it. In order for 2 characters to contrast and hit the ‘complimentary opposites’ sweet spot, you need much, much more than that. Finn has and always will be a better foil for Kylo and it’s a damn shame they abandoned that in tlj and even more so in tros. I have more thoughts on her that I’ll get to later too

I did like Rey in the beginning, but the longer it went on, the less I could rationalize her actions. Why is she doing that? Why is she trying to ditch her friends all the time? Why does she heal the cave snake? Why does she stab Kylo when he’s just become a non-combatant? Why does she heal him after? Why is she trying to reach out to the spirits of past jedi? Why did she Do That after she wakes up in the end? Why did she then seem to not even care that Kylo died right after? None of this is explained. Show, don’t tell, is great, but you can’t just make massive leaps like that. I didn’t get it. None of this felt like the character I’ve gotten to know over the last few years, nor did it feel consistent within the movie itself

That said, I want to discount one complaint I’ve seen: I got no impression she’s exiling herself on Tatooine at the end. It’s very clear she’s just doing a quick funeral ritual for Luke and Leia. The Falcon is still there, ready for when she’s done. I don’t get where the ‘she’s all alone in the desert again forever and ever’ comes from because it’s clear she’s not. It’s just a private ceremony (plus obvious fanservice). That’s it

For Finn: I liked that his character got to be a lot cooler here. I’m sad that he didn’t get half the attention and plot he deserved, but at least he wasn’t treated as a joke and a coward. My tlj complaint for Finn was that he went through the exact same arc he did in tfa over again; here, he doesn’t. He’s clearly grown into himself. That I liked. But damn, he was supposed to be a main character and he really got sidelined hard. It’s also very clear finnrey was planned at some point but didn’t end up in the final cut. The tease with that felt cruel tbh. He deserved to get to tell Rey he loved her on screen

And Poe: Poe was okay in this one. He felt to me like a different character in tfa and tlj, but this one managed to mesh the two characterizations well. He’s a bit of a hothead who doesn’t think (tlj), but he also really cares about people and is trying his best to lead (tfa). That was very successfully done. However. Poe is the one character with the most backstory. He’s got novels, comics, all of it. Where in the fuck is this history of being a spice runner in all that??? Sketchy as hell to make your one Latino character being a drug runner but you know. It also felt like a HUGE retcon of the one character that actually has fully revealed backstory. Also his thing with Zori was just weird and forced and exhaustingly heterosexual. Completely pointless tbh

As I was rereading this, I realized I forgot Rose but really, that’s because she does pretty much nothing. She has very few lines, never comes along. It’s like they forgot she was there. Or just didn’t care. It was really sad and a huge disrespect to everything KMT has gone through. Both her and her character deserved more

For Hux: I liked the 2 scenes I mentioned above, but other than that I was disappointed. I said this on twitter already, but the biggest crime they committed was getting rid of his fanaticism. Tlj may have turned him into a joke, but at least he was still a zealot. Here, it’s clear he gave up his last fuck like a year ago. It’s 9 am and he’s had 6 glasses of wine because he’s lost the will to live and it’s all pointless. Might as well fuck around and give the Resistance info that might lead to the end of everything he’s worked for his entire life because nothing matters and at least Kylo will lose. That’s dumb and violently ooc. I get him being a traitor to Kylo, I am DOWN for that, but not to the FO. He cares about the FO. He is fanatically devoted to the FO. That was ridiculous and wildly out of character. Also the FO is just gone in favour of Palpatine’s fleet as soon as Hux dies? What happened to them? Are they still out there? Who even knows? WHAT A FUCKING WASTE

Also Pryde? Fuck that guy and fuck JJ/LF/Disney for thinking it’s okay to have an old imperial kill Hux. Especially since the visual dictionary today confirmed Pryde knew Brendol and our Hux had known him for years. The possible implications are gross as fuck. If anyone was going to kill Hux one on one, it should have been Finn (with a wonderful stormtrooper rebellion arc involved) for the sake of both characters. I’m personally going to choose to believe Hux was wearing a blaster proof vest (thank you, Delilah Dawson, for putting those into Black Spire as canon) and faked his death. He’s living in blissful exile with Millie now or rebuilding the actual FO and ready to take over as the Emperor he deserves to be

Oh and Leia’s scenes did feel weird. I appreciate them trying to incorporate her, but it didn’t quite work. I feel like having her be offscreen yet present would’ve worked better than most of what they used. Some worked better than others though. I also have some Thoughts about her death but I’m about to get into the second half of the movie stuff and I’ll cover that there

Now Kylo. My darling, sweet, disaster boy. So. Okay. I knew no matter what happened his end would be controversial. And I have a lot of feelings on redemption arcs that can be distilled into one thing: if they’re written well, I like them, no matter how much bad the character has done; however, they are almost never written well enough. One of the first things I said coming out of tfa back in 2015 is ‘that’s going to be a disappointing redemption arc in a few years’. It was never about what ending I wanted (I actually favour something more grey than simply ‘oh he’s good now’ or ‘dies evil’, but that was way too ambitious for them to attempt so I never bothered to hope for it), because I knew it was coming. So this didn’t really bother me beyond the fact that it was too sudden. I do blame that partially on tlj, because it took Kylo from conflicted and torn apart to ‘yeah, I’m in charge now’, but I still think this was not the way to do it. Anyway. I have a 2k word rant somewhere about redemption arcs and when they work and when they don’t that I never posted and this is the much, much shorter version of that

Also. Okay. One more thing on this. So I usually don’t like redemption arcs because they’re written badly, but my least favourite redemption arcs are those that end in death. The only one I can think of that actually worked was Vader’s, but it doesn’t work as well with Kylo. Why? Because redemption is about making amends, not being punished. It’s about choosing to stop doing bad shit and instead to do good things to make up for what you’ve done. In self-sacrifice, not only does it send the message that the only path to redemption is death, but also it means you do literally one thing and then die. That’s it. One good deed, die, you’re done. That’s too fucking easy. True redemption is waking up every single day, for the rest of your life, and continuing to choose to do good. You know that evil is easier, feels better; you’ve done it. But you’re making the choice to keep doing good and to make amends instead. And you do that for years. Decades, even. That is SO MUCH harder to do than just one good thing and then immediately dying without showing if that change is lasting or not. That is how redemption is achieved: in making that choice not once, but again and again and again. So yeah. I didn’t like that. Death redemptions aren’t convincing to me because one choice is easy; consistently making that choice over the rest of your life is much, much harder

End of point: if they were going to redeem Kylo, he needed to live and work to make up for his past mistakes in order to make it impactful. It’s a damn shame he didn’t

Also: having Leia die for the sake of a man, son or not? FUCK THAT. And, even worse, if we follow the movie’s logic: Leia died trying to reach and save her son. Which lead to… him dying anyway?! Which means Leia’s death is meaningless and she died for literally nothing. Fuck that. FUCK THAT. What the fuck. That’s bullshit

Again on the redemption: Kylo just… kills his good friends the KOR without a shred of hesitation? Also the KOR literally never speak? And Kylo says literally one word (‘ow’) after the redemption? I admit, it was fun watching him fight and also watching him get hurt. If I ignore the context of it, watching him crawl out of the pit, scrabbling on the ground, so hurt he can’t even stand up? Fuck. That was good shit tbh. Also those big, desperate puppy eyes. They’re even worse with him as Ben instead of Kylo. Bravo to Adam for playing such a convincing sad boy. I hate that his scar got healed though; I liked it

Now. The whole ending and the plot stuff. Rey being a palpatine is… okay. Fine. I don’t like it but whatever. Seems like an unnecessary excuse to bring him back. Also Luke and Leia knowing? How? Luke knew Rey for literally 1 day. And how would Leia know? And why not tell Rey, who was so desperate for answers to her past when they thought Palpatine was dead? It makes no sense. It’s just very unnecessary. Not to mention the line “you’re a palpatine” is not a thing any real human being would ever say, jfc that was clumsy and unrealistic dialogue. I don’t mind Rey going a bit dark for some time, but this was not the way to do it. Also I was really hoping for a resolution beyond ‘dark siders dead, light sider alive’ because the dichotomous nature of the Force MAKES NO SENSE. Balance is needed. Leaving the only Force user alive a light sider means something dark will come again for the sake of it – Rey should’ve gone grey and tbh tfa made me hope this trilogy would end with all surviving Force users grey. So that was disappointing

Now. The kiss. Straight up: I do not ship it. I don’t mind if other people do, but I do get touchy when they go out of their way to prove there’s nothing inherently problematic about it. I ship kylux; it’s problematic as hell. That’s a good part of why I like it. So I’m fine with r*ylo shippers as long as they do the same. Problem is: most don’t and go around insisting it’s actually the highest romance possible while leaning on incredibly misogynistic and racist tropes to prop up that argument rather than accept their ship has some questionable parts to it (like kyluxers do). It’s more a problem with the fandom for me than it is the ship in theory. Still, I don’t like it and that’s what matters for this

The fact of the matter is it felt extremely sudden and out of place. The entire first half of the movie is Kylo being an aggressive, creepy asshole to Rey. I can theoretically entertain the idea of Kylo having feelings for her (though I don’t), but I cannot see the other way around, not when Rey has so many kind, wonderful people around her. Which is why this feels so weird. There was not enough build to it. I saw a cam clip off reddit before I went in, so I had accepted it was happening but I expected a lot more lead up to it to make it not seem so sudden. None of that was there. There was no build up or reaching of understanding so it reads exactly like those versions of it I dislike: there is nothing wrong with a man berating you and insulting you and attacking you and you should love him for it. That is not enemies to lovers. That’s just abusive bullshit

And then the death. Both of them. Rey dies from… what exactly? It’s never shown at all. And same with Kylo. The leaks said it was Force exhaustion, which a) why? And b) that’s not clear in the damn movie. You need to explain things!!!! And also that means Leia, Luke, Kylo, and Rey all died (even if one didn’t stick) from using the Force too hard. Meanwhile Darth Maul survives getting cut in half and Palpatine survives falling down a shaft in a space station that explodes 2 minutes later (and, you know, all the wacky Force shit he did in this movie too). The fuck? It’s dumb. I hate it

Also the dyad thing was weird. I know the early leaks had it more explained, then the leaks said they cut it, but now it looks like they left in 3 lines of dialogue with it and cut the rest. Again, explanations people! This is not a thing in previous canon! Maybe in the EU, but that’s not canon anymore! The fuck!!!! The idea is dumb and forced to begin with, but the execution made it worse

And now for the final, largest criticism I have. A confession: I am not a star wars fan by nature. I’ve always liked them, but I preferred other sci-fi more. I’m more of an invasive species who forcibly carved my way into this fandom ecological niche because I really loved Kylo lmao. But if there is one thing star wars is defined by, I don’t think it’s love or family or any of those common themes people say. It’s hope. That’s the thing star wars does well. Even when things are darkest, it keeps the hope alive and it makes you feel that. Good will triumph. There is reason to believe in heroes, even when they stumble

This movie is not hopeful. Rogue One, a masterful tragedy, still manages a message of hope despite every single lead character dying. This one doesn’t. And tbh, I think tlj missed on this a bit too (a lot of talk about having hope, not a lot of showing us reasons to be hopeful), but it was still there. Tros does not feel hopeful. The Skywalkers are all dead. Rey has decided to download the legacy (why? No idea! The whole message was ‘don’t be afraid of who you are’ and she just then decided to become someone else? Makes no sense!!!). Anakin’s sacrifice meant nothing because Palpatine came back (and it is CRIMINAL we never got an Anakin and Kylo scene). Han and Leia’s and even Luke’s (a bit) deaths meant nothing because yeah, Kylo turned back in the end, but then he died anyway. They all gave their lives to save him and it was all for nothing. He’s still dead. Palpatine is gone and so is his fleet, but what about the FO fleet? Are they still out there? Are there brainwashed stormtroopers still trapped in its clutches (also, they were so close with Jannah and Finn to adding depth here, but nope, the stormtroopers are still cannon fodder in every fight scene even though they’re literally slaves!!!!)? Who knows!

This movie only feels conclusive in that so many characters we love are dead. That’s it. There’s more questions than answers and so much left unresolved. There’s no sense of hope in it. There’s barely a sense of victory. It’s not satisfying. Even the celebration at the end feels weird and like it’s trying to force you to be happy. The jedistormpilot hug was good, but the lesbian kiss was such a cheap attempt at trying to appease people calling for representation. The moment with Lando and Jannah at the end was probably the most hopeful part of the movie and neither of them are lead characters

Idk. I know this is pretty negative. But I didn’t really enjoy this movie. Some parts were fun, or funny, or exciting, or emotional. But overall? No. This was not a satisfying conclusion for any of these characters, either the new or the old. They missed. Hard. Not one character was truly done justice. And it’s disappointing. But it’s over now and I have no intentions of letting it dictate my fandom activities. I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen and call it a day

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darkpoisonouslove · 5 years

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Winx Club Season 1 Thoughts (4kids)

I decided to start rewatching Winx Club since there were strong nostalgia feels and I am getting more and more sucked into this fandom, so might as well just rewatch everything and pay close attention to it, right? So here are my thoughts (this gets very long so they are under a cut):

1x01:

- Okay, so we got classical “ordinary person learns that they’re not so ordinary” here. It’s a little weird how Bloom’s powers just activated out of nowhere but it could be because she came in contact with a magical threat that provoked her powers to awaken so no complaints here. It was actually very brave of her to try to help Stella, seeing how she didn’t know she had powers.

- Kiko is our little bunny buffoon - no complaints here either.

- Stella being so confident in Bloom’s powers and so encouraging was really cute. The friendship between them probably was a little rushed since they knew practically nothing about each other but whatever.

- Bloom’s parents were pretty chill with finding out their daughter was a fairy. Edit: Okay, that was covered in one of the later episodes. I do like that Bloom told Mike and Vanessa exactly what was going on and didn’t try to hide the truth from them (*cough* like she’ll be doing in a certain live-action series *cough*). And they were actually very supportive about it and didn’t try to stop her! Awww! All the family feels!

- I hated Brandon and Sky’s ruse back then and I hate it now. At least they’re good at it and know how to actually keep it up.

1x02:

- Unlike Bloom and Stella who couldn’t even last an entire episode. It was cute how much Stella wanted to help Bloom, though.

- Beware Stella, the Destroyer of Labs. I wonder if she ever managed to create that new shade of pink.

- Griselda is so savage. And Faragonda is there like flowers and sunshine. XD

- I have to say that the line about not getting caught by the witches of Cloud Tower may seem funny at first but it actually bothers me. It bothers me because the teachers know that the witches would torture and abuse any fairies they come across but nobody is taking steps to prevent that. Why is that allowed? It is terrible, although, I have to admit, realistic since the education system is shit and nobody does anything actually helpful to prevent bullying. Still, it is a problem and I really don’t like the way it is portrayed on the show. It’s like “Yeah, they might scar you for life but it will be your own damn fault even though we are the adults and we clearly can’t be bothered to do shit!” And don’t tell me there isn’t anything to be done. If there were negative repercussions towards Cloud Tower as a school when their students misbehaved, I doubt Griffin would allow as much of that as she does now.

- OMG, Flora’s idea to save the forests is so awesome. I would so love me some talking plants. You don’t have to talk to yourself when you have a plant to have a conversation with!

- Spying on some witches sounds like a good idea, Bloom. Except don’t get caught maybe. (Okay, I am not being fair here. She didn’t know that what Darcy did was possible.)

- But damn, Darcy’s powers are so cool! I actually liked the “fight” with the Trix. And we saw all their transformations for the first time. It was cool.

- Well, at least they didn’t throw her out of Alfea. That would’ve been a shame. And they’re quickly becoming friends. Apparently, the girls decided they were okay with not being told the truth. I would’ve loved to see that conversation but still.

1x03:

- Stella is being supportive... until she is not anymore. Stella has these sudden mood shifts but she is being a ray of sunshine most of the time.

- Faragonda is married? But why do they call her “Miss” then? It makes no sense. Btw why does Griselda look like she’s having the worst time of her life while Faragonda is announcing the ball? I mean, I know she’s not big on fun but that looks a little bit over the top.

- Griffin kinda pulled an ala Maleficent routine.

- How is it that Bloom always gets into trouble? And because she couldn’t find a pair of scissors.

- Damn, Darcy with that magic again! I love her! Also, Icy can dematerialize walls? That is so cool! (pun unintended)

- Bloom’s powers conveniently showed up. I was gonna complain that it was unrealistic for freshman fairies to be defeating senior witches but then I realized that they didn’t actually defeat them. In 1x02 Stella teleported them out of harm’s way and in 1x03 the Trix disappeared in order to go after Stella’s ring so it’s actually fine.

- I feel sorry for that duckling. Icy is being so cruel to it in next eps. And they just put it there as plot device. It was used more than once to give away the Trix’s presence to Winx.

1x04:

- Gotta love how Bloom is the only one besides Flora who can hear the voice of nature. At least they allowed Flora to hear it as well because if it had been only Bloom who was able to hear it, I would’ve thrown a fit.

- Tecna has done her homework. I love how she figured out the ship was taken out by an attack from the outside. I’m actually starting to like her.

- Classical Riven, all grumpy and ungrateful. Though, he and Brandon actually did manage to call a truce so... I guess that worked out well. I love that the Specialists were shown working together as a team as well as bickering. It helps build some relationship between them and that is sorely needed.

- Damn, the Trix just vanished an entire troll. I love how powerful they are!

- Okay, but... that abbreviation Stella suggested to be their group name that consisted from the first letters of their names? Was that subtle shade being thrown at W.I.T.C.H? Bc you know, “we’re too good to use their initials as a name, we can actually come up with a title”.

1x05:

- Spell for making good decisions? Really? Um... okay. Whatever. (that is so lame) But hey, at least we got those kitchen scenes that were absolutely hilarious! XD

- Okay, how did no one realize that that wasn’t actually Stella? Proves my point that they don’t actually know each other that well and that the whole friendship was rushed.

- So I have more to bitch about Bloom and her “leadership” here but I will actually save it.

- At least they managed to save Stella. (Question, though. Why was she in her everyday clothes if they caught her at the date? She went out with the dress. Did the animators forget about that?) The hug with Bloom was cute. And Stella was being all brave, telling them to keep the ring instead of begging them to save her. I think she will make a better queen than everyone realizes.

1x06:

- Starlight is the purest source of magic? Oh, hey, I didn’t know that! But if that is true why is Stella not more powerful than Bloom? I am a little confused as to what happened since it was pretty much explained as in the Big Bang created the Great Dragon that later created the magical universe. But where do the stars and magic fit in that? Also, I had not noticed up until this point that Faragonda says “she” when she talks about the Great Dragon. That’s cool. Also also, here’s a plot hole for ya - Faragonda said that the Great Dragon is just a myth and so is the Dragon Fire and that was when she was alone in her office. But season 3 later gives us the Company of Light storyline which contradicts that since Faragonda knew Marion who had the Dragon Fire personally. It is so much fun when you don’t have your backstory covered before you dive in. Leaves so many opportunities for plot holes for you to fall into and the writers are diving headfirst into this one.

- Breaking in Cloud Tower. When they were explicitly warned to stay away from the witches. Sounds like a good idea, right? At least they have a map and aren’t totally unprepared.

- Tecna totally rocked in this episode. She memorized the whole map and seemed to be strategic about everything and had a plan (which was about the best idea any one of them has had ever since the beginning of the show). And she did protect them all! I am really starting to like her a lot. I wasn’t even annoyed by her constant nagging to leave because that was a good idea. (Btw totally a side question but how did Tecna know which room was the Trix’ from the map? Did she also hack the computer system of Cloud Tower (that I doubt exists, considering Griselda was checking which fairies were arriving manually and their names were just taped on the doors in their dorms instead of something more computerized so it’s probably the same with Cloud Tower?)

- And Griffin had to go and try to kill them. Great idea! And when Faragonda goes to search for them after she realizes that they’re missing, what was Griffin going to tell her (I’m presuming that Faragonda would find a way to locate them or at least figure out where they’d last been)? “Nope, never seen them. Not even once. Well, except for that time I killed them but that’s totally irrelevant here.” Amazing logic! I know they broke into her school, but damn, she could’ve dialed it back a little.

- I had completely forgotten about Daphne. It took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on when she started talking to Bloom.

- And Bloom’s sudden and inexplicable desire to know about the Dragon Fire is executed in a way I am not really a fan of. I mean, you know what the fuck is up when you’ve already watched the show but on your first go that would probably just seem very random (even if she was insisting it was so that they could figure out what the witches wanted).

- It was so unfair for Winx to get punished without even being heard out. I’m mad on their behalf because yes, it does matter why they did what they did. Is no one going to tell Faragonda and Griselda about the theft of the ring? (Or the way it happened for that matter? Stella could have died.) That is a royal symbol and it got stolen. Why is no one talking about this? (on the show I mean.)

1x07:

- That punishment was harsh. But they proved they can handle themselves even without their powers. Who needs magic when you have cleaning supplies, am I right? XD

- OMG, Tecna, you don’t need computer or guidance to figure out a mop and a bucket of water. And Flora just standing there and watching Tecna completely misunderstanding the cleaning supplies and their usage and laughing about it? She’s not as innocent as she seems.

- How do the Trix know about the Dragon Fire if Faragonda herself thought it was only a myth? And where the hell did those crystals come from? I mean, I’m not complaining. Have you seen them? They totally rock. But I’m just curious.

- Winx really did a number on the Trix this time. And Faragonda and Griselda came back in the right moment. Though, I can’t get over the fact that she has zero idea what the fuck is going on between her students and the witches (not that anyone tells her shit but still). Now they went overboard? What about three episodes ago when they tried to kill Stella? And they’re making sure they’re not breaking the rules but who the fuck makes sure these girls are safe? Because they’ve been in more trouble from the beginning of the school year than a person gets into for their entire high school run.

- Did Faragonda take away the Trix’s powers too? Well, she should’ve left them powerless. It would’ve saved everyone a lot of headaches.

1x08:

- Fuck, this talk about Stella and Musa’s family situations is making me want to cry. I can’t see through the tears in my eyes. Help!

- I always loved this episode (1x08). But damn, why is Riven hitting on Bloom? Pls, stop! But at least she really ripped into him and then poured water on him which, frankly, he deserved. I mean, I like him as a character but he was way out of line talking to them like that.

- I love that Stella was being supportive with Brandon when Riven was trying to embarrass him. She didn’t care if he’d failed, only that he was okay. That was really cute!

- So the whole plan hangs on whether Knut can sell the Timmy vibe? Which he is not really doing all that well. Great job! This only worked because Bloom is not paying attention. Which I will cut her some slack for because of the whole thing with Daphne and then Riven.

- I feel like the writers do know how to build suspense, though, and I really appreciate that.

- I like Riven x Musa but I also like Riven x Darcy. When you forget that she was actually using him... and she put a spell on him. Ugh... Why is this so problematic? And also never addressed? Not to mention that Darcy totally did not look up any spells prior to that so she must have known it beforehand, and considering Icy and Stormy’s words, I think it is safe to assume she’s done this before... which is not okay.

- But on the plus side, she knows how to ride a hoverbike! I like that!

- Well, it did end in tears so job well done I guess. I am still having problems with Griffin’s behavior here. “Break some hearts, break some bones”? Umm, what? Can you not? (Also, sidenote, but Griffin’s remark about the celebration struck me as annoying tbh. I know she’s a witch but she has a family too. Can we, please, drop this idea that witches can’t love, thanks?)

1x09:

- Wow, this is the most interesting episode so far.

- Stella really got spelled there. And in the end with the oppositus spell. That part was really random, though. Was it simply because they needed Musa to run off to town?

- Aw, Faragonda hugging Bloom so readily was really cute! What the heck did she mean about the dark forces, though? Was that... Was that somehow caused by the Ancestral Witches? Because I am pretty sure the Trix had nothing to do with it. What the hell is going on?

- I wanna know about the First Witches! Tell me moooore!!! At least we know about Daphne now.

- Okay, this time the Trix and the other witches were gonna kick Winx and the Specialists’ asses. That was some awesome battle, though. I liked it so much. Real action. Plus, they got to show off their powers!

- Darcy’s powers are so awesome!!! (I’m sorry but I love her and I have to gush.)

- Now the Trix know about the Dragon Fire. (I love those damn crystals; they look so good!). It’s starting to get real. But let’s backtrack for a second here. They wrecked the place where there were fighting, not to mention the blinding light from Bloom’s powers and yet, somehow nobody knows what happened there? What? Why tf don’t Griffin and Faragonda know about that? I am pretty sure they wrecked multiple cars there so why is nobody filing complaints and tracking the fight back to them?

1x10:

- “Puppy dog to Stiletto.” I AM DYING!!! And the way they are showing how the communication between them runs through Darcy’s psychic channel is so cool! I love it!

- It’s the Magical Reality Chamber... Ugh. I am not really thrilled about that.

- And Palladium is busy Palladiuming here. I can’t help this thought but why is his design so different in season 1 from his design later on? What happened to him? (Obvious glow up but I mean why?)

- Tecna’s sass is killing me. I am so loving it!

- Oh, thank goodness Kiko is okay!

- What the hell happened to the Dragon Fire? Did it just decide to pack its bags and leave? How did it get away from the Whisperian Crystals? Also, if Faragonda and Palladium were watching how Bloom was doing, why didn’t they say anything about the Trix? Did they not see them? If they did, why didn’t they do shit about it? I am pretty sure what they did is very against the rules. So what the hell is up with that?

1x11:

- Okay, I totes agree with Bloom. Yeah, Flora messed up with all the plants but they legit let her go live in a swamp. Wtf, guys?!?!?! You’re her friends. You shouldn’t let that happen!

- Awww, they went with her! Okay, we’re good! (And even Stella went even though her shoes got ruined!) Also, Flora’s inventions are really cool. Baby can save the entire universe on her own and protect nature with her inventions.

- The nymphs are so cute!!! Not to mention well adapted! They can fly, breathe air and live underwater. Damn!

- Stella is finally hearing the voice of nature. Or whatever it is that is sending her that vibe that something is off.

- Why wasn’t Tecna affected by the mist (or whatever it was)? She was breathing the same air as them and all the rest were getting sleepy even before she put down her mask (whatever). So why was she not affected at all? (I’m not trying to poke holes into the plot, the plot is poking my eyes out with its holes.)

- An evil willow. Well, you don’t see that every day.

- Tecna’s apology was very Tecna and very cute.

1x12:

- Awwww, they agreed to help Stella with the beauty pageant because she was so passionate about it. That’s some real friendship!!! Also, I love how concerned they were with making sure she was going to pass the test. Sometimes the only thing that can make you study is indeed someone else forcing you to. So props to them for taking the time to make sure she was handling her classes.

- Lol, the Trix are at it again. But what did they do with Lucy? She looks like a completely different person. Also, they used a lot of magic there (and their reactions to how well it was working were just hilarious). And here I go again with my ranting. Why didn’t the contest have someone to make sure the participants weren’t using magic since that was against the rules? The Trix used so much magic and no one would be the wiser if not for Bloom’s spell. Other contestants could have used magic as well and no one would have been able to tell. It’s just not believable.

- Stella won the pageant and passed her test. Now that’s impressive!

1x13:

- That episode with Bloom and her parents made me cry, wtf! That was really emotional. I don’t get one thing, though. If she knew she was adopted, why didn’t she try to look for her birth parents even before that? Wasn’t she curious why they’d given her up? And why did she not think of them when she learned she had magic? I think it is logical after learning that you have magic and knowing that you are adopted to go “Hey, perhaps I inherited this from my birth parents”.

- At least Winx were very supportive about it. (I am a bit unsure why Bloom didn’t make the connection about Daphne when Mike told her he’d heard a voice when he’d found her. I mean, she also heard a voice (guiding her out of a fire no less) so why didn’t she wonder at least if perhaps that hadn’t been Daphne that talked to Mike?)

1x14:

- I just noticed this but remember how Bloom is complaining that she always has to go first at tests because they do alphabetical order? Isn’t Amaryl in the same class? She was with them during Wizgiz’s quiz (wait, that’s next episode) and when Palladium had them listening to the voice of nature. But then with the magical reality chamber and this exercise with Faragonda Bloom’s going first even though Amaryl should go before her.

- Omg, Sky is fangirling so hard! And he’s on for breaking into Cloud Tower. I have a feeling that is the worst idea but I know they’re gonna do it anyway so...

- So Griffin’s entire family consists of witches? Cool. And of course, her fave spell is a revenge one. Why am I not surprised? XD

- I feel so bad for Mirta. Everyone laughed at her. But she should’ve known that was coming and she should’ve chosen a different spell to describe. Actually, scratch that. She was brave enough to be herself and did not conform to what was expected of her so props to her for that! Though, the witches’ reaction suggests that having friends is something to laugh at which just... isn’t true??? Like, everyone needs a friend once in a while. I can’t stand it when kids shows make the villains these heartless, soulless people who feel no emotion whatsoever. Would it kill you to make a villain that actually acts like a person?

- Wtf, Lucy? That was nasty as hell. And does she really think that the Trix are going to hang out with her?

- The Trix’s plan is truly horrible. But I have to admit it’s a good plan. Seriously though, the poor duckling! Honestly, how is it still alive? They made an entire troll disappear but they can’t get rid of one little duckling? Does that mean that they didn't actually want to kill it (bc lbr they could've easily killed it if they wanted to)?

- At least Sky would’ve tried to comfort Bloom if she hadn’t pushed him away. (Question, though. Why didn’t Griffin learn they were in the library? Last time Winx were there she immediately knew. (It is probably a good thing, though, because she probably would’ve tried to kill Bloom... Again.))

- Awww, Bloom and Mirta friendship adorableness ensues!!!

- I loved the way Winx all used their powers to find Bloom! And Musa getting that sound wave reading that she then transferred to Tecna? Awesome! I wish we could get more extraordinary usage of magic like that! (in the later seasons I mean)

- Kiko and the duckling fighting is some peak comedy right there.

- Oh no, poor Mirta (again; dammit this episode!). But at least she’s among friends now.

1x15:

- That’s some drama with the test (understandable). And that’s some more drama with the answers.

- Bloom was a little pushy in that scene with Faragonda who was clearly exhausted from the spell but I’ll cut her some slack because of the circumstances.

- Was that a pixie that was flying outside of Alfea?

- Flora is getting angry over here. Honestly, she’s really surprising me. I remember her as this goody-two-shoes but the only reason she hasn’t really snapped so far is because something always happens before she can. If you really look at her expressions, you can see that she gets mad as often as the other characters. I actually kind of like that because it shows she’s simply doing her best to be nice all the time and she also has limits but she’s actually working on keeping herself in check. It makes her more interesting.

- Why is everyone so bad at sneaking around?

- That lesson about inner transformation was interesting. Definitely something to think about. (I’ll tell you what’s for sure, though. Amaryl probably wasn’t transformed at all by the temptation. She is just a bitch like that. (It’s all she’s shown so far.))

- Stella legit picked up her teacher and then dropped him LMFAO!

1x16:

- I really love how the Trix are casting so many spells and developing their skills. In this season they actually worked for what they were after and did not receive everything on a silver platter. It makes me actually like them even though they are as evil as ever.

- Poor Stella! That monster caused her to dream about her biggest demons. And poor baby is afraid nobody likes her. Awww! :/ I am legit crying over here again, dammit!

- Damn, the monster is growing as it feeds on their nightmares! And Musa and Tecna’s nightmares were horrible. Poor babies! They did have a good plan for catching it, though... kinda. (It was a good thing they managed to contact Mirta and she told them what it was at least.)

- Well, it was about damn time Faragonda showed up! That monster has been roaming her school for two nights now. And it’s not so sneaky and quiet either. Not to mention the enormous amount of dark energy it must have brought in the school. How did none of the teachers notice it sooner? Like, seriously, it was there for two nights, the girls were screaming, loudly, they fought it in their room, they fought it in the corridor, they fought it in the yard, it knocked down Musa and Tecna, the Trix showed up and froze Stella and Flora, the gargoyle caught Bloom and Faragonda showed up ONLY THEN? Are you kidding me? Took you for-fucking-ever! And on top of it Winx started apologizing they hadn’t been able to handle it on their own instead of being angry that the school is not doing enough to protect them. None of the shit that has happened to them since the beginning of the season should have been allowed, and yet, somehow it keeps happening.

- So Griffin didn’t care that they wrecked havoc but that they got caught while doing it? Nice. I love it how she just decided to magic a gigantic projection of her head and use it to kick the Trix out instead of going out in the rain. Power move!

- And now the Trix are hella mad. This is getting intense.

1x17:

- Well, Sky isn’t handling this well. And Diaspro is coming which means trouble. It’s not going well! (I can’t stress this enough. God, I really hate this episode.)

- Wait, so Timmy knows about the switch up between Brandon and Sky? I mean, if he knows why Diaspro’s visit is a problem, then he must know about that as well, right? Which means that Riven is the only one in the group that doesn’t know. Well, that doesn’t look too good. I mean, it was good for them they hadn’t told him but it might explain why he never felt like a part of the group. They were keeping things from him.

- That chat between Griffin and Faragonda escalated quickly. And damn, they turned a man into a goat? I mean, I expect that from Griffin, but Faragonda? I did not see this coming. Also, the dialogue was horrible. It’s pure exposition. Both of them know what happened. Why are they going over it? And it was just information without any added commentary from either of them which made it pointless and sort of an info dump. I’m cringing just listening to it.

- Okay, but Griffin’s seat was 26 G and Faragonda’s was 26 F. I mean, come on! It actually made sense for them to be seated together (and with Saladin too) tho since they’re the headmistresses of the schools.

- So Erendor went to Red Fountain too? I mean, of course he did. But please, who is buying the crap that Samara is a philanthropist? She is obviously a big snob and you can tell that just by looking at her.

- Politics is being brought to you by Musa.

- Too bad for Bloom that both Icy and Diaspro are horrible and she thought Diaspro was Icy. Smart call with the press idea, though. Also, Diaspro’s magic is actually really cool! It is unique and I really like it!

- And Riven and Sky don’t have it together either. Everyone is acting like they’re five years old in this episode. Also, I love how Saladin just blamed the whole thing on Bloom when Sky and Riven also had a big role in ruining the entire celebration. But of course, Bloom is the only one guilty here and Winx are getting punished again. At least, this time they told their teachers it wasn’t completely their fault. But what good did it do anyway?

1x18:

- Omg, Bloom, no! You can’t leave and just... leave your friends. Ugggggh, this is too sad!!! (And kind of annoying me because they told her they wanted her there and they were all together in this. Though, on the other hand I understand because guilt is something that you have to deal with yourself and only you can get over it no matter how many reassurances you get from outside.) But awwww, they all looked so cute when they were just chilling together while everyone was doing their own thing. True friendship!

- I am so with Stella on this one. Bloom’s their friend and they have to go get her back no matter what.

- Btw Griselda’s glasses can’t be functional at all. I mean look at them. The two lenses are so far apart, wtf?

- Go to hell, Icy! Earth is cool!

- Mitzy is so annoying. I would’ve used my powers on her a long time ago if I were Bloom. So props to her for (mostly) keeping her cool.

- Oooh, Bloom finally learned who she is (and ooh, we’re getting backstory!). And... she lost her powers. The way they just ripped the Dragon Fire out of her was terrible. It makes me hurt!

1x19:

- Stella is such a good friend! I love her!!!

- Oof, that battle between the Trix and Griffin. Griffin was so done with them when she was dusting herself off. And awww, she cares about her witches! That was so cute!!! Ediltrude and Zarathustra flying out of the window wasn’t cute, though.

- Stella is not being helpful with her “it might be the end of the world”. And Griselda’s mood seemed to flip pretty quickly from angry to concerned. Also, Faragonda with her “I believe we learn things when we’re ready to” may not have made the best decision. If Bloom had known, it could have been different. Not to mention that in the previous episode she told Winx she’d take care of Bloom when she refused to let them go after her but I didn’t see anyone taking care of anything. If Stella hadn’t gone to take her back, she may not have found her way back. What are you, guys, doing?

- Why does Cloud Tower have functioning dungeons, again? Also, who decided it was a good idea to keep the book for summoning the Army of Decay in Cloud Tower? I know you need the Dragon Fire to summon it and they thought that was gone, but still.

- I am so over the name of the spells. English words with Latin suffixes? I mean, really? Couldn’t actually come up with something better? (I wasn’t going to rant about that but they keep doing it.)

- I can’t decide if the Army of Decay is a good name or not. I think I like it, though. Either way, it seems to be a big deal since all the teachers looked scared as hell.

- Ah, the scene with Riven was painful. I really liked it, though. They got to show off their new powers and be nasty.

- Definitely a cool name. And an even cooler concept!

- The Trix were such great villains in season 1, though. They truly were menacing and were actually pretty powerful. And look at how creepy they are! I love!

- Does somebody want to tell me why Faragonda (and Griselda) weren’t helping the fairies fight the monsters like Palladium and Wizgiz were? Yeah, they need to keep communicating with Red Fountain but, like, isn’t there a more efficient way to do that that won’t keep the headmistress who is the most powerful person in the school from fighting?

- I like that Sky decided to stay and fight even if it meant dying.

1x20:

- Oh, look, the magical reality chamber can apparently be used as a teleportation device. Hmm, interesting.

- Darcy talking to the Army of Decay as if they’re little puppies was the funniest thing ever!

- Poor Knut (and the duckling). But at least he’s helping as much as he can! And he cares about his mom! Awwwww!

- Omg, I have for some reason been left with the impression that Saladin was a calm person but in the few moments he’s had so far he’s been raging far more than he’s been calm. And he did have a point about not trusting Knut but, jeez, can you calm down? Also, “everyone who survives passes the semester”. Oh yeah? How very generous of you. However, the semester is the least of your problems rn.

- If the Trix know that Winx are on Sparks, why don’t they attack Alfea?

- We finally saw a little of what Saladin can do. I think it’s weird that he’s a magic user when his school doesn’t teach magic. Can he fight without his magic? I mean, he probably can, but let us see it goddammit! I still liked the magic use, though!

- Ooooh, Icy unleashed some power there. Also, was she able to control the dragons because of the Dragon Fire? How are non-magical dragons related to the Great Dragon?

- Yeah, Stella is transformed and watching Bloom fall down a chasm and she’s asking “What do we do?” Fly down to fucking get her maybe? I don’t know.

1x21:

- How does Bloom remember the palace on Sparks if she was a baby back then? And it’s too quick for it to become “her palace”.

- Stella and Tecna took a Mathematics and Magic class together? Aww, that’s so cute! (Even if Stella slept through most of it.)

- Oh, look, Daphne showed up! When is she gonna tell Bloom that she’s her sister?

- I loved all the magical stuff here! The way they combined their powers and the attacks they used were super cool and felt really unique! Where did that go in the later seasons?

- Awww, Stella and Brandon are “friends”!!! Cool!

- Brandon is doing his best as Sky’s wingman! And he succeeded! Now if they can only fix the magical mess as easily as the romantic one!

1x22:

- Omg, Stella being so ready to help Knut is one of my favorite things! I can’t help but feel like this side of her was lost a little bit in favor of the more bitchy one in later seasons and I’m so sad.

- The entire Universe is in danger but girls will be girls and get all excited at the news of their new guests in the face of the boys.

- Going in without a plan is not the best idea. And that was such a positive reaction we got from Tecna.

- Stella is ready to go out with Brendon! That’s really cute!

- The Trix wrote “rule everyone” in their admission letters and Griffin still accepted them? What the actual hell was she thinking?!?!?!

- So Icy also comes from a lineage of witches?

- It was really cute that Griffin actually cared about Riven. So she’s only being a bitch to fairies then?

- Since when can the Army of Decay turn you into rot by touching you? I mean, they said that and a minute later Codatorta punched one of the monsters but he was fine. Contradictory much?

- So Riven just turned into the Red Fountain living instruction manual the way he was reciting all those things? Also, jumping out of windows is probably not the best action to undertake. Not that he had any other options left.

- Is Faragonda leading the battle? I thought Saladin would command the Specialists but it seems that she’s the one who’s giving all the orders. That is so cool!

- So much for sneaking in Cloud Tower.

- Awww, Riven saved the day and apologized for screwing up earlier! Plus, he showed how competent he is. All of that was so awesome and probably my fave part of the episode.

1x23:

- Tecna and Timmy, though! XD If they weren’t being attacked, that calculations talk would’ve practically been a date!

- Griffin just blasted the Trix like that! Damn! And she was legit glowing with magic! That was so awesome!!! She was so mad, I can’t. And that spell she put on them to trap them seemed to be very sophisticated, having in mind how many motions it needed to get activated.

- Did Griffin just compliment the fairies? Oh, I see, when they sneak in Cloud Tower under her supervision, she tries to kill them, but when they sneak in Cloud Tower while it’s under the Trix’s control, it’s brave. Nice logic we got here.

- Griffin, Faragonda and Saladin stand for the three points of magic? What does that mean? I mean, in terms of magic. What can the three of them do when they combine their powers?

- Btw why the hell would they need to enter the portal in alphabetical order? That was just so random, not to mention inconvenient.

1x24:

- What is it with witches and turning people into goats? Speaking of Ediltrude, where the hell are she and Zarathustra? They weren’t shown to be with Griffin and her students.

- Wait, I’m confused. Are they suggesting that the Trix are direct descendants of the Ancestresses and that’s why their parents never showed up? Because they don’t have parents? What the hell is going on?

- I like the idea that the monsters keep reforming because it really makes sense considering what they’re made of. And it is so epic! I am so here for this battle!

- I kinda feel Bloom’s worries about her magic being the only special thing about her, though we all have to give her credit for the fact that she keeps beating monsters with a stick. XD What was it? Her Earth powers? Do we all have those? I haven’t tried it yet.

- Wow, Faragonda and Griffin’s combined magic was so powerful! I love it!

- Awww, that Brandon and Stella moment that turned into the Specialists and Winx moment was so cute!!! But poor baby Stella. She just wants love and her parents’ divorce is really hurting her. (Also, that remark about her being the one to protect Brandon was cool! You go, girl!)

- The monsters attacked again. And just when they were ready to take the fight to the Trix, gdi! I have to say that I am actually wondering what Griffin meant by taking out the roots. I suppose she didn’t mean kill the Trix which is interesting to me. Considering Griffin’s general behavior and background, I’d say it is safe to assume that murder is not past her. But she never tried to really hurt the Trix even when she knew how serious of a threat they posed to the entire universe.

- Musa’s attack was so awesome! They got really powerful during that year they spent in Alfea. (Perhaps it would’ve been good to actually see them learn the new magic they seemed to have mastered but anyway, it is still cool.)

- That combined magic of all the fairies and witches was so epic! And I love the way it was done. With Faragonda and Griffin acting like a bridge between the light magic of the fairies and the dark magic of the witches. It was really cool!

- Magix sort of looks like Pompeii. Is that how people look when they’re turned to rot?

1x25:

- That was some very unladylike way of sitting that the Trix pulled there.

- Omg, Riven’s confession of his feelings towards Musa was so awkward, I can’t!

- Well, it was obvious that Bloom’s powers were still in her. First, that always happens on TV shows. And second, after the Trix stole the Dragon Fire from her she was still in her fairy form so... yeah. And I really hate the whole thing because I get what they were trying to do but it is so frustrating to know that they had to go through all this shit (they almost died! Multiple times!) only for it to turn out that her powers were inside her all along. It’s just... disappointing!

- Why don’t Stormy and Darcy know about the Invisible Road? And why the hell is there even such a thing? So that enemies can sneak up on you and attack you? The possible uses of that road do not balance out the danger it puts them in so why does it even exist?

- Lol, Codatorta beating Saladin in that game was a cool moment. I honestly expected him to lose because he looked distracted but it turned out it was the other way around.

- Faragonda and Griffin really know each other well. Though, I don’t think that Griffin was very happy about that. What I’m more interested in, though, is how they heard the Army of Decay. It still seemed pretty far away so I think it was their magic that enabled them to hear it. That’s totally awesome and I approve!

1x26:

- So Faragonda IS leading the battle! That’s so awesome on so many accounts. But the most notable is that that means she must have experience with battle strategy in order to pull this off (Well, of course she does, considering the whole action with the Company of Light that must have gone down)! I’m gonna scream here!!!

- Winx joining Bloom to help her against the Trix and the boys teaming up while discussing their love life was honestly the best. Riven and Sky are working together, I cannot believe it! It’s so cool!

- Okay, but even without the Dragon Fire Darcy and Stormy should still be stronger than Winx since they’re seniors. And yet, they seem to be losing. And kind of easily at that. And I’m not really sure what happened. Did Winx’s convergence turn Stormy’s attack on them?

- Is it only me or does it look like Bloom’s teleporting? (Also, props to the animators for only making Bloom’s powers look like a dragon to show who really controls the power, but they do lose points for making Icy and Stormy’s powers take the shape of a dragon as well in earlier moments.)

- Why did Stormy and Darcy’s monsters disappear when they were defeated if all the Dragon Fire was in Icy? That makes no sense.

- I love it how Bloom just carried Icy back like it was no biggie.

- Oh, no! Griffin is blaming herself for what happened (well, she was a little guilty but still). Opening a Bed & Breakfast? Wait, what? Did I hear right? That was so weird.

- Knut is so adorable! And Stella is so supportive of him! I love!

- Well, Lucy is just being a bitch.

- “We don’t do prom. We crash prom. So enjoy it. This will be the one year we won’t try to ruin it.” XD That was such an awesome line!!!

- So Griffin is the one who sent the Trix to wherever she sent them. Why are they still her responsibility if she expelled them? Shouldn’t she consult Faragonda and Saladin as to what to do with them? Or like... the Council? (Also, Griffin’s face when Saladin mentioned them was priceless. She is so done with them and I fully understand.)

- Why did the duckling go with Icy? It came to Alfea with Knut because it was scared of her. What happened?

- Even Griselda is having fun. That’s nice!

This was kind of... epic! Plot is perhaps not the strongest point of the Winx Club writers but they definitely know how to build tension. The season is a little weird in terms of time constraints in-verse but it was very enjoyable to watch! The powers and moves that they had were really awesome and actually rather original which I am very pleasantly surprised by. The season had some very strong moments and I really liked what they did, especially with the final episodes. I actually really loved it and I don’t think it is just the nostalgia talking here.

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professorspork · 5 years

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Frozen 2: first impressions

Hello friends! As you know, Frozen was a HUGE part of my fandom life ~back in the day.~ So of course I saw the sequel opening night and of course I have thoughts after ruminating on it for 24 hours. I’m sure there will be many things I forget or don’t cover--after all, I’ve only seen it the once. And I make no guarantees that my thoughts are coherent or consistent. (If I contradict myself, I contradict myself-- I am large, I contain multitudes.) I’m also sure my opinions will evolve upon rewatch. Lord knows they did last time.

Is that enough disclaimer yet? OKAY. Some of my thoughts are negative! Some are positive! It’s a grab bag! Here we go!

Spoilers under the cut, pals.

IN SHORT: As an expansion on the world and the characters I adore, I pretty much loved it! As an extension of uh Big Capitalism and what it means in terms of real world ramifications... I have questions/comments/concerns!

IN LONG: I think I’ll start with what didn’t work for me and work my way around to fangirling at the end.

the meh

I feel like... part of it is that Disney has just gotten worse and power-grabbier in way more blatant ways in the last few years, and part of it is that I’m ever-more cognizant of these things. And the fine line they want to walk of “We can tell stories about progressive concepts! Princesses are woke now, actually!” without taking a single financial risk when it comes to alienating foreign markets, homophobes abroad or Nazis domestically is just a fundamentally untenable position to be in. You don’t get to retcon Elsa and Anna as being somehow less white than they clearly are and then try to tell a story about reparations in which no one actually gets reparations. You don’t get to get points for that. It’s in some ways admirable to want to try, but all you do when you’re coming at it from the position of being Disney when you tell this story is show the cracks in it.

I can see how, on a purely storytelling level, having Papa King Arendelle Agnarr be of Arendelle and Iduna be of the Northuldra and having their daughters be the bridge between the two communities is a really tempting, tidy, tie-a-bow-on-it narrative. And I also see how creating the backstory of the war and the mist neatly explains the absence of indigenous faces in the first film. But like... come on. Introducing an indigenous group like the Northuldra and then declaring that Elsa and Anna are a part of it is insulting. There’s no other way to say it. It just feels gross. I’m glad that Disney consulted with the Sámi on the movie, and I acknowledge that both real-life Sámi folks and the onscreen Northuldra come in a broad variety of skin tones and phenotypes. But even with the most generous possible reading of the choice-- that it’s well-intentioned, albeit misguided-- falls flat for me. It feels like Disney trying to have their cake and eat it too. And I don’t really see any way around that. It just... gives me tremendous pause, and it’s so core to so many of the things the movie chooses to be that it’s really disquieting and disappointing.

But then again, Disney being racist isn’t exactly news, and there’s still plenty of flaws to tackle even when we put this (massive) issue aside.

This movie is... weirdly allergic to stakes? It’s not like I wanted Elsa to stay dead, or that I expected Olaf to (more on that in a minute). But Anna’s decision to go full Thor Ragnarok and, as @theseerasures jokingly put it to me last night, “throw the first brick at Stonewall” and destroy Arendelle felt right. It felt appropriate to the story they were telling, and it would have had the film put its money where its mouth is re: how atoning for the sins of our forebears requires massive systemic change. So having Elsa charge to the rescue on her water-type Rapidash extremely queer steed daemon Gay Horse and save the city felt cheap. (Also, side note: is Arendelle really just... that one seaside port town and nothing else? Are there only like fifty people in Arendelle?) The citizens had already been taken to safety. The society would live on; they’d all get to rebuild. What was the point of saving the castle, just for saving the castle’s sake? To what end? I don’t see how that’s more inspiring or reassuring or worth it than watching the sisters lead their people from the ground up and starting anew. I don’t understand what they thought was worth protecting, when, again, all of the people were safe. Stories need stakes in order to have meaning! HTTYD has impact because Hiccup loses his leg in his attempt to save his dragon and his people. You know? You don’t get to just... keep everything the way it is and call that restorative justice, and the film clearly wants us to. And I don’t understand why. The only reason that makes any sense at all to me is that they thought it would scare little kids, but like. THIS COMPANY HAS PORTRAYED WAY MORE TRAUMATIZING THINGS THAN THAT. MANY TIMES.

Point in fact: Olaf’s death! Genuinely disturbing! Sad! For the most part I really liked the way it was handled, but it also felt very. Y’know. “Mister Stark, I don’t feel so good.” This is perhaps my most uncharitable nitpick, so I’ll keep it brief, but having Olaf drift away Snap-style just felt like an extremely synergistic, Disney+ nod at Infinity War instead of an organic decision. Which maybe isn’t fair, because it makes more sense for Olaf to become a flurry than for the Snap to make people dust! But nevertheless, the weird wink-and-a-nudge feeling of it totally pulled me out of what should have been an extremely poignant moment. Elsa’s revelation during “Show Yourself” felt similar--like. Not to take away from your moment, Elsa, but the call isn’t out there at all, it’s inside me was already covered by this larger canon, and in a more elegant and eloquent manner.

Which--tbh, the music overall was a bit of a letdown (though “Into the Unknown” slaps and a boyband of five joshes “Lost in the Woods” was perhaps the best sequence in the whole movie). I respect that they clearly wanted to give everyone a solo this time around in a deliberate way, but the songs felt perfunctory for the most part--describing moments instead of advancing them. This film was such a departure from how Disney normally makes sequels (mostly in a good way, actually) and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would have looked like to make a version of this movie where no one sang at all. It didn’t feel cohesive.

And, though it would kill me to get rid of “Lost in the Woods” because it’s perfect... I kinda wish Anna and Kristoff had gotten engaged at the end of act 1, as I think they pretty clearly did in the first draft of this script. Their relationship drama felt like a hat on top of a hat, and they could still have addressed their codependency/insecurities while being engaged. Leaving the proposal for the end just made it an anticlimax after everyone’s been brought back from the literal dead. And it maybe would have left them with more options than having Kristoff just vanish from the narrative for the entire back half of the second act.

Also Honeymaren should have had at least two more scenes. I can’t justify this on a narrative level; the movie didn’t actually need more of her. But like. If you’re going to go out of your way to keep Elsa carefully single, and even give KRISTOFF a new boyfriend, I feel like the least you can do is let us get to know the obvious throw-us-a-bone offering a little bit better. Like. Literally. the actual least you can do.

anyway. all of that said.

the yay!

I can’t tell you how gratifying it was to me, personally to open with a flashback of the girls that demonstrates as clear as day that Elsa is an ace lesbian and Anna is bi and polyamorous. Thank you, snow action figures.

And like. Overall the way the movie tackled the sisters and their relationship was pure *chef’s kiss.* (And I think for me, the strength in this particular bullet point probably outweighs all of my complaints and concerns from above, in the end. At least from an “I still derive enjoyment from this flawed thing” standpoint, though perhaps not from an “I’d recommend this to anyone without caveats” standpoint.) THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH. THEY WERE SO THEMSELVES. I do think part of the fear of any sequel where there’s been a significant amount of time since the last one and you were so emotionally invested in it the first go-around is like... what if everyone feels OOC? What if what I saw wasn’t what was really in them after all? What if they feel like strangers? What if they let me down? And there was none of that, even for a second, with this movie. Their parallel journeys were character-appropriate and impactful. Elsa finally gets the freedom she’s always been looking for. Anna finally gets the responsibility she’s always been ready for. Anna, the caretaker, is positioned to take care of everyone. Elsa, the lesbian, runs away to the forest to hang out with beautiful powerful women. Elsa, the force of nature, is finally allowed to commune with it. The scene at their parents’ ship truly anchors the whole movie in the best possible way. And also, like... this movie showed how fucking weird Elsa is, and I feel so vindicated. SHE’S SUCH A DORK. I can’t believe I never realized that Elsa would totally choose Charmander as her starter, and the way she talked to the fire salamander was literally the most charming thing I have ever seen. “They’re staring at us, aren’t they?” GOSH. [IMDb says the salamander’s name is Bruni, and I’m very sad they never spoke it aloud.] [Someone do a rotoscope of the Tangled short where Pascal and Max almost ruin Rapunzel and Eugene’s wedding by losing the rings but it’s Bruni and Sven at Kristoff and Anna’s wedding, thank]

Anyway. All of that goes double for Olaf, because I really wasn’t sure they could pull off the miracle of him not being annoying twice. And they did! Olaf’s grappling with his burgeoning maturity was adorable and profound in equal measure, and his plot reenactments were sublime. And when he realized to Anna for the first time that he was feeling angry, that he was capable of feeling angry... what a tremendous moment. (Actually, I’ll extend what I said about the boat scene to include the Earth Giants river sequence in total, because. Again. Wow.)

And I have to say... as much as I am given real pause by their execution of the concept, “you just do the next right thing” is such beautiful (*cough* Jewish *cough*) praxis. I love that. In the broader Disney Revival canon of Tiana’s work ethic and Rapunzel’s abuse narrative and how Wreck-It Ralph talked about PTSD and all of the myriad things the first Frozen did, I might love “the next right thing” most of all. What a simple, powerful, evocative message. It’s so lovely. A perfect gem.

Also worth acknowledging that the animation was straight-up stunning. Which I expected, generally, but the water droplets in the ship? The way Elsa just loses it sobbing when she sees her mother’s face in the ice? The tender, shattered way Anna pulls Olaf in closer to her as he fades? W.O.W. And, y’know, while I stand by what I said above about stakes, I will say that the moment we first see that Elsa is experiencing cold, that Elsa is freezing? Genuinely--and please forgive the pun--genuinely chilling.

I love Gail the Gale. I love Mattias and Yelana and Ryder and Honeymaren. But mostly I just... loved the dialogue and these characters and that I got to spend a little more time with them. And I’m sure I’ll do so at least two more times before it leaves theaters.

... apparently this is over 2k words now so that seems as good a place to leave it as any. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#does #anyone #use #tracked #tags #anymore?#either way #let's stay out of them #that should do it #frozen 2 #frozen 2 spoilers #frozen #frozen spoilers #spoilers

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Ghost-Spider #3 Thoughts

More of the same but now with extra smaller problems.

You know my complaints about the inherent premise of this title? Those still stand, just take those as read from now on.

This issue compounds those problems though through a several smaller problems that in isolation might be merely nitpicks but collectively speak to how ill thought out this book is.

We finally get John Jameson after he’s been talked about for 2 issues and wouldn’t you know it there is little fanfare. It’s not a character introduction because this book isn’t written for new reader’s it’s written for the old lapsed ones who apparently still know what happened in the previous volumes

When John threatens Miles the latter retorts John is scarier when he’s bigger than he is. But John is clearly bigger and more dangerous than Warren. John is a man in his 20s or 30s and Warren is some middle aged nerd.

This dialogue refers to Earth 65 Peter Parker as a mad scientist and implies he had something to do with Spider-Gwen’s creation. It plays as rather intriguing..if you never read older Spider-Gwen issues…like her origin! Peter didn’t create Spider-Gwen at all unless there was some huge retcon I didn’t know about. Moreover this book is again presuming familiarity on the part of new readers. If you hadn’t read the older volumes this dialogue about Peter makes no sense and gives you a false impression.

Gwen claims that in Peter’s dimension people don’t look up which allows for her entries and exits from Earth 616 to go unnoticed. But this is dumb because if you live in a world of super humans where death could come from above you absolutely WOULD look up from time to time!

At the start of the issue Gwen is happy that she’s learning important things that don’t involve punching people but then towards the end of the issue she’s explaining how well things are going and how her day would be perfect if she COULD hit someone. Isn’t that a little contradictory?

The art has stepped down and isn’t as tight as in the first 2 issues.

Peter is surprised to find out Gwen’s clothes are made from her symbiote. Peter is too smart to have not deduced that. It’s really obvious considering he, Brock, Kasady and literally everyone else who sported a symbiote didn’t mother with much more than underwear.

Speaking of obvious deductions. It turns out Benji Jones is in league with the Jackal because she figured out who he was…So…a teenager could see past his brilliant disguise of growing a beard on his chin and changing his name…but literally nobody else could? Staff members at ESU haven’t recognized him at all? Even if they weren’t around when he worked here for God’s sake there’d be systems in place to check considering he’s one of at least two ESU staff members who have become notorious super criminals. Especially if Tony Stark is involved in funding a student program for extradimensional or extraterrestrial people!

Is Benji really just evil because she wants to be a furry and protect other animals? That’s a backstory in desperate need of elaboration because as is, it’s asinine.

Miles Warren has contacts in the criminal underworld and in his debut as the Jackal literally recruited the help of the fucking Punisher. But the best way to find out where Gwen lives is through a teenage girl who wants to be a furry. Couldn’t he just hire/clone a private eye or something. He doesn’t know Gwen has powers so he wouldn’t be worried about her spider sense. Speaking of which…

How the fuck does Gwen’ Spider Sense even work? It alerts her to Warren, the guy who doesn’t want to hurt her (just have creepy sex with her) but it stays quiet about Benji. The (kinda dumb) reason Warren doesn’t set off Peter’s spider sense is that Peter considered him a friend (although an 80s flashback implied Warren did set it off a little one time). So Peter’s spider sense doesn’t react to a guy who wants him dead so he can shag his girlfriend purely because peter doesn’t consider him an enemy…but Gwen’s reacts when he doesn’t want to hurt her and he’s a stranger to her…but it also doesn’t react to a girl she’s known for 2 weeks and who’s been spying on her since her first day. WTF! It doesn’t even alert her when Benji is in her furry form and spying on her portal.

Warren is being super unreasonable even for him here. He punishes Benji or failing him when she failed specifically because she had no means of dimensional travel and because she was working off the incorrect information he gave to her!

Warren claims Gwen really is the genuine article when he finds out she’s from another universe. Okay first of all, unless I am mistaken wasn’t he aware of Spider-Gwen way back in Clone Conspiracy. He’s literally met her before. Second of all if he is aware of parallel universes (which I’m pretty sure he was before this doesn’t that really destroy the idea that this is his Gwen? That means there are an infinite number of ‘real’ Gwens out there. Thirdly, like I have said before, Warren considers the clones of Gwen as the real thing anyway. That was the whole point. Cloning her was in his eyes a form of resurrecting her.

The dialogue about the Web of Life and Destiny not only reminded me of that shitty Slott lore but worse tried to imply Spider-Man’s life is literally guided by destiny. This is awful and undermining for his and everyone else’s character as it’s saying his free will was irrelevant until Spider-Geddon! I don’t think it’s bad for peter to BELIEVE in destiny in his life, but the idea he is literally guided by it, that Gwen Stacy and Uncle Ben were ALWAYS going to die regardless of his choices is horseshit and invalidates his entire life philosophy.

Bodega bandit, who annoyed me in Latour’s run, returns and wouldn’t you know it he’s not properly introduced for new readers.

On the one hand I like that Gwen feels guilty about Bodega bandit but then thinks it through and realizes things would happen in her universe no matter what. On the other hand it’s a flimsy attempt to justify the premise of the title because YES Gwen not protecting HER dimension is irresponsible. Peter Parker would leave his studies or down time to go out and deal with a crisis if he had to. Gwen can’t do that because she’s utterly out of the loop on Earth 616.

Gwen comments that Bodega Bandit was bound to be hurt eventually because he is a career criminal…but he was hurt just buying some pet food. It had nothing to do with being a criminal.

Apparently Benji’s serum to turn her into a furry is decades old and was obtained by Swarm. Once more there is no contet for new readers as to who the fuck Swarm is and even for those of us who o know this is poorly explained. When, where, what did Swarm do to get this thing and what even is it? Why is there a decades old serum to turn you into a furry and how and why does a teenager know about it? In summary this book continues to be a drag. Not recommended.

#Ghost-Spider #Spider-Gwen #Gwen Stacy #Jackal #Miles Warren #John Jameson #Man-Wolf

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mfackenthal · 5 years

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The MFackenthal Show and @maxattack-powell!

banner by @whenyourheartskipsabeat

Hello all! Welcome back to the MFackenthal Show! I am so glad that you are here today. If you’re new to the show, I encourage you to go here to find past episodes. There are only a few.

The MFackenthal Show has officially been green lit for more episodes! We used to only be able to afford to run the show every once in a while, but the people have spoken - they want to see the show more often! The funding came through and we hope to give the people what they want! Do you want to be on the show? Do you have someone that you want to see on the show? If so - reblog or comment or send a message to let MFackenthal know! We’ll see what we can do! We have this show and two others lined up for you!

I could not be more excited to bring you this next guest. She has been with the fandom for quite a while. She was one of the first people I started communicating with on a regular basis. She has talked me up, supported me from the beginning and though she hasn’t written much lately - when she does drop a chapter - it’s long and it’s worth it! Please welcome to the stage @maxattack-powell!!!!! (Insert Cheering here!)

(Megs greets Max with a hug - which means that Megs essentially runs and leaps into Max’s arms. Max is fairly tall and Megs is barely 5′3″)

Megs: Max, I am so happy that you are here! Can you believe that you’re here today?

Max: Haha, yes - I can. But I am honored to be here.

Megs: Max, sit with me. For those in the audience who may not know you, tell us about when and why you joined the fandom.

Max: Yanno, I always made my best guess at this before, but I knew you were going to ask me this - so I looked it up. Did you know that now there’s this Official Tumblr blog called @memories, and it knows down to the minute when someone joined? Let me go check it… *digs through the blogs posts* Okay, it was apparently 07/31/2017 at 1:17:15 PM, which means it must have been on the weekend because of the time of day haha.

As for why ... hmm, well… I found the Choices app one day, when it only had like… three series I think! Anyone else remember that time?

Megs: I do! Because I was playing Hollywood University I think I downloaded choices the day the app came out.

Max: Awh! Well, I fell in love with The Freshman Series. Mostly because of Chris Powell and Zack Zilberg, and a long time ago I was in another fandom that had tons of fan fiction/art… so I googled “Choices Chris Powell” and any other combination I could think of looking for possible fanfiction. The fandom was almost non existent at the time. There was actually one person, who has long since left the fandom due to fandom dramas - we all know the kinds I’m talking about - but a few others had started posting their works as well… and I got hooked. Eventually I felt the bug to write how I felt TF should play out as well, and here I am *looks back at the “joined tumblr timestamp”* uhh… 20ish months ago! Haha!!

Megs: LOL, when you put it that way it doesn’t sound like that long ago ... lets call a spade a spade - that was almost 2 years ago! That’s amazing! You have to have seen so much in this fandom! What is it that keeps you around?

Max: There are so many awesome people in this fandom, in this world we’ve all created for our pixelated loves lol. Soooo many creative minds to follow and enjoy. The content people share, original or repost… it’s great.

... Unfortunately it is also a double edge sword ... the drama, the jealousy, the rumors, the hate, etc. I’ve sadly seen far too much and it comes in so many forms… it’s unnecessary.

Megs: I couldn’t agree more! If you could tell the fandom one thing - what would it be?

Max: It would be that we’re all here because we want to have a good time. No one came here to get ridiculed, to be scrutinized or chastised for their opinions, their likes or dislikes. Real life has enough of that going on. We are all individuals - if you want to be treated nicely, fairly, etc. you must also do the same to others. There is no reason someone must agree with you or anyone else. Live and let live. Embrace our differences as it makes us who we are. Most of the issues I see stem from a simple difference in opinion. That is ridiculous. Everyone’s entitled to their own thoughts. We must build each other up, not tear one another down. No one here owes anyone anything, now go have some fun.

(The room stands up in applause!)

Megs: You should definitely stand up and take a bow, Max!

(Max does just as Megs suggests - but she also makes Megs stand up and do the same. Laughing, they both sit back down.)

Awh, Max ... okay, let’s get back to you. We know that you’d fight anyone for the position of The Chris Powell Appreciation/Fan Club. And for those who don’t know, Max has been retelling the full The Freshman series, interweaving dialogue and plot from PB but also adding much of her own content. MC and Chris get a backstory. Chris gets best friends from back home. What is your favorite piece that you have written?

Max: Oh geez hahaha. Um… can I just say The Freshman Chronicles as a whole? I’ve written for different fandoms, and I have original WIPs but I’ll stick to the Choices fandom for this answer. I’ve put a lot of time into TFC. Tons of additional story work, research on characters and their backgrounds, PBs and my own OCs. You should see my file folder setup haha. It’s crazy… I have so many docs, pictures and gifs. Most organized by location (Hartfeld, Boston, New Haven, Cherryfield, etc.), then by character… and on some I get more detailed and split them by emotion and situation.

Megs: By what again?

Max: Emotion and Situation ... Yeah. I warned you it was crazy! *laughs* TFC was the reason I joined tumblr really. Instead of staying a Nonny and only reading others posted works. I wanted to comment, like and reblog what I enjoyed, while I also worked on my own contribution to the fandom. I had a vision for Chris and MC that had more than the game could give, and I wanted to see if i was still any good at writing since it had been years and years… it’s funny to see how different my current posts are from my first over a year ago. Makes me want to go update a few because they could use a little help *awkward laugh*

Megs: I’m sure we can all relate to that! Hmmm ... I’m starting to get a feel for this, I think, but what is your writing process?

Max: Lots of planning, mostly in my head. When I feel like I have a decent concept I might type out some notes or work it into my outline (another crazy thing I have going for TFC because it’s so big haha). But usually, once I hatch out a basic plan on where I’m going… I just start typing. Keeping the general plot and main points I want to hit in mind, I simply start typing… keeping it as organic as possible. It usually works out well.

Megs: Do you have any advice for other writers?

Max: First, and most importantly… do it because you enjoy it. Don’t do it for likes, reblogs, popularity, etc. If you’re having a good time dreaming things up and typing them out, that’s what’s important. The rest is just an extra bonus. Also, don’t give up. It’s easy to become discouraged, frustrated, distracted and more… but remember - your creative cells can’t be running all the time. They need to rest just like your body. Take breaks… go read, play games, hang out with friends/family, watch a movie… whatever. Just do something to help you relax, to reset and you’ll very probably find inspiration and/or motivation to continue. Remember, this is for fun. *wink and finger guns*

Megs: So what do you do for fun?

Max: I actually have a few things I do regularly. A big one is making costumes/props for conventions, small productions, etc. I also train and show horses. I do the same with my dogs, but more for competitions and not really any shows. I’ve always drawn, sculpted, painted since I was old enough to hold things with my hands… and about a year ago I started learning how to do it digitally as well. I run (not at all for fun haha) and play hockey (totally for fun), follow comics and watch anime. I've restored houses, cars and old furniture. I like to read as much as I can - that’s an important one. I also play video games. Something I’ve done since I was young… I've even competed, and won, a few gaming tournaments.

Megs: You don’t know how to be bored do you?

Max: LOL, Megs. Yeah, um, so there’s a “few” *makes air quotes* of my never ending list of interests haha. Gives me a lot to talk about with people, eh?

Megs: Not that I can understand how you’d have time for this ... but what do you do to help pay for your many activities?

Max: Oh like, my job? Well that can be a simple answer… like “I work in software” but the more interesting way to say it is I use my MBA, experience in business, the financial industry and technology to improve and stabilize my customers environment through technological solutions that fit their specific needs. *presses lips together* I solve problems by designing solutions. Bored yet? Hahaha.

Megs: No! That sounds wonderful! Who doesn’t want their stuff to be designed better? Any chance you could start working for tumblr? Some of us have a few complaints ... tags ... mobile losing our work ...

Max: I’m not sure they could pay me enough to help them with all of their problems! But, tumblr, feel free to send me an offer!

Megs: Seriously - send her a 6 figure offer!

Max: Okay, Megs, well now I have a question for you.

Megs: Uhhhh, Max, that’s not exactly how this is supposed to go.

Max: Yeah, don’t care. Your fans need to know ... Hoooow do you find the time to read and review so much?! And I know that’s just in this fandom. I know you read books and you may read for other fandoms!? Seriously, it’s awesome. We need to clock your page flipping speed haha.

Megs: *blushes* Oh my gosh, you have to stop! Here’s the key to how I do it ... I wake up at 5:30am and read for about 30 minutes. Then I workout and start my day. I read in line at the grocery stores. I read on my breaks at work.

Max: Oh my gosh - you’re such a nerd and I love that! Okay, nerd, what is your favorite thing to do, besides reading all the things of course?

Megs: This show, of course! And, of course, getting people to do silly things on this show with me. For instance - with as athletic as you are, I hear you can’t jump?

Max: Megs, shhhhh. You told me you weren’t going to bring that up.

Megs: I did no such thing! (Meg says while laughing) I said I might not bring it up.

Max: Uh huh.

(Kris Kross’s “Jump” starts playing in the studio)

Megs: Come on - show me what you’ve got!

(Megs starts “singing” along and jumping along with the song. Max stays seated. Megs finally pulls Max up into a standing position. Max plays along and “jumps” next to Megs - getting no air at all.)

Oh, come on Max - put some real strength in to it. Jump! Jump! Jump!

(Max jumps and gets the smallest amount of air time.)

Max: *laughing* Megs - I’m tall! I don’t need to jump to reach things!

Megs: *laughing* That must be nice. I got good at this type of jumping because I had to learn to jump up and gently grab things from the grocery so I didn’t knock everything down.

*continuing to jump around the audience - getting everyone to join her* And that’s all for the show today today, folks! Thank you for watching!! Have a great night!

#The Mfackenthal Show #With @maxattack-powell #Official show number 3 #But the 4th interview #Ellen has nothing on me #Oh who are we kidding #I wish I were half as cool as Ellen #She gets paid to do this #I do this for free #But I love it!

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