#i hope this isn't disappointing i just have no real talking point here because it is so clear that the bells are a retcon

[felixcloud6288]

Dungeon Meshi Chapter 56

Who would you pick if there was a Dungeon Meshi dating sim?

I bet the person covered up by Laios is Chilchuck's daughter and the one covered by Leed (I looked her up cause I didn't want to keep calling her "Zon's sister") is his wife.

I love how this image makes it look like Laios really wants to be in the conversation but Marcille has zero interest in knowing anything about his love life. He's just standing there excitedly waiting to answer her questions and she's ignoring him.

I got my answer to who the mystery woman in chapter 52 is. She's just a former party member who was looking for a husband and left when that failed. She's no one of importance. She probably only took an interest in Laios because of the rumors that he's a prince or descendant of the Golden Castle. And Shuro is a noble from the east, so there were two opportunities to cozy up to a potentially wealthy suitor.

I'm gonna take a quick guess at some of the Touden party's history. Kabru's mental image of the party in chapter 45 labeled Marcille as "Mystery woman", so Marcille probably is the newest member of the team. And since she and the two mystery figures have no rapport, they likely left before she joined.

The Half-foot who introduced Laios to Chilchuck was also part of the gold-peelers. And that one scumbag was included in the panel from chapter 52 of what I assume is Laios's first meeting with people who have been in his party.

So here's the timeline I imagine happened:

Initial formation: Laios, Falin, and the scumbag. The half-foot ends up recommending Chilchuck at some point

The temp joins to be with Falin but quickly leaves

Namari, Shuro, and the woman join at some point. The woman and the scumbag both leave to be with each other

Marcille joins

Chapter 1 happens

This is where that one image comes from!!

Laios and Falin once had fiances? Were they arranged by their parents back home?

Marcille brought back the hairbraid headband but is keeping the rest of her hair in a loose ponytail.

I think we can throw out the concept of dungeon floors at this point.

I'm going to assume the whole thing about unicorns and bicorns representing purity and corruption isn't real in this world. I can't say anything for the unicorn since the only one we saw was being mind-controlled, but the bicorn's behaviour can be explained by it being a horse, an animal notorious for being easily spooked.

Marcille has only one solution to every problem.

Ambrosia is still growing miscellaneous branches. Maybe it's reacting to the greater mana concentration. I hope it's a sign that the dryad twigs Marcille added are starting to kick in and a dryad familiar will grow out of it.

Got excited to see this sandwich and disappointed to see that Izutsumi's doesn't have mushrooms. I was hoping she would have kept the part where her orc form liked them.

During the last few chapters, Izutsumi has worn her scarf loose around her neck. The bow came back this chapter. I'm sticking with my assertion that Marcille is the one doing that and it just adds to how much Izutsumi likes Marcille that she lets her do that.

This is the first time Izutsumi's been part of the party getting into hijinks of their own volition and she is not happy.

Chilchuck making a racial comment at Marcille just killed all the humor. Marcille seems to get really touchy whenever anyone starts commenting about her race. I think back to chapter 20 when Mr Tansu and Namari complained about elves when they learned how Marcille angered an undine and she responded "My race has nothing to do with it!"

At some point, Laios and Senshi seemed to forget that Izutsumi can walk on her own. Laios drops her when he tries to jump the bicorn and Senshi carries her over his shoulders for the rest of the encounter.

I was expecting the bicorn to kick Laios instead of run away.

Senshi is going to have to have "The talk" with her later.

Izutsumi, acting as the straight man in the party's antics, was the only one who kept her head straight when everything went too far.

Again, I don't think the bicorn's connection to corruption is true in-universe. It's a carnivorous horse. I think it was simply being wary of the party because it's a horse but sticking close in the hopes one of them might approach it alone. As soon as Chilchuck, the easiest prey, came near it, the bicorn attacked him.

The party members from Chilchuck's flashback were the guys from the beginning of the chapter.

What if Chilchuck introducing them to his wife led to the party inevitably breaking up? Chilchuck shows them his wife and they all see this happy, loving couple and they all start to think how they'd like to have that life as well. They may have held some budding feelings for each other, but seeing Chilchuck and his wife made everyone start to become more open about their feelings. And this caused the rift that tore the party apart.

Or maybe I'm just acting like Marcille and letting all my thoughts be dictated by romance novel plots.

Senshi's brain completely turned off when Marcille started talking romance. He just doesn't care.

I take back what I said about Marcille having any creativity. She didn't come up with The Tribe of Pelkian. She just copied the plot of The Daltian Clan.

Izutsumi was enraptured by The Tribe of Pelkian. Maybe she'd like reading this series.

Chilchuck has THREE daughters. Are they who he referred to back in chapter 30 when he said he has three people to think about?

I did a bit of digging into the translation and the word Chilchuck used in chapter 48 was 娘 (musume) which can mean both "daughter" or "daughters". So in Japanese, Chilchuck was being vague when he mentioned his family. But in English, he straight-up lied to Senshi when he tried to get him to tell them about his past.

Chilchuck is 29, 14 is considered adult age for a half-foot, and he has three adult daughters. If his youngest is 14, then he had her when he was 15. And since Chilchuck was with a different party when his wife left him, that probably means his daughters are all a bit older than that. Chilchuck is the Half-foot equivalent of a teen dad.

back

[hermitcraftx]

Actually, no, I'm not done talking about the Minecraft Movie. I'm so incredibly angry about what could have been. Rant incoming, sorry to any and all witnesses. All ye who enter here abandon all hope.

The Lego Movie was a good movie because it was an homage to animators and the community it had built up during the years, was genuinely very well animated and had good plot points despite maintaining its humor, and was a good watch to people who didn't even like Legos. It did have a couple big name actors placed in there to draw views (i.e. Will Ferrell) but for the most part the movie was completely animated with very sparse real life moments that worked very well to tie into the narrative the movie was creating. You're a little kid and the world is so big and angry and full of structure, and you just want to create the things you want to see without being told what to do. Emmett is an ordinary guy told he's special as a lie to get him to comply with what Vitruvius wanted, the same way he complied with orders his entire life, and he defeated that cycle of thinking by showing kindness despite his terrible treatment, unlike Lord Business (i.e. Will Ferrell). It worked astoundingly well to create something that ticked a lot of boxes: narratively sound, incredibly pleasing to look at, funny, and capable of handling serious topics despite being a Kid's Movie.

The Minecraft Movie... does none of that. There are no well placed homages or tributes to a loving community that has been built up for well over a decade. There are no callbacks to Minecraft animations, to any of the Minecraft covers that were a staple of early Minecraft, no references or respects paid to anybody that has been a big name in the community. For fuck's sake, they didn't even put Herobrine is. Herobrine is, to be frank, the most basic Minecraft reference they could have input into this movie as a subtle nod to the community that almost everyone would have understood, and I remain disappointed.

The art style isn't respectful of Minecraft animators at all, instead vaguely resembling AI slop where they tasked it to make Minecraft in real life with realistic shader packs as the references. To be quite frank, it is a spit in the face of almost every creative person in the community. It's disrespectful to the animators, the parody creators, the modpack creators (highly unlikely but I really hope they get in deep shit for using some of them as references, because it's almost uncanny how similar they look), the Minecraft content creationists, everybody. I know they let a scant few Minecraft youtubers on set, but still.... no well hidden easter eggs? No CaptainSparklez logo? No Yogscast? No EthosLab tnt slab? Not even any of the newer youtubers that have made the Minecraft scene up for the past several years. (Not talking about the green guy, god, no, I'm very grateful for that in fact. But nobody at all? Seriously?) I get that it's a MINECRAFT movie, not a Minecraft youtuber movie, and is supposed to be well-digestible for the average audience that isn't familiar with Minecraft, but there are very easy ways to implement this. Most people would at the very least be happy to see a couple seconds of community references, regardless of what they were. Again, NO HEROBRINE? What the fuck are the Warner Bros doing.

There appears to be no strong structural narrative that ties into the base game either, despite there being a... relatively straightforward way to implement one? Look, man, the game literally has objectives for you, despite being relatively sandbox. You spawn in, you chop wood, mine for diamonds, and fight monsters, you go to the Nether, you beat the dragon. The piglins as an element outside of the Nether don't make sense as gameplay wise they zombify, which has been mentioned a lot, true, but I haven't seen ANYONE mention that they could just... I don't know... Go to the fucking Nether!? Why is the plot line being pulled from Minecraft Legends, a game that everyone thought was boring and forgot about instantly? Why are Mojang and Microsoft trying so hard to branch out from base game Minecraft? So far it looks to just be a bullshit poorly carried out isekai movie with a bunch of big name actors, one liners, shitty quips and "he's right behind me isn't he"s. There's no SERIOUS plot beat at all, not even getting a feeling that this might be any more than "uh oh, they're stuck in Minecraft and piglins are trying to kill them!"

The CGI is terrible. Just incredibly poorly implemented. The people look gigantic at the start and it's not immersed at all, it genuinely looks like some of the worst green screen work I've ever seen. They look like they're standing on a rug.

I don't know. It just makes me incredibly angry. There's a deep lack of understanding and appreciation for the game, and that sounds childish, but I think it is decently imperative to at least understand the basics of Minecraft before you make a game on it. Most people under the age of 30 understand at least a little bit about Minecraft, and if they don't, it is your job to make it enjoyable for them! You can make a story about a man that washes up in a strange world and goes to kill a dragon. Everyone can understand that. That's a very basic story that we've been milking for literally hundreds of fucking years. Nothing in the trailer resembles Minecraft at ALL, it was genuinely unrecognizable and alien to me when I first saw it. The trailers don't have a strong resemblance to Minecraft either, but it's there, and they could have honestly just based it off mostly the trailers and that would have been better? Making the movie fully animated would have given it charm and appealed to kids in the same way, and they could have pulled a Lego Movie and done an in person sequence with Jack Black at some point. I don't know. I don't understand a single cinematic decision in making this film.

A lot of people wanted a deep somber animated film about Steve exploring the loneliness and solitude of the world he's in, trying to thrive and create in spite of that, and while I agree that would be incredible, there is just no universe where that would happen in. But that doesn't mean this is excusable. There are so many better ways to execute and implement the ideas that would do well in big theater for a kid's game and it looks like they spat on those ideas and put them in a blender. It's almost comical how bad the movie is: and such a huge, SAD fucking jump from Warner Bros blowing it out of the water with the Barbie Movie last year. My young cousin finds the pink sheep scary and wanted me to turn it off when we showed it to her. There is truly no audience that I feel this appeals to in a meaningful way, and I hope it flops like Morbius. I hope Microsoft and Warner Bros go bankrupt from this.

All in all, it's a terrible example of a game that has been near and dear to a lot of people's hearts and a significant portion of a lot of people's childhoods and makes a mockery of the people that enjoy it, I feel. It's like if The Mario Movie and Jumanji had a terrible, terrible baby. Unless their plan was to get so much negative attention that hoardes of people go to hate watch it, I have no fucking idea who the hell let any of this be released to the public.

Don't go watch it. Don't give these people your money. Demand better for your community and your fans. Hold Microsoft and Warner Bros accountable for bad quality. Microsoft has been a fucking nightmare since... forever, really, but Mojang has really suffered under their iron fist rule for a long time now. Microsoft has been trying to push Mojang to other games and Mojang, due to Microsoft's restrictions, is unable to function as it's own entity anymore. Any drama with updates? Updates too long? Missing out on content from certain updates? Caused by the copyright being owned by Microsoft. Make no mistake, I'm not defending Mojang, they aren't a small little indie company like they say they are- they're owned by one of the biggest goddamn companies in the world. Microsoft has been working on this movie for a goddamn decade and has been working on this concept specifically for almost four years, and this is what they came up with? It's nightmarish. Knowing them they'll try and push it onto the people that actually play the game too, god forbid.

Don't let them ruin our game. Don't give them your money. Watch something worth your time.

[briarandhissecretgarden]

A Minecraft Movie Trailer Dive

Alright!! I have a hard time talking about things in a more real? manner like this but I feel like it's important to be honest and share thoughts.

So the Minecraft movie trailer is a trailer that exists and it's incredibly upsetting to say the least. i had always had hopes of it being entirely animated and be a sort fo film version of Minecraft: Story Mode but it's clearly not that at all. It's a shame too, it's incredibly disappointing to know it's live action as I am a HUGE advocate for animated movies and blockbusters and such. I think Minecraft is a game that is so fantastical and developed and normalized within it's own plane of existence that trying to translate it as anything other than an animated movie fundamentally goes against what the game is supposed to be.

Minecraft is creativity incarnate. It is a canvas for you to do quite literally anything with. And i think turning it into a pathetic cash grab live action movie is about as hard away as you can get from it's core values. You lazily slap real people to into the game to mock and laugh at and disrupt the flow of it's own universe. Treating this game as if it is nothing but a child' plaything despite the fact that people of any age can play it and find joy and excitement. I think the jokes and the overall childish view of the game is disgusting I think it belittles it, I think Minecraft as a whole, encourages all ages and helps develop personal understanding of the world around us and our own ideals. Maybe we'd like to build a large house, go on, here are hundreds of blocks to choose from! Loads of colors, be free!!! Perhaps you'd like to calm down and play with friends or even challenge yourselves, go on with multiplayer! There's servers and achievements!!! There's plenty of things to do. And I think one of the most important things is that, none of this is wrong or weird. None of this is an incorrect way of playing, nothing you do is bad. This isn't supposed to be humbling this isn't supposed to be stressful or something to laugh at. Your desires and plans are valid.

Perhaps as an autistic individual myself, I find that so comforting. I understand it's just a movie, but it's a movie that fundamentally gets everything wrong about this lovely game. I don't understand how these trailers and jokes and plot points are treated as if it's okay to be bad if it's for children. It's saddening.

Either way, moving onto a different subject that I have much more knowledge about and care too much of, the Piglins.

This trailer shows off that Piglins are meant to be the main antagonists, as well as the The Seer having a role in the plot. I have many problems with this, and I will be discussing this through the lens of my own experiences, especially as it comes to my race. (I am latino for those who don't know)

First things first, no, the Piglins aren't evil by any means. I know a lot of media has a very black and white view of them but honestly, take a moment to think about this.

Piglins are minding their business, having fun, living their lives, when a bunch of explorers come barging into their home, exploiting them for their willingness to barter, stealing their valuables right from their houses, and on top of that, being killed and hurt because they dare fight back and attempt to protect one another.

To me, it's incredibly disheartening to see Piglins being portrayed as some kind of aggressors, savages and barbaric monsters all because they want to protect their way of life. I don't understand how emotionless people seem to act toward them. They aren't even physically accurate to the game models. They wear clothes, they use tools, they talk amongst themselves. It's very disgusting to see how this group that is CLEARLY INTELLIGENT BTW (they make music, tools, clothes, armor, buildings, homes and have a complex social system) being drawn and shown in less clothes, more violent tendencies, a more destroyed home and life, even showing violence among themselves to portray them as anything other than the interesting and complex species they are.

I'm just tired of the racist undertones that most Piglin plots seem to have. I find it insulting to them, i find it concerning regarding the language used. 'barbaric' 'crude' 'savage'

Just makes me angry.

[zionworkzs]

Okay, but I need to talk about Good Omens and The Sound of Music.

First of all, I’m genuinely obsessed with it being explicitly canon that The Sound of Music exists in the GO universe and is, for some reason, God’s favorite movie. Neil says here that Heaven misses the point of the movie/musical, but I find it incredibly fascinating that Aziraphale outwardly despises it. 

Brief summary of The Sound of Music incoming as well as some really interesting parallels:

So we've got Julie Andrews playing Maria, who is studying to become a nun in an abbey in Salzburg. Problem is, she isn't the best nun, and is often late to chapel and just isn't the shining beacon of holiness that the rest of the nuns expect her to be.

In response to this, the Reverend Mother of the abbey decides to send Maria to live with sexy widower Georg von Trapp, a navy captain who desperately needs help with his seven children. The Captain is a bit of a hard-ass since the death of his wife, and has been treating his kids like little soldiers as well as banning music from the house.

The 7 kids are rambunctious and make things difficult for Maria at first. But one night, a thunderstorm scares them, and they run to Maria for comfort. The kids realize that Maria is really fun, and then later, when their dad is off to Vienna, the kids and Maria end up running around Salzburg singing, dancing, climbing trees, and having a blast.

When the Captain comes home and hears about this, he sends Maria away. But then he overhears the children singing a song Maria taught them and he gets all emo and remembers how much music meant to him and his late wife. He asks Maria to stay after hearing the song, telling her she's brought joy back to their house.

And oops, Maria and the Captain are falling for each other, but the Captain is sort of kind of dating this blonde bombshell.

There's a big fuck-off party, and the Captain and Maria dance together.

But, oh, no, Blondie saw them and can clearly tell they're in love. She tells Maria what she's seen and Maria is freaking out cause she's just realized she's in love.

Mentally, my girl Maria is going through a lot. She thinks she’s disappointed God by falling in love when she was supposed to be doing a job. She feels scared by the depth of her feelings and because of all these emotions, she runs away. Back to the Abbey. Back to presumed safety.

Mother Superior figures out what happened real quick and tells Maria that she isn’t wrong for falling in love. She sends her back to the Von Trapps, and it's such a great scene. If you wanna watch, I included a link below.

Maria goes back, and the kids are elated and she and the Captain confess their feelings (and oh my god, don't even get me started on the lyrics to the song they sing to each other while confessing, Something Good).

(I’m unwell.)

So that's the Sound of Music. There's a subplot going on with WW2 and the Captain being pressured to join the Nazi regime (which he is very against). King, we love him.

I pointed out some obvious parallels, but I'd also like to pull some random thoughts together here:

Mother Superior (God) is the one that sends Maria (Aziraphale) to help the Von Trapps (humans) in the first place.

Maria (Aziraphale) extends grace and patience with the children (humans) and refuses to give up on them, even going so far as to disobey their father by letting them fuck around and be kids (going against God's wishes and giving humans the flaming sword).

Mother Superior (God) also sends Maria (Aziraphale) back to the Von Trapps after realizing that Maria (Aziraphale) is in love with the Captain (Crowley).

Here's to hoping we see God telling Azi that loving a demon is chill and he should go back to earth in S3.

Overall, it's incredibly amusing to me that Aziraphale, our Aziraphale, doesn't like The Sound of Music, with the main plot being about a woman who choses love over religious obligations and a man who rejects an authoritarian regime so that he might make his own way in the world.

Maybe Aziraphale recognizes the parallels and is in denial. Or maybe he just prefers Sondheim...

[jayladfanpage]

OPENED the first page of Robin lives #3 and just EXPERIENCED EMOTIONAL DAMAGE

fuCK. LIKE. GENUINELY. FUCK. going to consume raw bismuth rn im sobbubg I had hopes after they showed Shelia and just F U C KKKKKKKKKKK

I think writers forget so much of what made adtif adtif and what made Robin Jason Robin Jason. that boy was willing to give up Robin at that point for just a loving family? The issues that led to adtif? WHAT ABOUT HIS whole struggle and issues with being robin itself? what are we even doing here. Nothing is addressed. Instead we get fucking revenge story after revenge story I'm going to implode die. now I feel stupid about waiting for it. I'm half incomprehensible about most of the things I HATED. DICK. What is he saying. God.

I miss u robin Jason, he was so much... a singular character... barr's run... starlin too to a degree... UGH. HIS CHARACTER THESIS IS LOVE ??? ON GOD I will consume 2 tons of pipebombs today fucking hell on god he barely gets dialog, he barely gets shit, I liked 1 panel and that s it im

Anyhow :D yippie ! Happy to see that you're here for fanon writers and all ! Super cool of you ! And your posts are vvv cool, much love ! Would love to hear your thoughts on Robin lives#3 :) <3

Anon you are so incredibly fucking real for this

Issue #3 is... such a fucking disappointment. Exactly like you said, already the first page makes my blood fucking BOIL.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding, in this issue, of where Red Hood!Jason's ideas of revenge come from. His obsession with Joker's death specifically isn't actually out of a need to have Joker dead, it's a need to prove to himself that Bruce loves him more than he loves his mission. Which is not true for Jason or any of Bruce's other children. Gotham will always come first.

So to have Jason go after Joker with the intent to kill him (and succeed at it!) is spitting in the face of all the complicated, messy familial ties that are at the core of UTRH, for the sake of some sense that Jason was always doomed to be the way he is as an adult.

Jason also doesn't feel good after killing people. He doesn't derive any pleasure from it. He's not disgusted by or ashamed of the things he's done, far from it, but to him the murders are just a means to an end. A task to complete if he wants to save Gotham in the way that Bruce isn't able to. Murdering people sure as fuck isn't the "best thing" to ever happen to him. What the fuck.

I also really hate this page. As much as I don't expect any teenager to fully "deal" with their trauma, because they're a teenager, Jason certainly wouldn't run from it. Jason is perhaps the most openly emotional Bat character, and that's always been one of his most important personality traits. He talks about his pain and his trauma, constantly and endlessly, because Jason benefits from communicating his emotions, even if he does it aggressively or explosively.

Plus, "paralyzed with fear" ?? Jason's fear response is FIGHT not freeze. It's never been freeze. Every time Jason is scared, as Robin or otherwise, he responds by picking a fight. He flings himself head-on to the thing that's making him afraid because god fucking damn it Jason has always been good at saving himself -- which is why he's so desperate to have Bruce kill Joker, so that somebody else will protect him for a change.

This plot I'm conflicted on. I've always hated Timmy Todd and always thought that Jason should have been Joker Junior instead. However, this was not the comic to do it in. Robin Lives should have been a comic about trauma and vulnerability and healing. Main Continuity already gives us the neverending loop of Jason's trauma, of how it keeps constantly getting worse and worse, and I wanted Robin Lives to have been different. I wanted it to grab me by the shoulders and say He could have been fine. Jason could have healed. If only things had been different, Jason Todd could have been good.

But it didn't. It's just another fucking Cheer storyline where we read about a child being "doomed from the beginning" and shifting the blame of Red Hood onto Jason for being a lost cause instead of acknowledging the greater context of Jason's death and revival and it's just. Ugh. It fucking sucks.

Also, Bruce would never say this about saving like a dozen children. "Bigger fish to fry" WHILE HE IS RESCUING BRAINWASHED CHILDREN? where is my Bruce Wayne and what did you do to him

About the fanon writers -- thank you! I always find the hate for them a little misplaced. There are dozens of canons across hundreds of comics and fanfiction as a medium is supposed to have a certain degree of separation from its source. I think a lot less people would be upset over "fanon" batfam fics if the writers understood better core traits of the characters. Fanfiction isn't about "Would [x] do this" it's about "How would [x] do this" and a lot of non-writers don't understand that and just think fanon is always horrible.

[pikahlua]

Look, it's probably still not time to go really deep into it, but I did mention there are ways this ending where Tomura dies could work for me. Honestly I didn't have much of an issue with chapter 423 itself before the internet's emotional onslaught over it, but now that I'm hearing rumors the chapter was received well in Japan and a number of western fans have decided to couch all their disappointment in racism and rage at the target readership, maybe I should give some cursory thoughts just to counteract the stupid.

The Bittersweet Ending

Here's the thing. For all the game the bird app likes to talk about how MHA is happy and kid-friendly and not dark and that's bad somehow, it's kind of funny to me how little MHA actually meets expectations in that regard. If I were to divide MHA arcs into categories based on their endings, I would probably have to put the majority of them into the "makes me cry" category. Even arcs where the hero wins with ostensibly happy endings often have absolutely gut-wrenching moments, like All Might's retirement in the Kamino arc, Tsuyu's apology in the UA Dorm Contest arc, and Nighteye's death in the Overhaul arc. I don't think it's possible for me to watch the Sports Festival arc and come out of it with anything but mixed feelings of hope and haunting. Stain may have lost his battle, but his effect on society sure seems to give him the win when it comes to the war. The Paranormal Liberation War arc has a pretty rough ending where there may still be a sliver of hope, but goodness is it a small one.

Sure, some of the teariest moments are a result of happy scenes like Eri smiling for the first time at the cultural festival, but what I'm getting at is that MHA tends to go for more hopeful endings rather than happy ones. And those hopeful endings are often stained by some other tragedy, a price to pay for the hope. Just because MHA isn't full of random death doesn't mean it doesn't contain poignant loss. This was one of its early selling points in fact. MHA's most hopeful moments have always felt so real because the story acknowledges that these things should often play out messily. We've seen the mess, and now chapter 424 has given us a glimmer of hope. The question is now where the story will take us from here.

The Anticlimax

This post has come back for me in the most unexpected way, not gonna lie.

I often hear “anticlimax/anticlimactic” used as a negative criticism, especially colloquially. This criticism assumes an anticlimax is always written unintentionally. But that’s often not the case; anticlimax is actually fucking fantastic when placed in the right hands. And Kohei Horikoshi is a goddamn anticlimax connoisseur. I say he’s a connoisseur because Horikoshi has the gall, nay, the gumption–dare I say the balls to showcase the versatility of anticlimax as a storytelling technique for more than just comedy (although he does also use it for comedy a lot). He dares to use it in action scenes, horror/thriller scenes, and even fuzzy heartfelt scenes, all to the great effect of toying with our emotions. And he successfully has us feel exactly what he wants us to every time–because that’s the point. These aren’t cheap jokes; they serve a purpose! They illustrate an actual, meaningful point about whatever scenario they are used in to make the story more realistic, to combat the fridge logic “well actually” complaints endemic to fandom. Because Horikoshi is a fan himself.

When I write "realistic," I don't mean to apply this quote here to indicate that death (especially for edgy aesthetics) is realistic. I mean to indicate that imperfection is realistic. Izuku isn't a perfect hero. Tomura isn't a perfect victim, and by victim I mean "character for the hero to save." Izuku says it himself:

A perfect victim for the hero to save would yield to the hero's attempts to turn and save them. They would see the wisdom in the hero's position and 100% change sides to agree with them. Trite.

Doing this runs the risk of erasing the victim's identity that comes before. Izuku never has a perfect answer to all of Tomura's problems with the world.

Izuku is the same as All Might. He's only human.

[...]Horikoshi has no compunctions using anticlimax in big, important, non-humorous scenes (even if the anticlimax ultimately adds humor to the scene that was otherwise unexpected). This man has no fear. He ends his famously popular take on the tried and true trope of tournament arcs with one big let-down that affects not just the audience but the in-universe characters. [...] You wanna tell me Horikoshi didn’t know exactly what he was doing here? You wanna tell me Horikoshi didn’t know about the fandom war over Katsuki’s hero name? That he didn’t purposefully fucking troll the fandom with this? That this isn’t the single greatest brick joke in the history of published media for its effect both in the canon and in the meta? Fuck you, we’re building up the tension around the most wildly popular character’s hero name reveal for 248 goddamn chapters (that’s five-and-a-half years) just to make it the cringiest fucking thing you’ve ever heard in your goddamn life. His hero name must be the closest audio rendition anyone can imagine shaped like a middle finger and fucking nothing less will suffice. Congratulations, fandom: you played yourselves! You made a war no one could win! Horikoshi could have chosen Ground Zero or Kacchan as Katsuki’s hero name and risked alienating half his fandom either way, but you didn’t realize there was a third option, which of course he took: to risk alienating the entire fucking fandom.

I'm just saying, an ending like this isn't out of character for Horikoshi. In light of this trip down memory lane and Izuku's parallel with All Might in that they acknowledge they cannot save everyone, I'm interested to see what Horikoshi does with this ending whether or not Tomura survives. What sort of hope will he offer?

The extended ending arc

The only real extended ending arc we've had in MHA that might give us a glimpse at the inner workings of Horikoshi's mind is the School Cultural Festival arc. Because of that (and the many other things I've mentioned before this post), I will say there is cause to believe we will have a hopeful ending. Again, I don't know what that looks like. A lot of people seem to have a specific thing they need to have happen to save the story for them, and I cannot speak to those.

Except for Deku vs Kacchan 3, which is what I need to have happen lol. And god does it seem really fucking possible now.

[manic-sapphic]

gonna pretend i'm sorry for this cause tbh- it's just a string of spop gifs where i rant for way too long about the feels i get from each scene~

(-hey - i said sorry, ok ... sure, i openly admitted it was a lie - but i guess i just hoped you'd appreciate the slight effort of the pretense-)

this moment obviously kills me- just like i know it does for alotta you- but i just gotta call attention for a sec to what exactly kills me the most about it: up until this point, we've constantly been shown brief moments of catra's expression betraying her true vulnerable state - even if it's just a close-up of her eyes - during which less than a second passes before the look in them transitions from sad/hurt or disappointment/self-hatred (anything of the sort, really) to anger/ resentment/ rage. her brow usually falls quite quickly as her eyes narrow, refusing to allow her real feelings to continue just being felt - (& tbh, for most the show, i think she's just so fucking afraid of what might happen if she does let herself feel them- esp s4 after the portal)

but in this scene - that's changed. it's completely turned around, flipped upside down - she starts off w her usual habit - a display of resentment and rage - that dissolves into the most heart-breaking freaking expression i think i've ever seen. because you can see just how heart-broken she is- and it kinda seems like she's tryna admit, w/o having to say it- that she was already heart-broken for a really long time, and is tryna make one last attempt at getting adora to understand- not to choose catra- that's not the point, that's not what catra's after, even if it is what she wants and needs to know (for her own peace of mind) if the feeling is mutual-

rn, all catra is desperately tryna get adora to even just think about - is herself. take away every single person she feels responsible for - which is literally everyone.. everyone - a feeling, btw, catra now understands to be an unconscious reflex born of the trauma shadow weaver had caused adora. she's finally able to see it was never just her - adora was just traumatized far more secretively & in ways that would be harder for others to notice (which i'm sure was very much on purpose)

- the weird convos w shadow weaver, disguised as personal pep talks, looked as if they only took place when shadow weaver had adora alone - but in failsafe, catra hangs back to listen & make sure there's no bull shit going on- just like she said she would- "i'm only going to make sure shadow weaver doesn't try anything - it's not because i like you-" (yeah yeah we get it- u DoN't LiKe HeR ~ duuuh, that's cuz u luv her u dummy <3)

oh but now- now i gotta talk about THIS look right here- as if the expression they give catra when/after she asks "what do you want, adora?" isn't enough to see me out in the backyard digging my own goddamn grave- then they throw this shi on my tv screen just seconds later ?! tf. i mean- the way catra's eyes shift up- no longer able to keep looking at adora after the only answer she can give her as to what she wants is "i have to do this, catra - i'm the only one who can" ... FUUUUUUU THO OK

for so many reasons, too many for me to get into in a post i already feel bad about cause dude i ain't near done ranting on scenes and moments annnd i see how long it's already gotten- my bad, fr- so i'll just try (and fail) to narrow it down and keep it brief- catra's questioning what adora wants is definitely aimed most importantly at her hope that maybe she can still get adora to even just think about that- to realize that she's allowed to and should think about it.

but i also read it as, once again, these two knowing each other so well that they don't always have to say exactly, word for word, what they wanna ask or tell each other- the emotional stuff is weird and hard for them to even put into words still, tbh; cause i mean, ya know- orphaned child soldiers discouraged from even showing any signs of illness when sick, cause asking for medical attention would be a real loser move for a kid to make, right.. like, wtf? dude- they can take on so much and handle the gnarliest situations that require strength and skills and abilities i couldn't ever ever fucking fathom facing - but feelings? tf? all i can ever hear them thinking in response to those: "ohhh fckfckfck what is this, why is this & how do i make it stop -???"

so when catra asks adora what she wants, i mostly hear her begging adora to be a little selfish - just this once, at least - and let herself think about herself, but i also hear catra's most vulnerable, desperate, & honest ask of adora so far. what i hear woven in what catra actually says aloud, is another quiet question she's still too scared to put into words, but that i kinda think she hopes/knows adora will hear if she's really listening- "do you want me?"

uggghh and the way that after a moment of an outward, unfiltered display of grief over adora's answer (or more accurately, lack of an answer), catra wipes her eyes and turns away. the switch flipped. back on her bull shit. emotional defense mechanisms she's once again starting to feel are the right idea & always were, and is prob feeling like a fool for ever thinking she might actually get to have a life where she doesn't have to feel them as necessities - where it doesn't feel like that's the only way she'll ever survive.

cause maybe by now, she's seen that some people get to have that - but it's just not the life that was ever meant for her. just like adora was never meant to have a life of her own - at all - period. they're both still so easily fcking convinced of what they've been conditioned to believe about themselves, their lives, and the inevitabilities associated w their existence - (FUCK OFF FOREVER SHADOW WEAVER)

and the quick little moment of adora shown just after catra disappears - possibly gone from her sight forever - the shorter close-up of her reaction before the shot goes waaay back and she cries out for catra - i feel like it def doesn't get enough recognition (prob mostly due to the fact that the clip of adora yelling catra's name comes only seconds later and is portrayed far more dramatically, & in a way that crushes tf outta ur soul, ofc)

but that lil bit there- that brief second of adora's initial reaction- the moment she starts to process that catra just left- that catra's gone, and that this time- adora thinks it's probably for good- her short, shuddering intake of breath followed by what seem like more hurried, forced breaths that kinda appear difficult for her to take- sound like the first seconds of a fcking panic attack to me dude.

and it certainly hurts to watch just as much as when she calls out after catra - although yeah, tbh, that bit stings a lil extra in its own way- i mean, knowing catra had to have heard adora pretty much scream out her name seconds after she disappeared w melog- fuck. (idk how tf catra didn't come right back tbh. i'd be visible again so quick, rushin to adora like "omg bb i'm so sorry- pls don't cry, never ever, ily so much, won't ever hurt u again ok- ilysm omg omfg ily i'm so sorry" & btw, that's a totally normal thing to think when watching that scene ok-)

oh but then - omfg - adora gets a swift slap in the face from the crystal castle - the haunting of a sudden, unexpected vision of catra. all the catra's. catra in so many of the different forms adora's known her through, even if it was as enemies. it reminds me a bit of an excerpt out of the "don't go" fanfic - "catra hasn't been in her life for a long time - but she hadn't known how unbearable it would be to lose her for good until that moment" -

neither of these bitches ever wanted each other gone- catra (very sadly so) def spent most the series tryna convince herself that's how she felt about adora- tho it's just cause her conditioning taught her to think needing someone makes you weak and easy to hurt, and tbh, i think catra knew she needed adora for most their lives, even if she could never admit it to herself in even the form of a full, conscious thought--

but i think she also believed that, after the promise, that need was confirmed to be mutual. and in that way, it was something catra never needed to say but also never felt the need to be ashamed of/embarrassed by- until adora left. and her belief that the feeling of needing each other for support & protection (and let's be honest, care & affection) was mutually shared between them was shattered - & in such a way that i imagine catra musta felt like she was the actual idiot all along - adora had never needed her, and now she needed to figure out how to achieve that same independence - she needed to figure out how to not need adora.

omg tho dude - pretty sure i've said it before but i can't not say it (aka rant on it tho tbh- sorry lol) again and prob every time i ever share anything that features this couple seconds of what i kinda feel to be adora's most honest, selfish, & vulnerable moment we see up to this point- & without her needing to say a fucking thing- just tears that fall from her eyes after catra basically says "uhh yeah ok so- fuck that nonsense- i'm not leaving, idc wtf happens- i'm staying with you"

--(cause yeah, maybe she spent the last few years too prideful and stubborn to admit that was always what she wanted to do and where she loved being the most- and after so little time spent back by adora's side- it was breaking her fucking heart all over, knowing her chance at having time w adora was going away again- but regardless, catra gets now- that part's not up to her; it's never been her choice to make- & not even adora's, really- but deciding to stay w adora no matter where she goes- that's always been up to her- and she's not ever fucking making the mistake of choosing not to stay right beside that silly sweet dummy ever, eeeever again)

BUT duuude tho - the way adora cries a bit but says nothing - doesn't attempt even once to try n convince catra to go, to push her to leave and get somewhere safe - i just can't help but figure catra staying with her is exactly what she wanted, but never would've asked for in a million years. never would've even let herself form the question in her head.

but in spite of that, when catra states it unequivocally and clearly adds w confidence - "no matter what happens" - adora can't argue. she can't insist. much like catra hasn't really been able to do for quite a while now - adora can't fake it anymore. she's just too tired and she finally has to recognize she wants someone to take care of her, too - just like she's felt compelled to do for everyone else for so long. and in that moment, i feel like she's finally wordlessly admitting to catra, not only does she want her to be the one to take care of her - she needs her to be (and always has)

ahhhh but oof-baboof bro - then there's all this.

somehow, catra straight up delves deep into the abyss currently consuming adora & pretty much says - "fuck no. plsss wake up - you can't just die like this, not before you ever get a chance to live your own fcking life, good god dude - i get now why you couldn't before, but please, this time - STAY."

(huh- stay.. another way of saying "don't go"... hmmm :) <3)

these gurls literally got so much love for each other that catra is able to straight up force open an entryway into adora's fading subconscious (which seems to be the only part of her that's still alive) - just by talking to her - barely above a whisper there in the heart, but in adora's mind, she's screaming at her.

the desperate, hopeful sentiments uttered, urging adora to keep going - to push through this and come out the other side alive - to please survive because you deserve to - are just that much stronger when they come from catra- it's that loud to adora when catra is the one saying it- cause she's finally freaking realized, catra's the one she most hopes to hear it from. knowing catra feels that way about her is something she's never really had, and vice versa ofc, even when they were both in the horde. it wasn't the kind of thing they were taught to say or even acknowledge feeling - but hearing catra beg her to just stay alive - and then hearing why catra so desperately hopes for her to - adora's made certain that it really is true -

she does deserve love, and there's someone whose love she's realized she wants- and they're holding her, telling her she has it & always has. and suddenly staying isn't a hope, isn't a plea - it's an inevitability. adora ain't going nowhere--

and, so reminiscent of adora's line to catra near the end of save the cat: "c'mon catra, you've never listened to anyone in your life - are you really going to start now?" we hear catra imploring adora: "you've never given up on anything in your life- not even on me- so don't you dare start now!"

they both know each other so well, they know the best buttons to push that might just work when tryna reach each other, even when one of them is lost to the point of nearly being gone for good - they don't find a door to open - they take a saw to the fucking wall and make one. and pull the other back through. cause everything will be ok if they just stay together. and once they've both finally accepted the truth to that - that's all they wanna do, to the point of refusing to allow each other to die when faced with that possibility. and likewise, refusing to die- just knowing the other is there waiting for them, wanting them, is enough to bring them back -

wanting the life they haven't gotten to share yet, and straight up refusing to let anything take the hope of that future away - even if it means unlocking their true, innate she-ra form (and beginning to understand that they are magic & it was never about the stupid sword) - or if it's wielding some strange, mysterious power w/o prob even knowing they are- like reaching through a metaphysical doorway into the mind of the love of your life and grasping as far and as desperately as you can for their hand, trying- and succeeding- to pull them back from the brink of death.

their story is literally so lovely. & individually, they are truly such honest, raw, complex and thought-provoking characters - presented in a way that offers viewers a fairly rare experience, even these days, of seeing a story written by people willing to honor the honesty everyone deserves to see and may kinda need to see - things aren't always shiny, happy, good times & people aren't perfect- quite literally, no one is- but that doesn't mean there's no point trying. that doesn't mean there's no hope of a happy ending - or that you don't deserve one. it's literally all just part of life, part of living that you'll find yourself faced w figuring out along the way- whether the answers are good or bad. and that's an insane idea to thread into a freaking cartoon dude - wuhhh tf

oh and ps- catradora are canon. (almost wanna end every rant w this reminder lolol) ~~ they cannot be stopped, this shit won't ever be undone lmao. & that makes me wanna say- "hell yes!" and for anyone who it makes wanna say "hell no" - all i got in response to that isssss "more catradora for us then - hell yes x2"

:) <3

[hunieday]

Dear Noda,

Thank you for opening anon asks!!! I actually had something I wanted to clarify with you as your opinion had led me to be quite disappointed.

Somedays ago I7 twt had the 10th Anniversary Logo "Stop Not, Start Knot" released which started an omega verse joke. This is where my problem comes from.

You stated Yuki will be an Omega and Momo will be an Alpha! And I am highly disappointed that the CEO of YukiMomo made such a big mistake. Have we not seen how Momo differs from a traditional Omega in outer personality.

Momo who is not a traditional Omega and someone who likes sports and other physical activities while still retaining the quality of kindness within him. He also stated and I quote "I he had magic, he would birth Yuki's children". And yet you classified him as an Alpha???

Same goes for Yuki, Yuki is different from a Traditional Alpha yet his brashness and protective instinct is present. Has Yuki not gone with a bat to make sure Momo isn't harmed by Tsukomo??? Can Alphas not cook a meal for their Omegas without being called one??? Just because they do mom-braid doesn't mean they are a "sire"

We had witnessed their divorce arc which primarily showcased how Momo and Yuki's roles are of Omega and Alpha respectively yet their sub-gender was misgendered.

I hold no hate to you when I send you this ask, yet that day your tweet disappointed me. Wishing you understand YukiMomo are not traditional Alpha and Omega & that's what I7 wanted to showcase within their show, to break the traditional hierarchy and stereotype of how an Alpha and Omega acts and they had a wonderful representation done also. So seeing you, the one I look up to so much mis sub-gender them made me wounded.

I hope this ask finds you healthy and it makes you reflect on the statement you made on their sub-gender.

P. S. :- this is mostly joking aside from the fact Momo is an Omega and Yuki is an Alpha.

From

A simple fujo

Hello anon, thank you very much for your input.

As a beta myself, I would like to first clarify that I am absolutely an ally of the omegas and I advocate for their rights everywhere I go, I even have omega friends, so any mis-subgendering that might have happened would have been on complete accident and I apologize and condemn it heavily.

HOWEVER. I do NOT agree with your claim that Momo is an omega and that Yuki is an alpha. On a surface level, I can see how Momo can come off as an omega, what with the "I want to birth Yuki's children and all", but you have to remember that a lot of it is a façade. In a world where omegas are so persecuted, Momo, knowing people can smell the alpha and omega pheromones on re:vale after long days of shoots, chose to shoulder the burden of presenting as the omega of the pair to protect his darling.

Allow me to elaborate.

His alpha side tends to slip through the cracks of his carefully crafted image, however. And we can see that in the way he speaks enthusiastically about wanting to kidnap Yuki and brainwash him and keep him all to himself. He's extremely possessive of Yuki, to the point where he gets mad and jealous of the other alphas (see: Ryuu and Torao) trying to approach him. He's a lot more gentle with Ryuu, but his big meaty alpha muscles were ready to pop a hole in Torao's balls and remove him from the gene pool when he dared to threaten Yuki on live television. His alpha instincts were too powerful to control and his façade crumbled in front of everyone, just to protect his omega.

We can see Momo's alpha manifest in many other canon events, such as the following chat that perfectly shows glimpses of their real dynamic.

As you can see here, Momo let the ferocious alpha out and handled Yuki as he desired and with complete ease, we are talking about him carrying someone who is only 3kgs lighter than him, but because of his drive as an alpha and Yuki's complete submissiveness as an omega, he was able to drive him to a completely different part of Tokyo with ease.

(artistic rendition of Momo carrying Yuki through the woods to go stargazing by Christy Grandjean)

And that is not the only scene where we see that alpha/omega dynamic showcased. You mentioned their divorce arc, but let me remind you of their very first meeting: Momo beating the shit out of three grown men because they growled at his future mate. Not only that, but the sheer power of his alpha pheromones impacted Yuki so much that his normally dormant omega coin slot quivered with a desire to be further praised by him, when he has never had a full conversation with him before. Yuki knew from the moment that first punch landed that he was his fated mate.

We do see Yuki try to protect Momo, but with a bat. Momo uses mighty fists to repel the alphas who dare approach him. That was, once again, a moment where he let his carefully crafted mask drop when his omega was in danger.

While IDOLiSH7 is great at representing seemingly docile and delicate people who are alphas (see, Natsume Minami and senior respected activist Takanashi Otoharu) and strong, muscular men who are omegas (see, Nikaido Yamato), effectively sending a message about the harms of stereotyping and furthering the omega acceptance movement, I do believe that Re:vale as characters, were created with the same nuances of breaking the subgender roles by making their personality traits so unrelated to them that you can not tell that Yuki is the omega and Momo is the alpha at first glance. Which is a good thing! because it's a reflection of their music genre as well: a jack of all trades. And not only that, but Yuki being the child bearer of the two is a clever and not-so-subtle way to symbolize his journey, as someone who went from a completely selfish bastard to a person who's willing to be vulnerable and bring a new life to the world for Momo. A sign of commitment and trust. As if to tell him that he really is his one and only partner.

I do understand the hurt you felt when you saw me speak of their subgenders on twitter, but as you might have deduced, I hold nothing but respect for Yuki and Momo as characters and as fated mates, and would never dare and do something as shameful and bigoted as submisgendering them. I sincerely hope you understand my perspective, and that you see the greatness of alpha Momo and omega Yuki.

Ps. it is Midnight and I fucking lost it at your essay anon. unironically folded me in half from laughter. what the fuck were you smoking when you wrote that and where can I get it

Sincerely,

Noda.

[genericpuff]

I WANNA TALK ABOUT THE FUCKING EISNERS-

i've been finding lately that there are so many topics i still wanna talk about concerning LO and its development and they just don't happen because i get distracted or busy and my brain is like "ok we're just gonna pretend we've already talked about it even though we haven't" JFKDLSAJFDASKLFJSLKA

Let's talk about the Eisners and LO's recent 'win'.

I've already briefly mentioned in previous posts that LO has had a lot of its awards and accolades bought for it. This is especially true for both the NYT Bestseller label (seriously, none of those labels are ever earned, it's not some top 100 list that you compete on, it goes to whoever is willing to pay for it or whoever an editorial column wants to highlight) and, of course, the Eisner Award, which is not exactly an award judged by the industry's finest (the judges this year were made up of largely comic book shop owners and librarians).

But we're not here to talk about that. I wanna talk about what happened after LO won its second Eisner.

First off, the fact that it can be nominated at all when it doesn't even really fit the criteria for their submissions is sketchy at best:

see: "new, professionally produced long-form original comics work posted online in 2022." LO is not 'new'. Sure, it has new episodes, but I don't think that really follows the spirit of what they meant by 'new'. The Eisner doesn't seem like an award that should be granted to the same series twice, is my point, and that's one of the many complaints brought up in the absolute dressing down that LO got in its announcement post on the Webtoons Official IG page.

Of course, you can see for yourself right here.

But for the sake of fun, let's share some of the excerpts here.

(and yes I'm sharing a LOT of these because frankly I don't trust WT to not delete them in an attempt to hide all the shit that's being thrown at their precious "baby")

While names have been censored to protect the users involve, I will say one thing - this isn't some attempt from antiLO/ULO members to brigade the series' win, there are other comic creators in this discussion as well from the Canvas section who aren't pleased with seeing LO win another Eisner when there are multiple new series from this past year alone which deserve more attention than they're getting. Again, see for yourself if you click on the link above, the vast majority of comments on this post are expressing their disappointment and you can tell from how they've been sitting at the top while all the positive comments are being 'pushed' to the bottom - the like counts say it all.

All of this, paired with the fact that LO didn't win a SINGLE user-voted award during the Webtoonies, goes to show that the Webtoons audience is over LO. They're done with it. It's not relevant anymore, the only ones who still keep up with it are the stans and those holding on in the hopes that the story gets around to resolving the SA plotline and gets its TV show (which I've also mentioned has a real possibility of not happening, at least not now when it would count the most LMAO)

It still gets more likes than any other series on the platform (for now) but you can tell during its current hiatus that when LO is out of sight, it's out of people's minds - despite many of these episodes now being weeks old, their like counts aren't going up, no new readers are being pulled in. And the fact that a series with over 6 million subscribers can barely scratch 100k likes nowadays is... really something.

And that's on its free to read episodes, it's FP episodes - where views count the most because it's where LO makes its money and initial views - aren't even a fraction of what the free episodes often take well over a week to gain at this point.

Episode 252:

And the midseason finale, 253:

Compare it to Down to Earth which gets 70k likes on average on its free episodes (though its current new FP is sitting at the 1k mark), is LO still bringing in higher numbers than other series? Yes. But it's clearly falling to a point where it's going to be on par with every other comic on the platform in no time. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like after it comes back from this poorly-timed hiatus, when all of its official fan groups have also been shuttered preventing people from staying in touch within their own fandom.

Awards like the Webtoonies are, while largely just for street cred, still audience-based, and I really hope the fact that the people have spoken not once, but twice through their engagement with the platform - both through the comment section on LO's Eisner win and the votes in favor of other series in the Webtoonies - will be a major wake-up call to WT that they can't keep trying the same things over and over again expecting different results. They can't keep stuffing money into LO as if advertising or awards are the reason LO isn't pulling in the numbers it used to. They can't keep pretending that LO still has the merit and credibility that it once had 5 years ago.

It's like that comparison from Super Eyepatch Wolf talking about why you shouldn't take advice on how to be "successful" from Youtubers who got famous 5+ years ago:

"Say you decide you want to become a carpenter, and particularly, how to build a nice chair. Think about the kind of person you'd want to learn that skill from. Would it be from someone who has built nice chairs every day for 20 years? Or would it be the guy who built one nice chair five years ago out of a special kind of wood that doesn't exist anymore, who has no experience with the kind of wood available to you now?"

LO is a byproduct of a version of Webtoons that no longer exists. It was fortunate enough to join the Canvas section when the Canvas section was still only lightly populated, before WT started trying to sell the idea that anyone could become "rich" on their platform (an idea largely perpetuated by creators LIKE RACHEL who only became big because WT threw all of their money at them), before Greek myth comics became commonplace (again, something that's a consequence of Rachel/Lore Olympus) and before the romance genre became largely filled with problematic "dark" romances (again, see Lore Olympus).

Do you see the pattern of what I'm talking about here? A lot of what Webtoons became known for was a byproduct of Lore Olympus and series like it, because those series did phenomenally well, due to being in the right place at the right time, so WT went "hey, cool, this makes us lots of money! Let's do more of that!" Obviously this isn't to say that Lore Olympus is the root of all evil here OR that it didn't have its own merit back in the day, but if you make a series that blows every other series out of the water in stats, it's only natural for a company to want to pursue more series and story tropes like it in the hopes that it'll replicate exactly what comics like LO did, completely misunderstanding why LO did well in the first place. At the time, LO's art was unique for the platform, and it was tackling a story that was extremely popular on platforms like Tumblr so it naturally gained a crowd.

But that was five years ago. Since then, the WT audience climate has changed dramatically, as it always does every few years; and LO and WT haven't kept up. We went through a phase of BL, isekai, and now WT seems to be in an odd limbo because it's still clinging to a series from three whole lifetimes ago, especially now with so many of its other signature series either finally ending (True Beauty) or walking away from the platform entirely (Let's Play).

At this point, Lore Olympus is a chair that was nice five years ago, but has since started to fall apart - its paint is chipping, and its legs don't stand up so well anymore - and WT is still trying to sell it you as the exact same chair - with cheap new paint and a few bits and bobs attached to try and convince you that the chair is new - but it's long past its prime. This isn't to say that the chair itself doesn't deserve to exist, just that it shouldn't be given so much proprietary advertising and attention when there are so many other works on the platform that deserve to be uplifted and seen.

LO was good for its era, it was successful for a reason, but we're halfway through 2023 and it's painfully obvious that the comic and the platform's audience is ready to move on to new territories. Webtoons just needs to learn to let go.

[jbbarnesandnoble]

What could have been

Pairing: Modern!Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Summary: Steve attends the wedding of his first love, now he can only wonder what could have been.

Warnings: angst angst angst, regret, my best friend's wedding type pain, Steve doesn't get the girl in the end so the pairing is a lie... sorry

Word Count: 1,435

a/n: wow, the first thing I choose to write in years is angst, I came back and chose violence. But fr, I'm surprised anyone is still here (or you just forgot you followed me haha) anyway, I saw those pictures of Chris and knew I just had to write something. I've also wanted to get back into writing for the longest time but have been so busy. This is definitely not the best thing I've ever written, and I'm sorry for any typos or errors (I didn't proof read) but I did it and I am proud of myself for doing it! I hope you enjoy it and feel free to leave feedback!

(not my pic)

Fairy lights shimmer and glow over the banquet hall, candles glow at each table, couples young and old crowd on the dance floor all swaying and dancing to a cover of 'Can't Help Falling in Love'. Steve watches from the sidelines, a wistful look upon his handsome face. Though he wears a smile, it fails to match the hint of sorrow in the blue of his eyes.

"It's a wedding, Steve, not a funeral." Bucky jabs at his best friend as he sits in the empty seat next to the blond. Steve laughs, though forced, it was a laugh nonetheless. A moment of silence passes between the two men before either of them speak. Steve is the first to break the silence.

"I screwed up." Was all he could muster.

"You just realized?" Though masked as a jab, Bucky's question carried much truth to it. Steve had made a grave mistake and it took him far too long to realize. Now, he knows he will never be able to share his true feelings with her.

"Her wedding is a real crappy place to have this realization, isn't it?" His blue eyes look to the table across from him, he watches Y/n for a moment and for a split second, he imagines what could have been had he had the courage to tell her how he truly felt. Maybe he would have been the one to make her smile, the one to make her laugh, the one the hold her when she needs a shoulder to cry on. He sucks in a sharp and quite painful breath as he wonders if he could have been the one she walked down the isle to today.

"Bucky I-" Tears prick at his eyes, a lump forms in his throat. He no longer wishes to speak because he knows if he does he will break. Bucky places a supportive hand

A few songs have played and ended before he finds the composure to continue, "I wanted to support her, to show her I'm happy for her, because I am. But I..." his voice drowns in the now upbeat music, most of the guests are now on the dance floor jumping and dancing to the song currently playing, the bride and groom included.

Steve looks away, his eyes falling to his plate of untouched food. It looks and smells delicious, but he hardly has the stomach for it right now. His eyes fell onto the glass of wine next to his plate, he might not be hungry, but he could surely use a drink. He picks the glass up and downs it in one swig.

"It was selfish of me to come here when I'm in love with her." The words fall past his lips, his face changes from a look of grief to one of disappointment. He can't help but feel guilty for attending her wedding only to sulk in a corner for the entire night.

"You being here means the world to her, Steve." Bucky says, looking at him with all sincerity. "Just take a look," he points across the room and even in the dim lighting he sees her in all her beauty. Her hair is done in a low bun, a few pieces were left out as a face frame. Her makeup is simple, but even if it were done extravagantly, it would have been in vain, for her dress was the talk of the evening, it truly made the bride look like royalty. 

Even in the crowd of people, she manages to find Steve's eyes, a small flush creeps into his cheeks. A radiant smile spreads across her painted lips which makes Steve's heart skip a beat or two. He wishes she wouldn't smile at him like that, like he was the one she had married that day.

Lucky for Steve, he's smart enough to know that she looks at her now husband with a look that she reserves for him. Steve hopes the guy knows how lucky he is.

"Steve, Bucky!" Y/n yells over the music. The two men stand to greet her and offer their congratulations. "Thank you so much for being here. It means the world to me!" She adds with a joyous smile. Bucky gives Steve a knowing look.

"We wouldn't have missed it." Bucky says for the both of them. Steve attempts to listen as Bucky asks Y/n endless questions about the wedding and how she's feeling. Steve can't help but think that having to entertain so many guests all in an evening would be the most draining part of it all.

"I'm drained physically, but I feel so full." She beams at them, her eyes shimmering from the fairy lights or love Steve isn't sure. But he is sure of one thing, even if he isn't the reason for her joy, all he's ever wanted was to see her smile and that's exactly what he's getting.

"I'm glad." The words fall past Steve's lips before he can think. He smiles at her and for the first time this evening, it's genuine. She thanks them both once more before the DJ calls the newlyweds to get ready to make their exit. With that, she takes her leave. Steve and Bucky find themselves alone once more.

Outside of the venue the guests line either side of the exit, each waiting with anticipation to send off the new Mr. and Mrs. Each guest was given a sparkler to light for when the couple makes their exit.

Steve stands at a distance, watching from the back of the small parking lot, wishing not to be spotted. With a few more drinks in him he's even less sure that he'll maintain his composure. Especially after how he barely managed to keep it together inside. A breeze blows gently, sweeping disheveled blond hair into his face.

The cool autumn air pricks at his skin, but it does little to chill him. From the drinks or being naturally warm, he isn't sure, but he's happy either way since he left his jacket inside.

Blue eyes watch as everyone gets ready to send the bride and groom off, friends laugh and share stories about the couple's early days. The mother of the bride and mother of the groom wipe tears as they remember their children's first steps, now they're married.

He looks up to the night sky, the stars shine so bright it looks as if they are shimmering. The moon shines brightest of all as it reflects the sun, it illuminates the night. Casting light on that which is in darkness.

He rocks gently with the wind as he observes the galaxy. Loud cheering pulls him from thoughts of a different life, the bride and groom, Y/n and her husband, have made their exit. His right hand falls to his pant pocket and pulls out a sparkler and matches.

It takes him a second to light it, as though lighting it is what seals their marriage. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he lights it and waves it in tribute to the newly weds.

Waving a sparkler is a simple thing, mindless even. He waves it back and forth, watching his first love from a distance, watches as she beams at another man that is now her husband, he watches as she leans in to kiss him, as they get into his car and drive away.

Soon, the sparkler fizzes out and he's alone again in the dark. For how long he's unsure, for at some point his vision began to blur and he could no longer see clearly. Hot tears stream down his rosy cheeks, and drip onto his dress shirt.

It is now, after the dancing and celebration, after the food and drink, after the laughter and conversation that he can finally fall apart. His heart aches in his tight chest. It's that kind of pain that feels like your heart could give out at any moment. It's the kind of pain that sinks into your stomach and makes you sick. For the first time that night, he falls apart, in the middle of that parking lot.While he is happy for her, it is now he realized that he only ever focused on being happy for her. Not once did he stop to realize the importance of grieving what could have been. For the first time, Steve has allowed himself to grieve the loss of his first love. Not because she had died, but because he never took a chance. Now he is left wondering what could have been.

[odusseus-xvi]

Was making a huge post about the Gods, Dorian, Ashton, Orym etc because I'm sometimes very confused by some anti-god takes on here. Like I get where they are coming from and what they hope happens in the campaign but a lot of arguments are just confusing to me, but what marked me is that they are upset about the potential ending keeping the status quo about the gods. (tho you could argue, I think rightfully, that the status quo of the gods is for the most part not the source of suffering in Exandria, and in fact that a lot of it is linked to Ludinus who has been here and scheming and causing wars for more than 900 years), I admit I WOULD be disappointed in the situation just being, we kill Ludinus, everyone happy, everything fixed since the biggest Wizard jerk in history has died. (when I say jerk, I mean in Universe, the guy is almost responsible for half the non natural-deaths in Exandria. As villain of a story tho ? Amazing)

Because at that point we know the Gods ARE flawed, enough than a lot of people want them out, or want them differently. That also causes conflicts with the ones still wanting them like they are currently. Like The Gods and Ludinus scarred Exandria so much that it would make no sense that all tension would just disappear once the Wizard's gone. I don't think killing them or making them go away is a solution here, certainly not a satisfying one to me at least with what we've seen. But perhaps a change in their status, in what they do, about their current prison perhaps. I don't know, but I don't see it just, staying like it is now. (and I wouldn't be surprised if Asmodeus is planning something as well since he did everytime he was involved in a truce of some kind.) (also note that even though I don't see it staying that way etc. I do think the current Campaign's message is less about the Gods, and their situation, and everything else, and more about the Danger of people like Ludinus using real problems to feed onto their own goals, causing much more problems.)

That and also, what about the people of Ruidus ? Like there is no way they stay up there right ? They all want to descend upon Exandria, either peacefully or as warmongers, something has to happen there too right ? How will Exandria react ? How will the Gods react if they are still here when that happens ?

Now MAYBE those are questions better fit for a Campaign 4, the current one being simply, we need to stop Ludinus and Predathos. And the next one having to deal with the Aftermath.

Also

What is Vecna doing ? That's one of the things I'm VERY interested in as of late because we know most of the Betrayers are acting with the rest of the Family to live, but Vecna, unlike for example the Matron who earned her place here, isn't one of the Siblings. He is just classified as Betrayer because he wants to rule everything and kill thousands. So, is he part of the Truce ? Can he even do anything from his own prison ? Does he know about Delilah's situation or does he not care about her usefulness anymore ? That's also what intrigued me about the waves of undeads under Vasselheim where I went "MMMH ???? THE WHISPERED ONE MOVING PERHAPS ???"

I still don't know if we have to include him when Matt talks about the gods rallying their forces alltogether to save themselves and Exandria. Especially since one of his tenets dismisses ALL of the other gods including the Betrayers, so he can rule over everything

anyway just some ramblings. Tho it seems it's a real hard campaign to watch for a lot of the fandom because of it's intense moral complexity (and I'll gladly admit I don't understand even most of it obviously), I am enjoying Bells Hells' journey a LOT, this campaign is my first one live and I'm having a blast, very excited to see where this goes.

[sophieinwonderland]

The Plurality of... Blue Beetle! (Movie)

Plurality: A state of multiple self-conscious agents, or "headmates," sharing a single body.

Oh, this one is going to be a little rough!

If you know the Blue Beetle, it shouldn't be surprising that they're a plural character. We've never read Blue Beetle comics, but my host was pretty familiar with Blue Beetle from Young Justice, where Jaime had a pretty big role in season 2.

I went into Blue Beetle with high hopes and, if I'm honest, ended up a little disappointed.

But before we can get into why I felt that way, let's first talk about their plurality!

Spoilers for the Blue Beetle movie ahead:

Jaime Reyes and Khaji-Da as plural characters

In the movie, Khaji-Da, often referred to as just "The Scarab," is a world-destroying weapon that found its way to Earth.

It bonds with Jaime Reyes when he touches it, fusing to his flesh and turning him into the Blue Beetle in an elaborate body horror sequence.

Khaji is established as a sentient being, and is able to communicate with Jaime mentally. Now, it's not actually clear if Jaime can communicate back mentally like many real headmates can. Every time he talks to Khaji is aloud, which I think was also how it was in Young Justice too. It's possible that while the Scarab can send messages to Jaime's mind, it can't read it. But that seems kind of a strange limitation when the movie shows it gaining access to a person's full memory after connecting with them, and is at least able to figure out Jaime's name through their connection.

It would seem weird to me if talking out loud to Khaji was necessary to be heard, but that's how the movie presents it. (This could be a comfort thing too. As part of a plural system, I'll admit we'll often talk out loud through the body when nobody is around to hear us. Words can be clearer than pure thoughts.)

A small part of the movie is dedicated to the two learning to get along, with there being some conflict around Khaji wanting to kill an enemy, and Jaime saying that they aren't killers.

This leads to an important moment later in the movie where Jaime is enraged, believing he's lost multiple family members, and is going to execute the villain.

The word "execute" is important here, because while other good characters have no problem killing (their nana took great joy in it, in fact), it's always against active combatants. Not someone who was disarmed. The movie doesn't make this distinction directly, but I think it's an important one.

It's one thing for superheroes to kill to protect themselves and others, most heroes are willing to these days, but it's another for them to kill someone who isn't actively a threat anymore.

Kahji takes just enough control to hold Jaime back from doing something he would regret, repeating back that they aren't killers, showing itself capable of learning from Jaime.

It's a cool moment, and I appreciated this little character growth.

Despite Khaji being sentient and capable of learning though...

Khaji isn't treated as a character

This was my disappointment with the movie.

Blue Beetle should have been more of a plural story, but Khaji is hardly ever treated as a character by the narrative or the other characters.

Yes, Khaji gets some funny lines here and there, ("Host overreacting" being a favorite of mine) but doesn't seem to have any real motivation, interests or really anything going for it.

And what's worse... there's not even a REAL CONVERSATION between Jaime and Khaji. Even when they really should be discussing things.

Like...

The Rooftop Scene

At one point, the bad guys have found Jaime's family. Jaime tried to activate his powers. They don't work. What's a Beetle to do?

Well, Jaime decided that since the Scarab will try to protect him, the best bet will be to JUMP OFF THE ROOF!

And while this is sorta well-reasoned, I found myself internally screaming this entire to time to just ask it to change.

Like, Khaji can talk. They literally said in the scene right before that Khaji was sentient.

And while jumping off the roof made for a dramatic scene, it eliminated what could have been a great moment with Jaime explaining the importance of his family and his need to protect them to Khaji.

It forced Khaji to help, when Kahji may have been perfectly willing to help if Jaime just talked to it, instead of trying to make Kahji to do what he wanted.

And you might wonder, does Khaji get offended at Jaime risking his life to force Khaji into doing what he wants? I wonder that too, because this moment is never mentioned again in the movie.

For a film so much about family, Khaji is never part of that

Blue Beetle is a movie centered around family.

It's about Jaime's relationship with his family who is very close, almost suffocating but in a good way. Jaime is driven to protect and fight for his family at every turn, and his family will do anything to protect him.

This is contrasted with the Kord family which is dysfunctional and broken, and Carapax who lost his family and sees familial love as a weakness.

These themes are intricately woven into the narrative.

So it is so disappointing how utterly divorced from that theme Khaji-Da ended up.

There is a great story to be told about this extraterrestrial machine that crashes to Earth, never having a family of its own or a concept of what family means, only to be bonded to Jaime and go from being treated as something to be gotten rid of to be welcomed as another member of Jaime's family.

That would be really cool. And they seemed willing to tell a similar story with Jenny Kord, being brought into the family group hug after everything was over.

But Khaji is treated less like a valued member of the family and more like an accessory. And even when Jaime fully bonds with Khaji, it's not about agreeing to integrate and share a mind so much as it's accepting his heroic destiny.

This feels like a huge missed opportunity for the type of story they were telling, and a betrayal of that story's central themes.

Jaime's Mother Addressing Khaji

This is the one exception where a character who wasn't Jaime actually treated Khaji as a person.

She first asks what Khaji's name was. Then says...

I know you can hear me, Khaji-Da. I want you both to get it together. Find your strength, mijito. Use the pain we’re feeling and turn it into power. I want you to go back in there… And kick their asses!

I love this so much. I love the mother's character for thinking to acknowledge Khaji as its own person and talk to it directly, giving her pep talk to both of them at once.

It's a fantastic scene. An incredible moment.

But it's also still treating Khaji as a weapon. The one and only time a character who isn't Jaime talks to Khaji, it's telling Khaji to go fight people.

I'm glad to have gotten this. But I feel they could have done so much more.

Khaji's feelings are never explored

We're told that the Scarab is a planet-destroying super weapon. How does Khaji feel about that?

We don't know. It never comes up.

Does Khaji have memories of worlds it's destroyed?

Does it know why it was created or who created it?

If it doesn't know those things, does the lack of awareness scare it?

Can it feel fear, and if Jaime asked if it was scared, would it understand the emotion?

The fact that these things weren't explored at all leaves me with one important and sad conclusion.

The writers weren't interested in writing a plural character

Blue Beetle's plurality is an afterthought.

The Scarab was sentient and Blue Beetle would use "we" pronouns occasionally because Khaji is sentient in the comics. But the relationship between the two wasn't a priority of the writers.

And in my opinion, the film suffered for it. Not just from a plural perspective but from a writing perspective. The film would have been so much better had Khaji been treated more like a character rather than just a weapon and plot device.

Khaji stopping Jaime from killing needed more build-up, and Khaji needed and deserved to be better integrated with the story's central themes of family.

Conclusion

All in all, I feel that Blue Beetle was a good movie. But I also feel its treatment of Khaji held it back from being a great movie.

I hope I don't come off as too hard on this particular movie. There's a lot of media that, when less explicitly plural, I might be more forgiving of. I once wrote a whole post about why I thought Kronk was plural based on his angel and demon Kronks who never get any sort of character arcs. But those aren't intended to be sentient people by the writers. Instead, they're plural by happenstance, simply by being more developed than other shoulder angels and demons in cartoons.

Meanwhile, Khaji Da is supposed to be a full character, I went in expecting a lot, and I feel Khaji just didn't live up to its potential in this movie.

I look forward to seeing what DC does with the character in the future, and if Khaji can get more development.

And I'm sad that, given the box office, it's probably not going to get a sequel of its own. I'm sure the planned Reach story would have given Khaji some much needed character development.

For more of me rambling about the plurality of DC superheroes, see: The Plurality of... Batman (Failsafe).

[vitospaghetta]

Leon's flirting in Infinite Darkness pt 2: A Deeper Dive

After this post managed to gain a teeny bit of traction on here, I wanted to talk about this a bit more for clarification, and to further explore how this ties into the overall narrative and Leon's characterization throughout the franchise.

I'd like to make it clear right off the bat that I am not claiming that Leon is (and, for the record, I hate this word) a womanizer either. It was disappointing to see that that's what some people took away from my previous post. It's also worth noting that I don't think Leon's actions in the scene with Shen Mei come at the cost of his morality. Just as the erasure of negative qualities doesn't lessen the impact one character can have on others. Life isn't that simple.

The Gist

The interpretation that I have for the scene with Shen Mei is not one that claims that Leon is some selfish home-wrecker on the day to day. However, it is an exploration of the extent of his loneliness and how, even the most morally upstanding characters such as Leon, have traumas and emotional burdens that can make them behave in ways that are questionable at best. It was an analysis of how, in that moment, he inadvertently displayed a deeply vulnerable part of himself that does extend beyond that scene.

The man desperately yearns for affection and romantic connection with women while living a life that does not allow for him to do so in a way where longevity makes sense. Because of Leon's compassionate nature, he will not allow himself the indulgence of a long-term relationship in order to spare others the pain of being dragged into his life. Though short-term hook ups are something he is willing to pursue because then there's no risk of disappointing anyone. No missed anniversaries, birthdays, or holidays. No receiving a sudden call to fly out to god-knows-where immediately and being unable to say where he's going.

His innate human need for connection in the absence of normalcy lead to desperation. Desperation leads to impulsivity, and this impulsivity is what leads him to disregard a person's relationship status with a half-hopeful "soooo...?" In that moment, his desperation got the better of him.

The point of my previous post was to explore how a scene as brief as that one manages to peel back some of his layers to emphasize the extent of Leon's isolation imposed by his service to the government. How his inability to allow himself meaningful romantic connection ties into his most tragic flaws, consistent throughout the franchise.

Compassion Comes At A Cost

Leon has always been the type of character who will willingly throw himself under the bus in order to spare those he cares about from any unnecessary suffering. Choosing to work for the government to save Sherry's life, not turning Helena in to the authorities to clear his name in RE6 after the assassination of Adam Benford, his full willingness to sabotage his relationship with Claire at the end of Infinite Darkness in order to prevent the government from going after her. If there's one thing to know about Leon, it's that he will always put himself last.

He is not above sacrificing his own happiness for the sake of someone else's, but he would never expect anyone to do the same for him.

Self-Sabotage

Given how okay he was with Shen Mei's rejection, I don't doubt in the slightest that he was almost expecting her to say no. Just like Hunnigan in RE4. Just like how he loves Ada, a woman who will never love him the way he loves her.

The scene in Damnation comes to mind, where Ada asks him about "that night," where it's heavily implied that they hooked up at some point between RE4 and the events of the film. Unsurprisingly, the implication was reiterated/confirmed by the writer of the film himself. He also says that "[Leon] shows his real self when he gets in touch with a woman," which I think is a very apt statement.

She says that Leon's angry with her, presumably for cutting their romantic endeavor short, and yet he still can't be done with her. He chooses to latch on to a woman he can never get close to.

It took him until RE6 to finally let Ada go, and I'd like to think that ties very nicely into the character arc we see from Vendetta to Death Island, where both movies explore Leon's transition from choosing to suffer alone to learning to find comfort in camaraderie.

This all ties in with each other. Leon's isolation, even outside of romantic endeavors, has always been at least a little self-imposed. His service to the government lays the foundation, and Leon does the rest himself because of the circumstances of his life. There's a tragic cyclical nature to it.

This is the face of a man who willingly sets himself up for failure. It calls back to his "story of my life" line in RE4. He isn't hurt by these rejections because he doesn't expect much to come out of his attempts at flirting. He's throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Maybe it'll work out and he'll get lucky, though odds are it won't. Even he he does luck out, there's not much chance of a formal relationship coming out of it. Low risk, high reward.

Even Stephanie Panisello who voices Shen Mei jokingly said "Why do ya have to keep choosing these women that don't really love ya?!" in a Death Island interview while talking about how she feels about Leon.

When he asks Shen Mei out, he's asking for the hell of it — at least then he's trying to fill the void — but he's simultaneously keeping women at arm's length in an attempt to spare them. Maybe, given his history with Ada, he's trying to spare himself some pain, too.

Not Exactly OOC Behavior

Speaking of Ada, it's also not entirely unlike Leon to pursue someone who's already in an established relationship.

Infinite Darkness takes place in the original RE timeline* — the remakes are not canonical to these events.

(*The remakes do not supersede the events of the original games. They simply created a separate timeline where the games' narratives are approached from a different perspective — a chance to make the narratives more cohesive and modernized. Quite literally a "do-over," but not a replacement. Both the remakes and the original games are canon simultaneously, however all CGI media exists within the continuity of the original timeline. This is because they're all part of a pre-existing narrative, contiguous of each other.)

In OG RE2, Leon hears that Ada has a boyfriend and still develops feelings for her, and goes as far as kissing her in one of the endings, even though he found out earlier that her boyfriend supposedly died. Was John real? Probably not, but Leon didn't know that.

Though I also understand that the circumstances of these scenes are different — Leon, having developed genuine feelings for Ada, kisses her as he knows she's going to die, and after she admits that she loves him, too. It's a goodbye kiss of sorts. This isn't the tone being portrayed in the scene with Shen Mei, but it's noteworthy regardless. Just because someone has a boyfriend doesn't mean Leon's not gonna get the hots for them.

Moving Forward

Leon's longing for physical and emotional connection with others definitely highlights some of the more tragic aspects of his character. However, I think that the way we see his flirtatious behavior taper off over time is equally interesting. It's an indicator of his mental health (its decline leading up to Vendetta), as well as it is a testament of his maturity. When you consider his lack of flirtatiousness in Damnation/RE6/Vendetta/Death Island, you can see how he's matured emotionally. Though you can also see how he has truly succumbed to his isolation. The extent of his self-imposed burden, the extent of his hopelessness. A grim acceptance of loneliness, of impracticality, of his life being what it is, and having no idea of how to fix it.

[bee-named-alex]

Ok so the promised thoughts about Interview with the Vampire s2e5 (keep in mind that i haven't read the books, i've only seen some posts by people who have) SPOILERS

This episode was... heavy I guess is the right word. Pretty dark. Some things real fucked up. But also like emotionally.

I'll start with the nice thing, which is the Daniel and Louis dynamic; I really enjoy their present selfs, finding out their memories together. I like that Daniel even seems to be disappointed when Louis say that they didn't do anything lmao. Yeah and them in past is super fun too, at least at the start; Louis being happy with, Daniel "I did what I had to" Molloy taking of his shirt the moment he gets an excuse to do so.

It's interesting tho, the way Louis talks about Lestat has changed. But yeah, time passes and changes perspective (or maybe they have met after this sometimes and that changed it, but in that case i would have to ask where is lestat now)

And I think talking about the 70s takes immense trust on both parts, but especially Daniel's. I mean uncovering what he knows is risky, even without Armand in there.

Speaking of, I like that we get to hear how he likes to hunt; they tell us ("he's gonna be begging for it in an hour" or something like that) and show us with Daniel, that Armand likes his victims to be so mentally broken by him that they basically offer themselves up to him (similar to what Santiago does on stage)

Now that I've opened up Armand's behaviour, I'll talk a little about their fight. Like I get it. I get them both, Armand more than I thought I would. But fucking christ. They are both saying the hard truths (which i doubt is common in their relationship) and so it's spicy.

Louis bringing up Armand's past is fucked. But also Armand being so jealous of Lestat, like he's been their whole relationship; i like to see that, this seed of hatred and resentfulness that keeps hurting them even in present day.

And then Louis runs out and that is something i did not see coming and i feel so bad for him, like omg. And the way Armand acts towards him then feels really cruel but in the light of their fight i guess he gets to be angry (but i still dont like it)

Armand listening to the tapes and promptly torturing Daniel for four fucking days. Crazy. I mean yea this is "Torture as foreplay, the show" but still? Mental.

I wholeheartedly agree with "Fuck your boyfriend"

I'm not actually tho sure if he's torturing him for the fun of it or out of jeaulosy or if he actually wants to find out "what makes him fascinating" but still, jesus (He really said, you could be on your knees in a second and you WILL, lol)

The Lestat-Armand scene broke my heart. This means that they both know that Lestat is alive because Louis didn't look at all surprised that he is, only shocked that Armand knew where he was. So id like to know if he actually found out (when? how??) or if he just assumed.

Now, what is Armand trying to do here? If it's to hurt Louis, he's successful but it hurts me to think that's it. If it's actually to make Louis happy, than he's doing it all wrong, like Louis tells him like a million times to stop. If it's to show that he's better, or like to give Louis a choice and hope he's the chosen one, I mean I guess? Still don't get it tho.

I really like that he refuses to say the "I love you", because, well, I'm not sure about the intentions, but to me it shows that he is scared that Louis would leave him if he knew. Which is not an unfounded fear really, not from the point of view of someone who's been listening to the tapes and hearing Lestat, Lestat, Lestat... over and over again. I think that the tapes kinda confirm Armand's fears that he isn't "enough" for Louis and could never be enough because he just isn't Claudia and he just isn't Lestat.

And the talk after that scene, "he is just my maker" yea no we both know you're lying. But then they explain why Armand's acting kinda like a servant to Louis (because to be tired of cleaning messes, you would have to have cleaned a lot of messes), because he's trying to undo something that happened in Paris? (Claudia is in danger, i fear)

Speaking of Lestat, where is he?? I mean he doesn't know where Louis is and Armand refuses to tell him, but I don't think that's just it. Like, I'm pretty sure if he could, Lestat would burn the whole word to find Louis. So it might be that he's been locked up somewhere? (i have seen people who know the books talk about some dungeon i think?? but idk)

Next thing I find quite fascinating (haha) is the very confusing Loumand power dynamic. It mostly comes from Armand and the way he seems to have two conflicting personalities that he switches between; one of them is the "cold, dark, manipulative, always in power, will torture you mentally", you know like he was acting with Daniel for most of the episode, and then there is the "devoted servant, looking to please and get love, yes maitre, of course maitre" or as Louis calls it, very 'tactly' I might add, "the bitch he was groomed to become", (it is obviously a horrible thing to say, i mean come on, louis.)

And I'm not sure what causes him to switch, if it just happens inside him or if the change is somehow (intentionally or even unintentionally) caused by Louis. It also kinda reminds me of the way Lestat has the mental stability of a rocking horse, but instead of it being "Everything is fine -> Rage", it's "I'm in power -> I will do literally anything you say".

Also idk how Louis feels about this. Because he will certainly use this side of Armand to get what he wants, but I'm not all that sure that he necessarily enjoys that power. Whatever it is, he saved Daniel thanks to it so yeah, good.

The ending, i am a little scared about, i will admit. Not sure how fast Armand can figure out what they know, and when he does, if they will know that he knows that they know. Dubai scenes are gonna be fun is what im saying.

Lastly, the trailer. Looks great again, more Loumand scenes that will hopefully be healthier than whatever this was. I am scared for Claudia as per Armand's "Have I atoned for my part of Paris?" i think the girl is done for. Also Santiago clearly play part in that, i've seen some people talk about a court?? and it looks like he's gonna do just that, probably court for Claudia and Louis (and possibly Armand?)

This didn't fit anywhere, but this episode somehow made me like Armand more? Not as a person, but as a character. I was always team Lestat and it might be because he was there first and i tend to be biased towards that, but maybe it's the fact that he was just more fun to watch. Like both his "normal" and his "fucked up". Armand was really cool too, but his "normal" i just didn't enjoy as much. But his "fucked up" was horrifying and also totally fascinating to watch so now i like him a little more than before (lestat still remains above him tho, idk what to tell you)

So anyways I hope you enjoyed my rant. I will happily read any responses also I might add to this if I remember something later.

[justatalkingface]

My problem with MHA

is something I've realized that can be boiled down to one simple fact: Hori doesn't respect his story. Everything else, everything I and others talk about, originate from that one fact, like waves from a boulder dropped into a pond.

It feels to me that Hori is so focused on telling a story that he's lost track of, or interest in, all the parts in the story. So, this may be dipping too much into personal opinion here, but to me, writing a story like this is like you're creating a world, a world inhabited by people, each of which is motivated by their own fears and desires. When it comes to things happening, what a certain character does at any given point, I think writing should exist around the rule of, 'What would this character do in this situation', and yet in MHA, we see instead, 'What does this character need to do to make what I want to happen happen', mixed with what seems to be an uncertain grasp on the 'what I want to happen' even is.

The thing is... the characters aren't real, but for a story to be successfully, they need to be sold to us as if they're real. Hori can't just point and say, 'This is a bunch of artistically arranged black ink', he has to say, 'Meet Izuku. He's in junior high. He wants to be a hero. He likes helping people and All Might, and cries maybe a smidgen too much, but he really means well'.

We can't just look at his pretty pictures, we have to have a connection to the characters, we have to feel for them, like they're real.

And for that to work, they have to treated like they're people, with desires and impulses of their own, otherwise that connection with them, that thing that's so essential for keeping an audience, isn't going to stick.

Let's go with a super easy example here: Izuku is walking down a street, and he sees a crying child. What does he do?

Does he:

A. Try and comfort the child?

B. Keep walking?

C. Tell them to shut up?

Or, D. Start break dancing because he's filled with the overwhelming desire to go into a career as a background dancer?

...Alright, I don't think I need explain what the correct answer is, but let me ask you this: what if he does, say, B instead? Let's say I'm suddenly a super good artist, and I throw together a chapter where Izuku ignores a crying child as he walks down the road.

Wouldn't that feel weird?

Because that's the thing; it's very clear what Izuku would do in this situation, to the point where it's in his DNA as a character, but if I write it out where he doesn't do what Izuku, as a person, would do, it'll feel off. It's out of character, and out of character behavior is dangerous if you want to have a good story. It can be managed, but if you over do it... well. There's a reason there's a BNHA critical tag.

Like, it can be done well, but there needs to be a reason, is the thing. Let's say that chapter I made continues and suddenly we learn that Izuku was just informed his mom has cancer. That would explain why he's acting different than usual, except he's still being treated as a person, in that he's reacting to something that's happening, an extreme event that's altering his life, and that's the reason why he's not acting like he normally would.

So. Let's apply that logic again.... how about this? Why is Hawks OK with Endeavour abusing his children?

Not, why is he working with Endeavour, because he canonly does things he doesn't want to for what he thinks is the greater good, but why is he OK with it? Why isn't he upset? Why isn't he disappointed that Endeavour, a hero, his hero, the very symbol of hope that kept him going through a childhood an abusive father, is himself an abusive father?

What is the reason, here?

*looks around as crickets echo*

...Nothing? Yeah. There is no reason that we can tell that he should be this overwhelmingly positive about the situation, and yet that is what we have. Hawks, the character, isn't acting like Hawks, the person.

Like I said, this goes back to just about every problem you can have with this story:

Why is Momo, a genius with an OP Quirk so seemingly useless?

Why does everyone just laugh off Bakugou when he treats them like shit?

Why is All Might so stupid when he's a grown ass man who has lived on his own for his entire adult life, isolated from literally everyone, and yet is also wildly successful in his chosen career?

Why doesn't anyone seem angry about Endeavour?

Hell, this logic even applies to the setting:

MHA is set in a society where a major part of the social contract is built off the idea that people can't be trusted to use their Quirks, but they also don't have to, because heroes are there. Every major problem is dealt with by heroes, citizen, so don't sweat the hard stuff and go about your day; the way their society continues is built off an unrealistic and impossible faith in a bunch of people who are being incentivized to act in increasingly mercenary ways, yet it's made clear to us that the average person still thinks everything is fine, and so they continue to be blinded to reality by lifelong propaganda and a social system that will harshly punish those who stir up a fuss by labeling them 'villains', officially or otherwise. The problem being, of course, that that set up is doomed to fail, and by the time of the War Arc, trust in heroes is dropping.... and then thousands of people die as the heroes take an enormous loss in actually achieving their main goals, publicly. With video evidence, to boot. Shigaraki and Co ride off in the sunset and leave the image that everything is going to be OK in ruins behind them.

That fundamental part of the social contract is falling apart, the blinders are falling off, and people are losing trust. So, in that atmosphere, how do people react to the idea that their new Number One Hero made one of the biggest villains around, both in a literal and metaphorical sense? A few angry press conferences? Some angry mobs everyone treats as stupid and pointless?

Or... something more, perhaps? Because that's the thing, with Dabi's plan: it's simple yet effective in that he says, 'Society is a lie', and then he slaps everyone with enough truth that no one can ignore him.

Forget mobs; why in the fuck is the Todoroki's house still standing? Why aren't people throwing things at Endeavour when he walks by them in the streets? Why aren't Dabi's victims suing him for what his son has done? Endeavour is the Number One Hero, he is the symbol of everything 'right' in society, and that fact that symbol is rotten to the core is brushed over in the story.

Doesn't that seem weird? There should be entire arcs on the fallout of this alone, because MHA Japan at that point should be filled with a lot of very scared, very angry, very unhappy people, who are primed to act irrationally and take out their frustrations on anyone they think is responsible for it, and the people in charge are handling their valid concerns... poorly.

*looks at Enji 'Watch Me' Todoroki meaningfully*

It's like that because Hori doesn't respect his world enough to treat it realistically.

And look, I get that he needs to keep writing, and he needs to keep on track, even if he realizes the story would diverge from his plan if he just let things progress organically (even if MHA has some real signs of having been changed once or twice in new, forced directions in it), but what he's been doing all this time is sacrificing his characters to tell his story, not just once or twice but all the time. And the thing is? The characters are how he can tell that story, they are the foundation the story is built off of; if he undermines his characters, then he is undermining his story.

[mountmultimuses]

Y'all, time for a bit of real talk.

PLEASE DO NOT FREAK OUT AND PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING!!!

This year has been really, REALLY bad. It's been exhausting both physically, mentally, and emotionally. And frankly, it's made me stop and think, even rethink. It certainly doesn't help that I've been sick these past few days, which has made me that much more depressed, and with how uncertain everything is now and in the future, It makes me ponder what I want to do with myself. So it's time to put my foot down. These are MY decisions, and I'm not going to let ANYONE sway or guilt me into changing my mind. So saddle up, because here it comes.

Smut: No more of it.

I don't feel comfortable doing it anymore. I'm very, VERY sorry to disappoint, but at this point, I've stopped enjoying it, especially with how risky it can be. Thank you all for understanding.

This blog: I'm not gonna have it forever.

I've had this blog for TEN YEARS now, and while talking to you guys and the occasional roleplay is still fun, for some personal reasons, I'm starting to fall out of love with this blog. So I intend on getting rid of it some day and starting fresh. When? Maybe by the end of the year, maybe by the end of next year. I still haven't decided, but it's going to happen eventually.

This ISN'T goodbye. At least not if I can help it.

I have no idea what's going to happen this year, next year, or the year after that. But I want you all to know that I love and care about ALL of you, and don't want to just straight-up LEAVE you guys. If I suddenly vanish without a word, it wasn't by choice. When I get rid of this blog (again, sooner or later, not right away), I will try to let you all know. And I will come back to Tumblr ASAP. I will be here. You'll just have to find me, or, better yet, I'll find you. But again, this is all provided that nothing terrible happens between now and then. I have zero control over life or the world around me. God willing, nothing bad happens.

So... Yeah. That's about it. Let me take this chance to give a shoutout to some of the best bloggers I know on here.

@darkenigma32, I've known you longer than anyone else here. Whether or not you're still active, IDK, but I tip my hat to you and your AMAZING OC muse. You've been great, and I hope we see each other again soon.

@wandawillkill312 Sorry we don't interact that often. You're a great dude with an insane eye for detail. Never stop writing (unless you want to). We don't always agree, but who does? Don't worry, as long as I can help it, we will always be bros.

@bootlegmozart I admire your passion and how you speak your mind without giving a single you-know-what about what people think. We don't always agree, but you've always been super chill with me, and I appreciate that. Hoping we're still bros in the future

@nightshadowsdomain I talk to you more than anyone I can think of. You are a great friend, and I hope it stays that way

@andy-squirrel-and-friends you have always been really sweet to me. Never change. Sorry we didn't interact as much.

@twilighthooves I always appreciate your willingness to interact with muses others tend to pass on. You're terrific, and I hope to see more of you.

@sons-of-time Sorry we don't interact that often either. You're a decent guy and your ideas for muses are great. Hope to see more of you.

@fear-my-giggles You and your muse, unhinged as she is, are as sweet as apple pie. Thank you for being such a positive person. I hope things work out for you, and that we remain friends.

@multi-muse-transect, @spiderben2011 @spirits-of-nature16, @lady-scorpion-and-friends, @ckingsbury1967, @awkward-snake-girl and anybody whose name I can't remember ATM, you guys are great. I'm hoping to see more from y'all in the future.

I'm sorry for any missteps or misunderstandings with any of y'all. I haven't been the perfect blogger or roleplay partner. I've been pushy, rude, hypocritical, and selfish. These are things I'm hoping to work on and remedy to become the best version of myself.

So that's about it. Again, this is NOT A GOODBYE, just, more or less, a heads-up. I do plan on remaining on Tumblr, provided nothing terrible happens, just not on this blog. I don't know the future, but here's hoping nothing goes wrong. I'm hoping you'll all understand and respect my decision.

Thank you. I love you all. I'll talk to y'all later.