#i thought this was a spoiler at first but then i realized its not it's about the trailer

[deusvervewrites]

First of all: Happy Birthday Deus!

Secondly, I have more thoughts about the whole "The Villain must Die" thing. You already allude to it in your original post, but one of the reasons that people tend to dislike it is definitely the fact that, if they were to acknowledge & accept it, they feel they would also have to "blame" themselves for liking "bad" media that does not follow this "rule".

You point out Star Wars, so some people will simply read this as "If you enjoyed Star Wars, specifically Palpatine dying, YOU ARE A BAD PERSON!"

Which is not what you said, (and I assume not what you meant) but some people will just read this into things, and feel like they have failed some invisible "vibe check" or something by liking the "wrong" media, and it all starts becoming some weird purity test even if it's often only in peoples head.

Like, stop reinventing Catholicism over here, stories can have different meanings and lessons, and one single thing doesn't mean that the story is no forever tainted and everyone who ever liked it should be branded as evil or some-such nonsense.

To use an extreme example, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance very VERY much kills its villains. It also has a very strong and important message about politics and ideology and how people justify atrocities in it. It's a different kind of story with a different kind of message compared to things like BNHA. Also, it even implies itself that the protagonist might have been wrong in killing his enemies, the fact that he did so anyway and that that was the only way he could see is a flaw that the game directly points out! So good news, liking MGR doesn't make you "bad" just as liking SU or BNHA doesn't mark you as inherently "good" or "righteous".

People need to take a step back and consider that not everything is an attack on them or what they like. Good stories are allowed to have flaws. Because most of them do. Any you are still allowed to like them. That's also fine. You can even like something and criticize it anyway, that's allowed!

This is getting long, so I want to end with another example that helped me realize how much I love villains surviving:

Fairy Tail, and the Arc of Jellal. Long Story short, when we first meet Jellal he is THE WORST. Absolute scum of the earth, sadistic maniacal supervillain that, inevitably, ends up blown up in a big anime battle.

Except, nope, ~2 arcs later, he is back, with amnesia, and involved in some other villains plot. Over the course of the arc he works with the heroes but then regains his memory and is utterly devastated to learn who he was in the past, to the point that he tries to noble suicide sacrifice himself to stop the villain. It does not stop the villain, but he still wants to go through with it to "atone", until the hero that he had hurt to most slaps him in the face and yells at him to Live and Struggle.

Because his death wont change anything. It wont heal those he hurt, or revive those he killed. He can only make up for this, only truly become better, by living.

And, spoiler, he does not sacrifice himself, but instead starts to go on a long and arduous and messy journey of atonement and it absolutely rocks. It makes him and his story a million times better than if he had died.

Anyways, sorry for the second wall of text I send you today, once again, Happy Birthday and best wishes!

One of the many things I love about Metal Gear Rising Revengeance's dialogue on the nature of violence is that, as you said, Raidon loses the moral victory at the end. When he kills Senator Armstrong, Armstrong names Raidon as the inheritor of his ideals that Might Makes Right. The entire game shows Raidon martyring himself by sacrificing his morals in an effort to save lives, implicitly comparing this to real-world warfare

[thedgeofsleep]

Matthew Lillard as Steve Raglan / William Afton in FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S (2023)

[beaulesbian]

- [Nimona]:You should be questioning everything right now. The will of Gloreth, the Institute, the wall. What's it all really for? - [Ballister]: For protecting the realm. - [Nimona]: Oh, you mean from villains like you? Or monsters like me?

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile

[sonknuxadow]

am i the only one who still thinks that they didnt do enough with rouge in sonic prime. and not in a "she didnt get enough screentime" sort of way but in a "they didnt seem to be putting as much thought into what they were doing with her as they were with the other main characters" sort of way

[lathrine]

i present, for your consideration: a series of veilguard screenshots that make me feel Insane (for various reasons) now that ive finished the game

[calo-wav]

the freaking mongoose 💥

(mongoose = righteous clarity (or stubborness))

[nocturnalnewsiestrash]

There are two types of Bottoms (2023) rewatches (for me at least)

Or

[atissi]

WOW...............tf2 man. tf2...........................

[acourtofquestions]

Rowaelin Chapter 41 Kingdom of Ash:

She'd rebuild it—what she had been.

Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she'd do it. If only for Terrasen.

Rowan swooped from the mast, shifting as he reached her side at the rail. He surveyed the night-black sea beyond them. "You should rest." She slid him a glance. "I'm not tired." Not a lie, not in some regards. "Want to spar?" He frowned. "Training can start tomorrow."

"Or tonight." She held his piercing stare, matched his dominance with her own.

"It can wait a few hours, Aelin."

"Every day counts." Against Erawan, even a day of training would count.

Rowan's jaw tightened. "True," he said at last. "But it can still wait. There are ... there are things we need to discuss." The silent words rose in his animal-bright eyes. About you and me.

Her mouth went dry. But Aelin nodded In silence, they strode into their spacious quarters, its only decoration the wall of windows that overlooked the churning sea behind them. A far cry from a queen's chamber, or any she might have purchased as Adarlan's assassin.

At least the bed built into the wall looked clean enough, the sheets crisp and stainless. But Aelin headed for the oak desk anchored to the floor, and leaned against it while Rowan shut the door.

In the dim lantern light, they stared at each other.

She'd endured Maeve and Cairn; she'd endured Endovier and countless other horrors and losses. She could have this conversation with him. The first step toward rebuilding herself.

Aelin knew Rowan could hear her thundering heart as the space between them went taut. She swallowed once. "Elide and Lorcan told you... told you everything that was said on that beach."

A curt nod, wariness flooding his eyes. "Everything that Maeve said." Another nod.

She braced herself. "That I'm-we're mates."

Understanding and something like relief replaced that wariness. "Yes."

"I'm your mate," she said, needing to voice it. "And you are mine."

Rowan crossed the room, but halted a few feet from the desk on which she leaned. "What of it, Aelin?" His question was low, rough.

"Don't you..." She scrubbed at her face. "You know what she did to you, to ..." She couldn't say her name. Lyria. "Because of it."

"I do know."

"And?"

"And what do you wish me to say?"

She pushed off the desk. "I wish you to tell me how you feel about it. If…"

"If what?"

"If you wish it wasn't so."

His brows narrowed. "Why would I ever wish that?"

She shook her head, unable to answer, and stared over her shoulder toward the sea.

It seemed like he would close the distance between them, but he remained where he was.

"Aelin." His voice turned hoarse. "Aelin."

She looked at him then, at the pain in his words.

"Do you know what I wish?" He exposed his palms, one tattooed, the other unmarked. "I wish that you had told me. When you realized it. I wish you had told me then."

She swallowed against the ache in her throat. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why would it ever hurt me to know the truth that was already in my heart? The truth I hoped for?"

"I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how it was possible. I thought maybe ... maybe you might be able to have two mates within a lifetime, but even then, I just ….." She blew out a breath. "I didn't want you to be distressed." His eyes softened. "Do I regret that Lyria was dragged into this, that the cost of Maeve's game was her life, and the life of the child we might have had? Yes. I regret that, and I wish it had never happened." He would bear the tattoo to remember it for the rest of his days. "But none of that was your fault. I will always carry some of the burden of it, always know I chose to leave her for war and glory, and that I played right into Maeve's hands."

"Maeve wanted to ensnare you to get to me, though."

"Then it is her choice, not yours."

Aelin ran a hand over the worn wood of the desk. "In those illusions she spun for me, she showed me variations on one more than all the others." The words were strained, but she forced them out. Forced herself to look at him. "She spun me one dreamscape that felt so real I could smell the wind off the Staghorns."

"What did she show you?" A breathless question.

Aelin had to swallow before she could answer. "She showed me what might have been—if there had been no Erawan, if Elena had dealt with him properly and banished him. If there had been no Lyria, none of that pain or despair you endured. She showed me Terrasen as it would have been today, with my father as king, and my childhood happy, and..." Her lips wobbled. "When I turned twenty, you came with a delegation of Fae to Terrasen, to make amends for the rift between my mother and Maeve. And you and I took one look at each other in my father's throne room, and we knew."

She didn't fight the stinging in her eyes. "I wanted to believe that was the true world. That this was the nightmare from which I'd awaken. I wanted to believe that there was a place where you and I had never known this suffering and loss, where we'd take one look at each other and know we were mates. Maeve told me she could make it so. If I gave her the keys, she'd make it all possible." She wiped at her cheek, at the tear that escaped down it. "She spun me realities where you were dead, where you'd been killed by Erawan and only in handing over the keys to her would I be able to avenge you. But those realities made me ... I stopped being useful to her when she told me you were gone. She couldn't get me to talk, to think. Yet in the ones where you and I met, where things were as they should have been ... that was when I came the closest."

His swallow was audible. "What stopped you?"

She wiped at her face again. "The male I fell in love with was you. It was you, who knew pain as I did, and who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn't understand that. That even if she could create that perfect world, it wouldn't be you with me. And I'd never trade that, trade this. Not for anything." He extended his hand. An offer and invitation.

Aelin laid hers atop his, and his callused fingers squeezed gently. "I wanted it to be you," he breathed, closing his eyes. "For months and months, even in Wendlyn, I wondered why you weren't my mate instead. It tore me up, wondering it, but I still did." He opened his eyes, and they burned like green fire. "All this time, I wanted it to be you."

She lowered her gaze, but he hooked a thumb and forefinger around her chin and lifted her face.

"I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure." He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. "But we'll face this together. Erawan, the Lock, all of it.

"We'll face it together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a thousand years together. Longer."

A small sound came out of her. "Elena said the Lock requires—"

"We'll face it together," he swore again.

"And if the cost of it truly is you, then we'll pay it together. As one soul in two bodies.

Her heart strained to the point of cleaving. "Terrasen needs a king."

"I have no intention of ruling Terrasen without you. Aedion can have the job."

She scanned his face. He meant every word He brushed the hair from her face, his other hand still clasping hers to his chest, where his heart pounded a steady, unfaltering rhythm.

"Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too."

She felt the truth of his words echo into the unbreakable thing that bound their very souls, and tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it.

She frowned. "Why aren't you kissing me?"

"I thought you might want to be asked first."

"That never stopped you before."

"This first time, I wanted to make sure you were ... ready." After Cairn and Maeve. After months of having no choices whatsoever.

She smiled despite that truth. "I'm ready to be kissed again, Prince."

He let out a dark chuckle and muttered, "Thank the gods," before he lowered his mouth to hers.

"You're my mate." Her words were a breathless rush. "And I am yours."

The world might have been burning around them for all she cared, all he cared, too.

"Together, Aelin," he promised, and she heard the rest of the words in every place their bodies joined. Together they would face this, together they would find a way.

Together we'll find a way, their mingling breaths, the crashing sea, seemed to echo.

Together.

[bmpmp3]

the really beautiful landscape/skyscape animation in makoto shinkai's works tends to be the big thing i see focused on and that is understandable and deserved like the weather and lighting effects are unREAL but i do think we should also appreciate how absolute insane the plotlines of his original movies get. at least two movies with in universe catastrophes with major ecological implications. the guns and explosions. theres that one movie i havent seen yet with the guy who turns into a chair (?)

[trans-leek-cookie]

Thinking abt AITSF and the ownership of bodies

[gayofthefae]

I mean like I’m sure they’ll probably continue but....um

Marisol for Eddie and all but he didn’t turn back. When he stopped I thought it was gonna be like “no, you know what, I’m gonna turn around and ask her” and I was - like how I liked Natalia generally but not for the arc - “you go dude!” because short term payoffs and all that

But he didn’t. And now I’m confused and unsure if she is gonna be in the next episode. Or was that just an example and reminder to him? Did he run back in the store afterwards offscreen?

Oh, maybe he got her number from helping her and is just gonna text her. But then why not say anything in the moment???

Also, side note, I find it narratively odd like a choice that for someone who is supposedly not supposed to be in comparison to Shannon she was still someone he had met previously and didn’t keep in touch with and then ran into later, hmmm?

But I thought he was gonna date her and like MAYBE he still is but then why not make that the end of the LOVE episode for him? Why make it the run in but not explicitly put them together? You have set it up so that if they do end up getting together we officially find out in an episode NOT about endgame happiness. DUDE !

[bakatenshii]

ANGEL YOURE BACK YOURE BACK YOURE BACK!!!!!:&/&&,&/@&;; oki so when I watched Arcane and Silco and the modified version of Viktor popped up I immediately thought of you. I was like….this is very bakatenshii taste. Silco is literally so beautiful. I am scrambling begging dying to find good fics for him

THIS IS SO AOOXPAIZOAISPZ THANK U <333 FOR THINKING OF ME OMFG i kneeee when i saw silcos scar and one eye i was donesies it was game over for me, they really ripped him straight from my cranium ughhg AND HES OLD. ive been rly enjoying me slightly decrepit miserable old men recently and he rly tickles my neuron heh

so very honoured that u thought of me omfg i think i just have such an obvious and consistent taste HAHAHAHA wait im gonna mention some spoilers in the tags ARCANE SPOILERS IN THE TAG !!!! (dont open them if u dont want to see them pls xx)

let me know if you find any good silco fics tho omg i am mmmmm

[butrememberthesong]

actually on a similar note

[dunmeshistash]

Laios Backstory

I've been wanting to compile the comics that talk about Laios backstory for a while, especially after reading the "Laios and Family" extra from the new Adventurer's Bible that re-contextualizes it from Falin's POV.

So I'll be posting and discussing parts from the manga and extras that talk about/show his and Falin's Backstory. Spoilers Ahead.

First, here are their timelines from world guide, its a nice way to situate whats happening and how old they are.

Starting with chapter 52 - Bacon and Eggs, Laios tells his and Falin's story to his party for the first time, after being asked by Senshi why they came to the island.

Laios left the village a year before Falin did. Falin was 9 and Laios was 12, they only met again 9 years later when Laios deserted the army.

"That's why I decided that I would never leave Falin behind again. At least until she finds somebody new that she wants to be with."

Then there's the "Laios and Family" extra from the new adventurer's bible:

I really enjoy the recontextualization from Falin's POV. Especially since we get to understand their parents better.

And Laios finally explains that he left so he could build a better life for them where Falin wouldn't be treated badly. Only to fail and realize she was doing better without him.

They both want what's best for each other but they're too silly.

"I thought if we parted ways at that point, I'd probably never see him again. So I went with him, without thinking about where it would lead."

Going back to Chapter 42 - Nightmare with this context.

You can really tell how he feels like a failure.

Rereading those helped me appreciate the Caravan Extra and Arrival on the island from daydream hour better.

This poor guy failed at everything he had set out to do at this point. And when Falin says "Long time no see, big brother!" she really means it, she hasnt seen a well groomed Laios in almost 10 years.