#i've retconned parts of this episode but not exactly in this way

[mrsreginagold]

*spoilers for season three of Nikita*

me @ my own brain: It's been a while since I watched "The Life We've Chosen" and yet why am I just NOW coming up with the idea that Ari and Nikita could have pulled a fast on on Amanda by having him wear Kevlar and then faking his death?! WHY NOW?!?!?!

*frustrated shipper sound as she jots the idea in her Nikari brainstorm document, which is substantial*

[flower-boi16]

Top 5 Best & Worst Characters in Hellaverse

So, for the most part, Hellaverse has pretty meh to bad characters. Buuuuut, there are a few decent/good ones, so, just for fun, let's go over the top 5 best AND worst characters in Hellaverse (in my opinion).

5. (Worst) Stella

So Stella. Stella, Stella, Stella...you had so much potential to be interesting...but you just...aren't. Just for the record I don't think making Stella abusive is a retcon since it doesn't contradict any of her past behavior in season 1 minus like...one background painting.

That's not really my problem with Stella being abusive. My problem is that it makes her boring and the show does that as a way to woobify Stolas. Really not much to say, she's just...boring.

5. (Best) Octavia

It's pretty funny how Octavia is pretty much the most beloved character in the critical community. She's both decently likable and is a bit interesting when you look at her, as she's a girl who was negatively affected by her fathers' actions and is dealing with the negative changes that have happened to her due to her parents always arguing...

...also her father is Stolas so she is therefore the most sympathetic character by default. Really, there aren't that many good characters in either Hazbin or Helluva, and Octavia isn't an amazing character, she only appears in like, two episodes, but she's still fine by herself and is one of Viv's better characters.

4. (Worst) Charlie

I already made a full post about the issues with my problems with Charlie as a character so I won't once again go very deeply here. You're probably wondering why Charlie is even here to begin with since I stated that I don't exactly hate her.

...well, just because I don't hate a character doesn't really mean I like that character. A majority of Hazbin's characters have similar problems of not being that developed at all and the development they do have often feels rushed. The reason why I put Charlie as the 4th worst character in Hellaverse is because, well, out of every character in Hazbin's main cast...Charlie is just kind of the one with the biggest issues.

Again, I already talked about my issues with Charlie in my post about her but just to recap; Charlie suffers from being heavily underdeveloped, she isn't a very compelling protagonist and has 0 growth throughout the show. She learns absolutely nothing. Her mentality is never once challenged by the narrative and she is always portrayed as right and anyone who disagrees with her is automatically wrong, and she also feels heavily overshadowed by the rest of the cast despite being the main character.

Charlie is also not the best person at times like some people have pointed out (she KNOWS THAT ANGEL IS BEING ABUSED and she chooses not to do anything about it. Wow, what a great friend), and overall she kinda sucks as a protagonist.

4. (Best) Lucifer

I've seen Lucifer gain a lot of flak from people with them calling him a bad person and it's not entirely unjustified. I can definitely understand why it may be hard to sympathize with the guy who literally greenlit annual genocides of his own people because he thought that they deserved death.

Not to mention him calling Charlie a "failure" in the pilot which is just...never addressed here. Also it's fairly weird that despite Lucifer being the sin of pride...he isn't really prideful of anything...? So ya, there a few issues with Lucifer as a character.

In spite of that though, I don't think that Lucifer is a particularly bad character. If anything, he's actually one of the more well-developed of the main cast and he has an arc that's decently compelling...?

He initially started out as a dreamer, someone with many creative and imaginative ideas for Heaven, but his ideas were always rejected and he was seen as a troublemaker by the elders of Heaven.

After he was cast down to Hell as punishment for accidentally letting evil seep into the world, he lost his will to dream and fell into depression, having a heavily cynical view of Heaven and Hell due to his past experiences. He closes himself off and doesn't stay in contact with his loved ones, mainly his daughter due to his depression. He tries convincing Charlie into his cynical views because he doesn't want his own daughter to face the same crushing rejection he faced.

However, he reconnects with his daughter and brings back a spark in him that was lost long ago, and he promises to support Charlie and her dreams, despite his depression not immediately disappearing.

Admittedly that part is pretty rushed, like Charlie just says "but dad...mah people!!!!" and he's just like "ok". Again, it's not perfect and has some small issues, but compared to most of Hazbin and Helluva's other characters, Lucifer's arc is far more well-developed and is interesting in it's own right. If anything, Lucifer thinking that his people deserve death simply shows his cynical mindset that he's had for years, and Charlie's able to bring back that dreamer that was crushed long ago.

So ya. Lucifer is not amazing, but I like him. He's neat.

3. (Worst) Chaz

Chaz sucks. Chaz is a character that only exists just to make a bunch of unfunny sex jokes and nothing else. He is completely one-dimensional and is nothing more than a walking sex joke. And his "jokes" aren't even remotely funny.

I really don't have much to even say about Chaz. He's just THAT one-note.

3. (Best) Velvvette

I've talked about my thoughts on Velvvette before so I won't go too in depth here again. Buuut needless to say I think she's probably my favorite character in hellaverse. She's one of the few antagonists Viv's made that's actually entertaining and fun to watch, with a well-developed and charismatic personality that's not just "asshole who swears a lot". She isn't the best character in hellaverse though, but she has far more depth as a character compared to most of the other antagonists.

2. (Worst) Adam

I've spoken about my thoughts on Adam before multiple times so at this point I don't know if I have anything left to say about him. Adam is a boring, one-dimensional character with very little depth or personality as a character. He only exists just to be a pure straw character so he can be proven wrong by Charlie.

He can't have any real depth as a character because he only exists just to be torn down by the story. Again, already talked about that in a previous post so I won't go too in-depth here, but needless to say...ya, Adam still sucks.

2. (Best) Alastor

Like Lucifer, I've seen Alastor gain a heavy amount of criticism but personally, like Lucifer, I think Alastor is one of the better characters in the main cast. The has a sense of mystery and intrigue to him that makes him pretty interesting as a character. You're left wondering what his whole deal is & what he's planning.

That combined with Alastor's charisma makes him an entertaining antagonist for the show. He's one of the few characters that I'm interested in to see what they do with in the next season. So ya, I like Alastor...

Now time to get to a character that makes me want to punch myself in the face.

1. (Worst) Stolas

.....Honeslty what can even be said about Stolas that hasn't already been said? I've made so many posts complaining about this stupid owl and you already know my opinion of him at this point. If you really want to know every single critique of Stolas I have, read every post I've made that's tagged "anti stolas". But...I'll just say this.

Stolas could have been a good character. Hell, he could have been the show's BEST character. He had all the potential to be super interesting and compelling character with a great arc...but instead, Viv decided to completely retcon everything season 1 established in order to try and make Stolas an UwU soft boy the show REALLY wants us to sympathize for, in spite of Stolas being a bad person.

I'm sorry if I can't sympathize with the guy who SA's an lower class imp for his own pleasure and frequently neglects his own daughter and pays more attention to st. imp. And, as an artificial way to make Stolas sympathetic, the narrative has to wipe away any actual flaws he has and demonize any character that even remotely gets upset at his actions (which I talk about here), because god forbid we hold Stolas accountable for ANYTHING right? We have to coddle and absolve him of ALL his mistakes despite his flaws being what made him interesting in the first place.

Stolas NEVER grows or develops as a character because of this and so he has basically no character arc. Not only is he a poorly written mess of a character...he's also just BORING now. There's nothing interesting about him anymore, he's just an UwU sad sack. He had so much potential to be interesting but that potential was completely wasted in favor of this bullshit.

And THAT's what makes Stolas SO FRUSTRATING. Really, he pretty much represents HB, and, to an extent, all of Hellaverse as a whole; it started out good with a lot of interesting ideas and potential but through bad writing, all of that potential got squandered and now we're just left with a completely disappointing mess.

Stolas is the worst character in the show because he's the only one who legitimately FRUSTERATES me. He's my least favorite character in all of fiction and a complete mess.

1. (Best) Sera

I already talked about Sera before in a previous post so I won’t go too in depth here, but Sera is one of hellaverse’ better antagonists for having more depth and nuance as a character. She’s the head seraphim of Heaven and greenlit exterminations in order to protect Heaven….and Emily.

In spite of that though, she clearly doesn’t want to do this and is only doing it because she wanted to try and protect her people, and Emily, who she clearly cares deeply for as her older sister. She’s a lot more compelling as a character that most of hellaverse’ antagonists, not being good or evil but rather morally grey, having nuances to her as a character.

To me, Sera is the best character in all of Hellaverse because she's the one with the most nuance and depth compared to 90% of Viv's other characters, especially her antagonists. She actually has REAL DEPTH and complexities to her that make her a lot more interesting compared to most of Viv's characters. Hell, most of the characters in the best list are put there BECAUSE they are just more developed than most of the other characters (which just shows how bad Viv is at character writing)

Like Alastor, she's one of the few characters that I am interested in seeing what they do next with season 2, as she is likely going to get a redemption there. Well just have to see. But for now, Sera is the best character in all of Hellaverse.

So...ya...that was my top 5 best and worst characters in Hellaverse...

....bye.

[chaifootsteps]

besides the way The Circus was some of the most heavy-handed and embarrassing woobification I've seen, I think it's honestly hard to argue that Season 2 is anything other than Viv's transparent attempts to make Stolas more sympathetic

like if there was a checklist called Fix Stolas' Flaws (and make him the 'real vicitm') it'd probably go exactly how the season has gone so far:

> he cheated on his wife? make Stella more than just a rich bitch who's angry, make her outright evil and abusive. Now Stolas cheating on her is not just the lesser of two evils, but the fandom can say he should have cheated on her more! (never mind that she was also forced into the proposal) > he coerced Blitz into sex and has been sexually harassing him all season long? make it so Blitz came onto him first and Stolas actually 'loved' him at first sight (even though the scene itself contradicts that defense, none of that excuses the full moon deal and Stolas never behaved like he had any genuine affection for Blitz in season 1 until episode 7 suddenly made it happen. actually just - just don't rewatch season 1, it's fine) > he neglects his daughter and is terrible at noticing when she's upset? have Loona lecture her that Stolas is trying and she should be happy with that (even though Stolas will continue to neglect her for the rest of the season, he never learns squat and the upheaval in her life is all his fault) > Striker points out Stolas treats Blitz like a plaything and the ruling class regularly abuse imps? have Fizz, the most biased party ever, tell Striker that anyone pointing this out is somehow just as bad as the royals themselves. also did we mention Striker smells and is unsexy now? and is a supremacist, even though the show has no intention of showing where that's the case? > the fandom still thinks Stolas demeaning Blitz should be addressed? retcon in a bunch of offscreen phone calls to establish how totally nice Stolas treats Blitz and frame Blitz as just having cynical hangups about him being royalty. also Blitz yells at him for no reason and is mean. if you keep insisting Stolas has done nothing wrong eventually someone has to believe it, right?

And the worst part of all? We haven't even reached the stuff we saw in the leaks, with Octavia blaming Blitzo for everything and then being seemingly pained as the one in the wrong for going no-contact with her father.

It's gonna get rough.

[stillness-in-green]

Hi, are you still working on the AFO Retcon Essay? You mentioned a few times you are not sure if Horikoshi retconned AFO's original plan or if he always intended for AFO to take over Tomura, but made AFO act somewhat contradictory from the start regardless. Did this ever make you feel like there are too many possibilities in regards to Horikoshi's original intentions to take into account and could therefore make it harder to write the essay?

Hi there, and thanks for your interest! I did actually talk about this a good while back, towards the beginning of the year; you can find that post here. It says pretty much exactly what you did and goes a bit further--that I'm so distrustful of Horikoshi as a writer that I have no idea anymore what might have been retconned and what was his intention from the start, and further, that even if something was his intention from the start, I don't trust him to have laid the groundwork for those intentions with honesty or good faith.

Instead of the AFO Retcon Essay, what I've been poking at instead is some sort of massive retrospective of all the problems with BNHA's endgame. That's going to require a reread on my part, and some decisions about formatting--namely, do I want to do the reread privately, on my end, and then write the Mega Chonky Essay and post it when I'm finished, or do I do it publically, read-along liveblog style, documenting the problems as I go?

At the moment, I'm leaning towards the second. I have some tentative ideas about keeping a running list of (to use a witticism from the Twitter fen) Themes & Such, ideas and ideology the series sets out and how well it lives up to those ideas--or how it fails to. I'd also like to keep track of things like character arcs and foreshadowing, documenting things with an eye to where those arcs go, what the foreshadowing amounts to, whether the series keeps its implicit promises, and so on. I suspect it would wind up looking something like a cross between the heteromorphobia essay and my chapter thoughts posts.

On the other hand, a format that deals with one group of problems at a time could feel more focused, discussing all the evidence at once of any particular topic rather than having to keep many (many) plates spinning across a retrospective of the entire series. I also already have the broad outline for that, since it was my plan last time I was seriously poking at the idea. It would probably still end up being posted in multiple parts; the parts would just cover different groups of characters or aspects of the series per installment, rather than e.g. each installment covering an arc and everything in it.

I suppose there's nothing stopping me from doing first the former and then the latter? I'm planning to reread the whole series anyway, after all.

In any case, I like that kind of installment-based format not least because I'm also in the early stages of getting a Patreon set up aimed at supporting my meatier chunks of fandom writing and potentially giving people some ability to point me at this or that topic. A multi-part analysis of BNHA--something in a similar style as my documentations of heteromorphobia, the problems with the anime's adaptation of My Villain Academia, or even, to reach back to an older fandom, my episode-by-episode write-ups on Human Debris in Gundam IBO!--strikes me as a good way to get that off the ground.

I've got one or two things to finish getting off my plate before then, and I'd want to wait until the last volume of BNHA officially comes out (12/4) just in case of any thirteenth-hour surprises, but keep an eye out! I'm not inclined to paywall my writing, but maybe an early access sort of model? I'm also going to want to find a blogging site that's more aimed at hosting long-form writing than Tumblr is. We'll see!

In the meantime, to give everyone an example of the kinds of things I'm looking at tracking through the story, one of the things that most vexes me about the ending is how it not only fails to resolve its contradictory ideas of saving and heroism, it feels to even recognize those contradictions. Here's a chunk of my notes on that topic from the outline of The Mega Chonky Essay in its current form.

• Nana says saving isn’t just saving someone’s life, but also making sure they’re smiling in the end. But that means that saving their life is the prerequisite. If Eri died smiling, her smiling would not prevent everyone from recognizing her death as a tragedy.         • “Perfect Victory” is defined as both “winning” and “saving” flawlessly—that is, every fight is won, and no one is left unsaved. This is introduced first as an ideal for Deku and Bakugou to strive for, with both of them needing to work on different parts of the equation, and continues to be an aspect of Bakugou’s characterization, as it comes up again in Joint Training. But it doesn’t stay locked to them, as All Might says directly to the American pilots that they can’t be allowed to die because the kids are aiming for a Perfect Victory.         • A pivotal question for Toga and the larger series is, given that Heroes are supposed to save people, how do Heroes justify killing Villains? Do they not think of Villains as people?         With all three of these ideas in place, the challenge becomes how to navigate the endgame to a place where all three concepts are honored/resolved. The ending must demonstrate that Heroes do see Villains as people while also being able to achieve their desired Perfect Victory—they must win against the Villains while also saving them, where “saving” means that the Villains’ lives are saved and they’re smiling in the end.         Or must they? After the first war, the series introduces another concept of how to save people, albeit one that runs directly counter to Nana's definition of a saved person as someone both alive and smiling: Gran Torino says that killing someone can be a way of saving them. He and Nana can’t both be right, so to confront and resolve that discrepancy, the story will have to acknowledge one of them as wrong. (Spoilers: It does not.)         In the end, Toga dies, and Deku kills Shigaraki, and if both of them die smiling, well, you sure as hell can’t say the same for e.g. Gigantomachia or All For One or Dabi or any of the thousands of unhappy Villains who wound up in prison (many of them likely bound for the gallows!), alive but decidedly not smiling. Heck, All Might, in trying to console Deku, moves the goalposts even more by suggesting that all Deku needed to do to get the credit on “saving” Shigaraki was make sure his inner child wasn’t crying anymore. Not only does he not have to live, he doesn’t even have to be smiling! An absence of obvious grief is enough!         Thus, you wind up in this place where you have an unsolvable problem: somewhere along the line, either someone failed or someone was wrong, and the story, in being unwilling to confront that disharmony, winds up undermining other established themes and goals. Did the kids “lose” because they failed to meet the criteria for the Perfect Victory? Was the definition of “saving” wrong? Was Gran Torino wrong or was Nana? Was the definition of Perfect Victory wrong? Was Toga correct in her fear that Heroes don’t see Villains as people?         No matter what the answer is, it runs afoul of some previously established Theme in the story. Even if the idea is that the ending is downbeat and bittersweet because the kids failed (and the story is using All Might’s goalpost-moving to resolve the dissonant definitions of “saving” in Gran Torino’s favor), that still means yet another theme is violated: that of BNHA being a story of how Deku+his classmates become “the greatest Heroes.” After all, the story also defined “greatest Heroes” for us! The greatest Heroes are those who can achieve Perfect Victory.

Whatever form this essay winds up taking, these are the sorts of concepts I want to discuss in terms of how the series sets them up compared to how it winds up following them through.

Thanks for the ask!

[spottheantisemitism]

Magneto and Holocaust Inversion (Many Such Cases)

Case #1: He who fights monsters ( UXM #150 I, Magneto - Chris Claremont)

So this was my first X-men comic I got at a con at a discount so THIS was my introduction to Magneto. I love this comic to bits. It's a great scene

While this sudden breakdown is quite good there's the pieta symbolism between two jews and there's the distinct implication of "I'm no better than the Nazis" in his breakdown (you are allowed to fight me on this as not counting as holocaust inversion)

to pivot Magneto this much Claremont pretty much had to do something akin to holocaust inversion because Lee and Kirby wrote him as a fascist coded character and Claremont couldn't not have Jewish (and Romani?*) holocaust survivor who was likely sonderkommando not realize the irony of his actions.

Also we get more Magneto backstory and depth in ONE PAGE than any comic before and most comics since

Case #2: No equals (Magneto Rex episode 3- Joe Pruitt)

Listen the Genosha metaphor was clumsy when Claremont wrote it but the hands of Joe Pruitt, it sounds like a Soviet psyop about the evil colonizer Jews who like apartheid.

While Pietro is one of the few people who get to say the "you're making us look bad" line and it landing in and out of universe the way it's presented is the most simplistic argument possible

The implication of "he's gone full circle and become the oppressor" is clear and this time painfully intentional. The fact that these people are imprisoned for having legacy virus- the x-men equivalent of aids just makes it all worse

Case #3: A mad old terrorist twat (New X-men: Planet X -Grant Morrison)

^ tw for misgendering Grant Morrison who used he/him at the time of publication but use they/them now.

Many people have pointed out that part of what stings when Morrison separates McKellen from the "schizoid-conflicted" Hitler reborn terrorist twat Magneto is the former is a gentile and therefore more deserving of their respect. The implications that Magneto is like that because his ideas are dumb and out-dated mirrors the way antisemites claim that Jews are gentiles over "their made up fairy tales".

I don't think Morrison is so much an antisemite as the kind of fanenby hypocritical chud who loves the silver age (bad era to fandomize and idolize, Grant) exactly as it was. They love when THEY get to make Beast or Ice man gay but hate when a Jewish writer makes a wannabe dictator a Jewish holocaust survivor. We get it Grant, rules for thee but not for Jews. No, no they'll rewrite the character as literally Hitler to show that only Morrison gets to re-write X-men comics, antisemitic implications be damned.

Well you made one thing clear, Grant sweaty, you hate retcons and the art of Jewish writers whose politics and visions you dislike.

screenshot source:

Case #4: when your boyfriend invokes Godwin's law (House of M: Civil war #3)

I feel like Charles only gets away with this because they're such close friends (who canonically share a room) and he's been through a lot in this issue.

To be fair "you twisting semantics won't save people from fanatics who want genocide" is the BEST comeback to holocaust inversion I've seen in an X-men comic

the framing here is both of them are wrong and Magnus (that's one of Magneto's human names) is clearly in the right about this. The humans may think he's Mutant Hitler but that's because they're projecting

(sorry for making you read sideways and making you read something I took a picture of IRL)

Case #5: The oppressed becomes the oppressor (X-men 97 episode 2)

Magneto's speech in X-97 has been said as a watered down version of his speech in Uncanny X-Men 200

What is pointed out many times is the line where he claims "his own people joined the nazis to betray him". Never expanded upon, never brought up again. There are no other Jewish character in 97, no foils. It feels almost gross and tokenistic, like Marvel wanted Magneto be the good token self-hating Jews. Since at that was the only acceptable type of Jew in early 2024.

I do hope to see a course correction seasons 2 and 3 as something as simple as showing a flashback of his past or just showing a character like Kitty would go a long way to dispel the accidental implication that Magneto thinks all other Jews are evil

*While Magneto's children Wanda and Pietro are explicitly Jewish-Romani everywhere BUT the MCU in some universes like House of M, so is he. These intermarriages happened in Weimar Germany all the time so these universes are quite plausible

[themoonstarwarrior]

Bringing this back

(vent under the cut)

(long post warning)

So I'm tired and VERY hormonal, but I need to get these TSAMS feelings out so I'll shove them here and maybe it'll help.

I am so upset and angry with what's happened with this show. Theres been times where I've been overwhelmed by this show, or felt like TSAMS dropped the ball narratively, but I've always gotten through it and came back because of what the show gave me.

But this entire arc has broken something. At first I kept my distance, took a break, watched Dazzle episodes or ones from before the stupid confrontation. And the more episodes in this arc dropped, the less I've been able even watch ANY episodes. I'm starting to realize that this might be the breaking point where I this show isnt worth it anymore, and I leave for good.

And that FUCKING SUCKS!!!!

I've LOVED this show! For two years I've endured the twists and turns, despite how ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE my mental health has been, because this show has been a comfort to me. My hyperfixation blorbos being RPed, playing games and going through shenanigans, portrayed AMAZINGLY and giving me EXACTLY what I want in anything I get into: great characters and familial bonds.

But this arc destroyed the family part. It's taken everything its built in the characters and completely ruined it. And its STILL not over, even though they're treating it like we're in downtime.

I'm angry at the show for all these awful decisions that have made me and EVERYONE ELSE miserable. I HATE what they turned New Moon into. I HATE how Earth, Lunar, Monty have been behaving. I HATE how Old Moon has been shoved in. I HATE how Old Moon is acting, especially when New Moon is brought up. I HATE HOW EVERYONE IS BEING FORCED TO LIVE WITH ALL OF THIS.

And I'm upset! I've lost an important comfort in my life because of poor writing and bad decisions. I'm even loosing the happiness I had in the way the show used to be because ITS SO PAINFUL. I still need that escape, I still love the characters, but I may never get it back now.

And YES, I realize that the creators have a right to make a show however they want regardless of whether people like it. And YES, people should not be so obsessed or dependent on a fictional story that you lash out or attack real people.

But you know what?

ITS BAD WRITING! ITS BAD CHARACTERIZATION! IT MAKES NO SENSE! IT COMPLETELY UNDERMINES EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED BEFORE! AND BECAUSE OF THOSE CHOICES THAT I HAD NO CONTROL OVER, I WILL PROBABLY NEED TO GIVE UP SOMTHING I LOVED! I AM LOOSING SOMETHING THAT HAS LEGIT BUILT ME UP WHEN I NEEDED IT! WHAT I HAD FEELS POISONED, WHAT COULD BE FEELS IMPOSSIBLE, AND I MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO HAVE THIS AGAIN!

And the worst part? I STILL CANT STOP HOLDING OUT THAT THIS WILL ALL BE FIXED.

I keep hoping that at some point, some reveal will happen or the terrible choices will be acknowledged or even this whole thing will be retconned or undone. I feel like I can forgive the show if New Moon gets some justice cuz I want to enjoy this again.

I don't know, I'm mostly rambling at this point and maybe somebody feels the same way and I'm not just in a menstrual-fuelled emotional meltdown. But I have a right to feel how I feel, and what I feel is this:

I'M ANGRY, I'M UPSET, I HATE THIS ARC AND EVERYTHING ITS DONE, AND I WANT MY COMFORT SHOW BACK!

[whirligig-girl]

ST:PRODIGY S2 SPOILERS

WATCH STAR TREK PRODIGY! IT'S REALLY FUCKING GOOD! I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF EPISODE FIVE RIGHT NOW SO DO NOT RESPOND TO ME WITH SPOILERS!

I have to report that I am going to have some interesting work to do squaring my version of Mellanoid Slime Worms from the past year and a half--Eaurp Guz et al--with the depiction of Murf in Prodigy S2.

Spoilers for S2E5 and maybe earlier below the cut.

So. Murf is an aquatic, and that was preventing him from being understood. Rok'tahk says we don't know much about his species--but that's silly, they could have just asked me! I'd have told you alllll about their railways and spaceships and maybe a little bit about the less important stuff like their history, planet, culture, and biology. :P

Murf can slightly shapeshift at a whim (using extra arms to grab a bunch of weapons) but clearly reverts to one of a few natural forms--a bipedal and an aquatic form. This isn't much different to Guz!

I had assumed that Murf couldn't speak because he was a baby being raised with a universal translator, so his speech pathways didn't develop correctly. The failure of the universal translator Jankom modified is exactly what I would have expected for someone with that condition. In fact that might still be the case--the message they eventually did get out of him was jumbled and in the wrong order--but the main problem was that he needed to be underwater to be understood. Clearly this isn't an issue for Guz. What's interesting is that Murf's aquatic advantage seems to be biologically inherent--he was raised in an air atmosphere. But, perhaps Guz and all other terrestrial mellanoids had to be taught special techniques to speak in air.

Murf wouldn't even necessarily be the first time a terrestrial-raised mellanoid found out she was much happier as an aquatic. My friend Ray's mellanoid OC, Utut Arobi, realized she was much happier as a mermaid (and part-time cetacean), despite spending all of her life up until that point on land.

Murf is also developing like, blobby organs that I'm pretty sure weren't in his bipedal model last season (but i could be wrong). This is something that Guz has too, but I've always imagined their refractive index is so similar to the rest of their goo that it's invisible. Still, I could probably start drawing Guz and other mellanoids that way for parity.

Before I was willing to chalk the differences up to Prodigy being a cartoon and already kinda making some weird decisions regarding existing canon, but everything seems well thought out enough at this point that I'm not necessarily comfortable throwing much away.

It's really cool though because there are actually some interesting parallels between my Mellanoids and Prodigy's, and it's really great to see a Mellanoid animated and doing stuff that's a lot like some of the stuff Guz does. But it's also frustrating because it's definitely contradicting my stuff.

So I have more or less four options, and as I watch, I'll be weighing the pro's and con's.

Guzcomic and all works with Guz, Slamtha, and my other slimeworm characters, are all in an alternate timeline where Mellanoids had a different history--even potentially a different evolutionary history as well. That is--ignore Star Trek Prodigy going forward. I don't want to do this because so far Prodigy is some of my favorite Star Trek ever!

Split off all the mellanoid characters into Gymnomi Slimes. I first used this term for the Torchship version of Guz, but I've worked it into Surviving Schwil and I think my Mellanoid Slime species sheet. I was worried about this possibility, so I sorta fit that in as an 'out.'

Split the sapient Mellanoids into different species. Maybe make the terrestrials and aquatics different species? Alternatively, maybe every goo gunk critter that the Zaldans encountered were called Mellanoid Slime--or maybe Mellanoid Slime as a name for the Guz's species comes from Zaldans hearing about Murf's species.

Make substantial retcons to all of the lore I've posted so far. The way things are heading, that might involve undoing all the rocket science and train stuff I've been doing.

That last one could be more fun, but would make my worldbuilding messy!

To be honest, even though I really liked Prodigy S1, when I decided Guz would be a mellanoid slime worm, it was sort of meant to be a minor name reference to a fairly minor slapstick character. Murf getting development in S2 didn't occur to me until after Guz became like, a part of my identity as a person. my main blorbo. It might've saved me a lot of trouble if I'd come up with an original species name originally. We'll see what happens!

Having now finished S2E5 since writing most of the above post, so far I think it's all very salvageable! But it all depends on how much more they go into Murf's biology. The show doesn't seem to be going in a direction that will be exploring Murf's actual homeworld, at least not yet.

I may be willing to just ignore Rok'tahk's "we don't know much about his species." Maybe she just meant she specifically didn't? (unlikely, she loves Murf and tried for a long time to communicate.) So far the biggest downright inconsistency with my established mellanoid slime lore is that Rok'tahk considers Murf's species uncommon and mysterious, whereas Guz hails from a *backwater*, but still a backwater with Federation membership. In my timeline, Rok'takh probably could have spoken to other mellanoids about Murf and his condition, either through subspace or maybe even talking in person to one of the small handful of mellanoid cadets in San Francisco that would've been in the academy in 2385/6.

Then again, even if she did talk to other mellanoids, even a mellanoid doctor, they probably wouldn't have had a clue what to do about it, since mellanoids didn't even have universal translators until a few years ago and they're not very common. A mellanoid slime worm larva on mellanus has probably never been exposed to an automatic U.T.

Then again, Rok'tahk's line is clearly meant to be interpreted as "we[the federation] doesn't know much..." which would be a substantial difference from my lore.

EDIT: one thing i notice--which hasn't come up much and i was toying with the idea anyway--is that Zero can't read Murf's mind. IIRC Ferengi were also hard to read because of their unique neurological structure, and mellanoid slimes definitely have a unique neurological structure. Then again, Counselor Troi is supposed to be able to read completely alien beings that have nothing in common with humanoids. Either way my Mellanoids are not psychic voids like Data is--but they're not necessarily easy to read.

[s-wave-entertainment]

⚠️ SPOILERS FOR MURDER DRONES EP. 8 INBOUND ⚠️

Okay so I was locked out of my account until like a while ago ago and I haven't posted any of my thoughts on ep. 8. Let me be abundantly clear: I liked this episode. I liked it a lot. I was prepared to watch the entire cast die in terrible ways, for no one to make it out and to watch that screen go black with only a monotonous giggle to spare as we watched the universe as we know it return to square one. Yes, most of the cast still died horribly, but at least it wasn't permanent (unless you're Doll - I'm so sorry queen I love you I miss you). That said, there are aspects OF the episode that left me... desiring more. I hesitate to say disappointed, as Liam seems to have told the story he wanted to tell and for that I am proud of him, but... I have thoughts, as most of us do.

Let me start with some positives - what I liked and why I liked it.

Pros:

- Nori and Uzi did finally get to have that talk. Now I'll go more into this later, as I do wish there could have been more, but for the most part, I'm happy it happened at all.

- SPACESHIP PILOT. And not just because it was cute and adorable and oh my God I love him, but because it was a callback to a detail in the SECOND EPISODE that was not left behind. Liam set that up all that time back, and it was so very satisfying to see it become relevant. Gold star, Mr. Vickers! :D

- NUZI canon. Do I even have to elaborate? (Your honor, these stupid robots mean EVERYTHING TO ME-)

- V's return. HOLD YOUR FIRE, HOLD YOUR FIRE; LISTEN. I know what I said - I know I said I hoped her sacrifice was permanent. For a little while, I really did. I genuinely saw it as a fitting end to her character; to say the things she could never quite get out in words in one deafeningly loud action. And I still would have, if it remained permanent. But you know what else I see as extremely accurate and fitting to her character? Being able to make a plan in a desperate situation, but not having the certainty to know if it will work. Then, having the heart to send everyone else to what she genuinely thought was some kind of safety in the case that whatever plan she had made fell through. It wasn't that Liam wanted to retcon that part of her character - he was trying to elaborate on it. The point of it was, V loved N. And she was starting to love Uzi - even if she'd never say it. And she was still willing to do anything to keep them safe, even if it POTENTIALLY meant sacrificing herself. That part didn't change.

- I'm jumping ahead a little here, but it was too perfect of a segway into my next point - V's confession. I knew, I KNEW this girly was just scared of what could happen to them. I didn't understand her until ep. 6, but once I did, it clicked immediately. I'm sure we all realized that V knew more than she was letting on, but I knew that there was more to it. I knew she knew there would be consequences if N ever found out, I KNEW it. To hear her finally confess all of that... it's gratifying.

- The Entire Hallway Callback Ping Scene. The whole fucking thing. I sometimes pull up the episode JUST to see that scene. I can't exactly put into words WHAT IT IS I like about it, but I just. What I can say is (and this is gonna feel really weird to say) that I love how we get to see that Uzi's actions in ep. 5 aren't just a convenient plot thing - he is actively uncovering memories. Now in the hallway scene they were uncovered in a Very Inconvenient Way, but I love to see that this is canonically a thing that is happening and will likely continue to happen. It leaves a lot to the imagination (post-canon wise) and I respect it. And just, to see Uzi going for him as they both sat there in their own personal hells - I've said it before that they need each other, and I FUCKING MEANT IT. And if anyone attempts to say codependent because I've heard that before - it's not that, it's just that they're actually??? There??? For each other??? Like y'all, Uzi had NO ONE (except for maybe Thad, maybe) before she had N. Was it self inflicted? Yes and no - we can very clearly see that Uzi WANTED to talk to people, she WANTED to Not Be Alone, but it just,,, it didn't work because of who she was. And she kinda learned that "Well if people don't want me, then fine - I'll go it alone." and then built up those walls she had for so very long. And N???? Do I even need to say anything here???? J hated his ass for undisclosed reasons (I'll get to that later) and V Literally Couldn't Get Close To Him or she risked him getting changed - or worse. They were both alone until they weren't anymore, and they learned that despite prior hardships, at least this person is safe.

I think as far as SPECIFIC SCENES/INSTANCES go, that's it. But let me say, I also loved the comedy of this episode. I've heard some people say it was majorly overdone and some of the lighter scenes should have been left out (for at least one of them I agree but I'll get to that in cons), but I also maintain that if the comedy was removed from this episode it would have been. Well, it would have been /not/ Murder Drones. Liam had always made his eldrige horrors with jokes. Look at Internecion Cube, look at CliffSide - it's everywhere. It's Liam's style, and quite frankly, I'm thankful for it - without said style things likely could have been very, /very/ dark. I understand that's what some people wanted, but like,,, the show itself is already EXTREMELY dark, if you think about it. The comedy just helps it to feel digestible - and again, quite frankly, I'm thankful.

Alright, alright, here we go:

CONS:

- Nori and Uzi had a talk, for that I am incredibly grateful. But you know who else should have gotten a talk? Khan and Nori. And hang on, I'm not just bitching here - Khan has been very plain and straightforward about his distaste for Disassembly Drones/The Absolute Solver (even though he didn't know it by name) for what they did to Nori since literally episode 1. To pass off their reunion as a spoof was... disappointing. Now I won't say /much/, how they both reacted seems incredibly valid for their character, but like... I'm also pretty damn sure that Khan would have remembered Nori's voice? Like yeah he thought about it for a minute but like... I dunno. I can't speak much on his character anyway since we didn't get to see a lot of it. I have my opinions on Khan (and they have shifted since my last post about him, if slightly), but I still think he deserved to have that catch-up with his wife and I will be rectifying this "error" in fanfiction.

- J. And I don't mean her character (which I'm a little pissed at but I'll talk about that some other time), I mean a little something more. One has to make /a lot/ of assumptions about J to assume you have her character correct, and I'm sad for that. Have I made the assumptions, yes, and even with those in place, I'm still,,, perturbed for her. We got a little glimpse of who she is while she fought with V, but like... there could have been so much more there, and I wish there was.

- I'm not gonna say too much about open plot holes - we ALL KNOW there are plot holes. For example, HOW IN THE FUCK DID THEY PIECE THE PLANET BACK TOGETHER AFTER IT LITERALLY EXPLODED. There are also people who are still irked about the whole "consume oil to prevent overheating" thing, which I get, but like he DID say himself that he had largely dropped that in terms of plot importance. I choose to believe it's still very much a thing (I think the images in the credits prove that as often when N and Uzi are there together like in the movie watching scene or the card game scene there is a deceased worker nearby), but still. Yk.

- N and Uzi never "talked later." I want that goddammit and I'm going to write a fanfic about it later, don't you worry.

- J and V's whole thing. I really, REALLY wish more had been said about that - but alas, it was not. It looks to me like V and J knew about it together. J doesn't give a damn about N (never has, canonically anyway) and V was keeping it from him to protect him, but if they knew what was going on, I wish that would have been more apparent earlier in the series. However, I can understand why it wasn't - J was absent in the series from ep. 2- the end of ep. 5, and when she did have shared screen time with V in the pilot the show had a very different direction. So I'm not MAD about this lack of elaboration (and quote frankly it has fueled a whole fuckton of headcanons for me), but still - I wish we saw more.

I think that's it as far as specifics go. Let me address the elephant in the room - "Myrah, you're not mad about the way they defeated the Solver via a gag/the power of friendship?" And quite frankly, the answer is no. Why? Well I'll yell ya:

1) We already knew that the only way to permakill a drone (or otherwise any creature) affiliated with the Solver is to destroy it's heart. Leaving them exposed to heat will make them sluggish (so long as it's not accompanied by UV rays), and destroying them any other way results in that black hole [NULL] that we're familiar with via episode 2. Uzi destroyed the heart WITH UV rays (just like Nori told her to), and then when the [NULL] appeared, "Cyn" struggled with her and kept trying to pull her hand towards her mouth. There's a shot that shows us Uzi's visor shortly after "Cyn" pulls her hand in which her expression turns from fear to realization as it hits her that "Cyn" is trying to EAT the [NULL]. Figuring there must be a reason for this, she does it herself - which does the job. With major consequences (I'll get into that post credits scene in a minute), but regardless, "Cyn" is defeated.

2) Hey yeah remember how Doll insisted on doing everything alone and she was the one dead? I'm pretty sure this was Liam literally showing us that you cannot defeat the Solver on your own. That's like the main difference between Doll and Uzi anyway - one insisted on doing it herself (with good reason, I'm not judging Doll for trying to fix things alone) and the other allowed people to help her. People that, by the way, were also heavily affiliated with the Solver. Basically, it would be different if this ending had occurred with three random Worker Drones rather than three drones who are tied to the Solver - because it went the way it did, the Solver was essentially defeated by its own creations who were tired of its bullshit and now knew the full extent of what it had done and what it had forced them to do, which I find Fucking Awesome (also I just love the Dapper Trio, sue me).

Emotional connections and emotions in general are so important in terms of overcoming the effect the Solver has on a drone's consciousness/body. This isn't news because we SAW IT, PLAIN AND SIMPLE, in both episodes 4 AND 5. Of course I'm not upset they used preestablished rules to end the series - quite frankly, I would have been mad if they pulled out some magical mystery cure "here's the solution to the exact thing you're supposed to do" bullshit.

In short, no, I'm not upset with the finale of Murder Drones. I really loved the episode, despite its flaws and shortcomings. And if you disagree, well then how about you bite me.

[all-the-fun-of-the-cirkus]

so now i've seen both episodes, i have some Thoughts. suffice to say i enjoyed both, with reservations

the virgin chris "make it like prestige telly" chibnall vs the chad russell t "knock off baby geniuses for the worldwide premiere" davies

in continuing the "yes, and" approach of the specials, i appreciate how hard rtd's gunning in on chibnall's retcon as the main throughline of the series, but honestly the weird thing is that both these episodes feel fully like pastiches of moffat. it has the fairytale vibe of series 5, and 15/ruby's chemistry reminds me of the giddy enthusiasm of early 11/amy (that probably comes as much from gibson though). plus, stuff like the pronoun correcting abbot and costello routine from the start of devil's chord is fully moffat dialogue

side note, that routine was both hilarious and far less cringy than the beep the meep pronoun scene. so there's your head pat of the day rtd

given how little the previous era seemed to really about anything, except in a sort of shrugging "what can you do" sense, i appreciate how very hard rtd is making this pointed. the swipes at pro-lifers and anti-refugeeism are welcome, if a little throwaway, but he's still trying to do interesting things, like the whole "power of music" stuff, his constant pushing of queer stuff (apparently everyone ruby knows is gay lmao), constantly in dialogue with itself and the earlier eras... it doesn't all come off (largely bc of the pacing, which i'll get to) but i like it

the pivot to fantasy is bringing an increased interest in abstraction and non-realism (see maestro taking the two aside for a chat in a soundstage, the constant fourth wall breaks) which is exactly my shit

while rtd's bringing plenty of new stuff to the table, murray gold is hurtling towards self-parody at an alarming rate. the music is so fucking loud and obvious, it's actively annoying me at this rate, although it was less noticeable in episode 2

fred the dog is his best composition though

they were both good episodes, but they felt like they were missing something. i think part of it is that is that the pacing is just... weird. the episodes grind to a halt for a continuity revision session that i can only assume is for americans who never bothered with it before and can't be bothered to wait for gradual lore reveals. i mean, c'mon, we mention susan in the second episode! it took until series 7b of the reboot to even acknowledge her existence! and the rest of the time it's going at breakneck pace, such that i can barely keep up with it. all the episodes of this era feel... compressed, like they've had to trim bits off the complete ep, so emotional beats in particular feel accelerated in a slightly surreal way. idk. about half of this era has felt weirdly hollow for me so far

gatwa and gibson have insane chemistry. like holy shit they bounce off each other amazingly, they're an absolute joy to watch. i don't mean to rag on chibnall, but fucking hell it's so nice to have a tardis team that actually like each other

one musical number at the end was cute, two was pushing it. either the twist or the zebra crossing scene should've gone

i'm very much interested to see how moffat writes an episode in a series so deferential to his run

[hertwood]

dts s4 e1-3

e1: -OK this was my first dts epsiode EVER it is so special and nostalgic 2 me its the start of EVERYTHING i do not accept s4 slander in this house!!!!!! -daniel is SO optimistic abt mclaren thats so sad 😭😭😭😭 -i think as a first episode for me this was GREAT for setting the scene. this is the first time in the entire series where they have a dedicated segment to the team principals and their rivalries and i think that is so so so important to be able to look at it through that lense moving forward -"[bottas] was moaning and bitching like you wouldn't believe" ok whatever u say moaning and bitching multi-world champion christian horner -"toto inhereted something already well oiled" wasn't brawn/mercedes struggling till he came along or am i wrong. like he joined and a year later they won their first championship. like am i missing something -"darling, i'm not riding bottas" is such an underrated iconic dts quote -i wish i was fuckin there to see nikita crash in his first fucking lap. iconic -love it when commentators say "oh thats a reaaaally interesting strategy call" its clearly code for what the fuck are they doing -i'm so jealous of yall who got to watch this race season live this opening round is SUCH a narratively beautiful start of the season and dts captures it well!!

e2: -i've started watching this while manicly cleaning my apartment so i have nothing to say abt the beginning bit soz -max f cameo!!! v important 2 me :) -michael & daniel are so kaylor coded to me. i know some ppl are like "oh they were never friends they were just coworkers" and i'm like CLEARLY thats full of shit just bc they've fallen out doesnt mean you need to retcon the friendship they had. its sad to see when it was good bc clearly there were good parts. if only we could know -this is the danny ric girlie orgin story 2 ME LETS FUCK SHIT UP -this is such an iconic lando episode 2 me as well! "1 nill down already fuck shit fuck" thats MY baby nothing has changed clearly -"the fireworks for me?" "they can be" 🥺🥺🥺🥺 -"what if i'm just a cunt" is such an important daniel quote to me it is actually deep LISTEN. why must we be expected to be calm n collected n positive in the face of adversity. why must we put on a brave face. our negative emotions deserve to exist without defining us. ANYWAY -i never even remember what exactly happens each monaco weekend i just know that ferraris gonna shit the bed somehow -OH this episode was the FIRST time i opened ao3 carlando interact for like 10 seconds at the end of the episode and i was immediately oh theres DEFINITELY fic of them fucking. in abundance. i just know it

e3: -having season 4 be the first season i watched just permanently altered my brain chemistry the 4433 brainrot is REAL they get near eachother on track i go NUTS they are everything to me. you'd ship them too if you werent a coward -LOVE every single segment with susie. she is so wise i could listen to her narrate the whole f1 season all day -pierre still doing red bull's dirty work i see OH MY GOD HES NEVER GONNA PICK YOU -ROSCOE -unfortunately i am still and will always be a mercedes girl in my SOUL. my bad -i think lewis is taking the piss when he talks abt not being an aggressive driver. is he the /most/ aggressive driver? no. but christian is unfortunately right. also reminds me of how in the 07-08 season there was a race where he got a huge penalty bc he was "too aggressive" and there was all sorts of talk abt how he was too aggressive of a driver 🙄🙄 anyway 4433 cinematic parallels -the way ppl STILL bring this crash up gets me mad like i promise no one was trying to have a nasty crash on purpose--they just happen sometimes. no one should fault lewis for celebrating either--it was his home race and he could've easily not know and you think max would want his apologies and platitudes? NO. also currently they're both clearly not hung up on it so idk why (mostly max fans) (only some obviously) are still hung up on it. "lewis could've killed max" and max could've killed lewis in monza in that case they're fucking even let it fucking go -but there is no way that boy wasnt CONCUSSED as FUCK you can just tell with that 1000 yard stare they shouldn't have let him drive again so quickly tbh -however i DO agree w toto saying max gets away w/ driving aggressively bc most ppl will bail out and i do think that is somewhat true. not to say max is the only driver with this mindset but i do think theres some truth to that -aldskjfalksjfalksdjf im looking up articles abt the incident and this reddit thread said that alex thought the penalty was fair i am KISSING HIM on the mouth

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

*Throws a smoke grenade on the ground and rolls into place as the air clears*

(Okay, I'm prefacing this by saying this is Comic Only Canon stuff. I've watched exactly three episodes of Young Justice. Some things have also been retconned.)

Roy Harper has gone by several hero names. He started as Speedy, the sidekick and ward to Green Arrow. From there, he became Arsenal and Red Arrow.

Roy was the orphan of a parks services employee who was killed in a fire when he was a toddler. He was raised by a Navajo tribal elder called Brave Bow, who taught him archery. Roy's Navajo roots are very important to him- he prays in Diné bizaad(which was his first language), raised his daughter to have a connection with that part of their heritage, and spends time on his home reservation a lot.

When he was sixteen or seventeen, Oliver just kind of... Fucked off with Hal Jordan to see America. While he was gone, Roy couldn't really handle being on his own (I'm not gonna get into opinions on Oliver Queen here, because it's a really divided camp) for so long and started using drugs as a way to cope. He eventually started using heroin. When Ollie found out, he kicked him out. For a time, Roy was homeless. He's relapsed a few times, but has been sober for a while now.

While his friends from the Titans like Dick and Wally were going off to college, Roy started to work as an undercover agent for Checkmate, as well as a sharp shooter. During on of his missions he met Jade Nguyen, aka Cheshire. They slept together and she conceived Lian. Roy didn't know about this until Lian was already a few months old. He fought for, and won custody of her. But he makes sure to keep Jade as a part of her life, bringing her to see her in prison regularly.

Lian was killed in an attack on Star City. In the Convergence event, a time traveller 'rescued' her the morning of the attack to bring her forward in time, to manipulate Roy into killing his friends. He didn't, but saved Lian anyway. So it is canon that on New Earth at least, Roy and Lian are alive and well, picking up right where they left off. On Prime Earth, Lian wasn't killed but thrown around in time. She's now a young teenager instead of a five year old, but she's back with Roy.

After one of his relapses, Roy decided he should check into a rehab facility called Sanctuary, where he was killed. He was resurrected during a multiversal reboot.

Some Roy Trivia Tidbits:

He is Jason Todd's best friend.

The two of them ran a Heroes For Hire business with the contact number RED-ARSE

He and Jason shared (or possibly still do share) a bank account

He led one of the Teen Titans teams

Bart Allen calls him Dad sometimes

He used to be a drummer in a band called Great Frog

He's a horny slut and proud of it

He is very open and affectionate with his friends. He frequently tells them he loves them, and isn't shy about hugs

When he lived in New York with the Outsiders, his nannies for Lian were men

He will stand up to Batman about how he treats his kids

Waylon Jones (Killer Croc) is his rehab sponsor, and considers Roy the 'Only good thing he's done in his life'

He is an Omega. (*squints down at the smudged writing on my hand*) Oh! He's an Omega Lantern. He's also a Black Lantern.

Seriously, he's an Arrow and a Lantern two times over. He's Batman's worst nightmare for a son in law...

The characters he's paired with most regularly:

Jason Todd ("That's my Jaybird.")

Kori Anders ("Best. Girlfriend. Ever.")

Jason Todd and Kori Anders ("We're supposed to be together, dammit. That's the only destiny that matters to me.")

Dick Grayson ("I always thought you boys would make a swell couple. In an erotic Butch and Sundance kind of way...")

Wally West ("You're looking at me kinda weird." "It must be love.")

Donna Troy ("There you are, my handsome little Artemis.")

Grace Choi ("You've gotta stop carrying me around." "You love it.")

Someone give me a crash course in Roy Harper!! I want to add him to Hyena and Hood but I know nothing about him ;o; His name is Arsenal right? Is he Lian's father or is that the clone? The clone's name is... Will?

[extasiswings]

What are your thoughts on this episode's 180 with Taylor? The show went from emphasizing the distance between her and Buck to having her be the character he was closest to for most of the episode. It's odd, especially since it felt like they were headed squarely into 'Taylor prioritizes work over Buck' and then this episode completely flipped that on its head.

I think I have to watch the episode again to sit with it some more because even though I was using the official Fox TV livestream it was still freezing and skipping all over the place. But I've been sitting with exactly that (the Taylor and B/T of it all) trying to work through it and...I don't know.

What I think is that there's something to the title/theme of Peer Pressure at play. Because yeah, we've been shown time and time again over the years, including this season, that Taylor is not a warm fuzzy super invested in her love life/here to uplift you emotionally and care about all your insecurities and fears type of person. And that's fine! So it very well could be that the "peer pressure" acting on her/their relationship is that she's seeing that, look, her boyfriend's sister just left, he's having a really rough time of it, maybe she needs to try on the "I Am Your Emotionally Available Girlfriend And You Are My Priority" skin. And it doesn't fit very well, which would explain why, to me at least, those scenes read as a little off. It gave me very "Eddie with Ana" vibes in terms of "I am projecting this image of what I think I should be doing" and just like with that I think where the writers have always come down in the long run is to basically showcase that if you're not being yourself/if you're trying to force yourself into a role that isn't right for you to please someone else, that's not sustainable and will ultimately cause problems.

It also could be interesting in another way which is to explore, again paralleling Eddie and Ana in a sense, Buck's issues with staying in/clinging to relationships that aren't truly fulfilling him. Because he knows that something is off, but if they have these occasional moments, those are things he can point to in his own denial to say "no, but this is fine, this is working after all, it's not a problem" because sometimes he's a priority, sometimes she's around, sometimes he's able to get what he needs out of this relationship. And part of his journey, in my opinion, is that he needs to accept that he deserves more than sometimes. (Which, let me be clear, is not me casting aspersions on Taylor or saying she's a bad girlfriend, I just don't think her needs and goals and Buck's needs and goals are compatible in the long run).

That said, this writer felt the need to have Maddie's voicemail refer to her as Maddie Kendall for some unknown godforsaken reason so maybe it was a failure of understanding the characters or really was all an attempt to retcon the very clear "Relationship Problems" signs from the other episodes (or at least hit the brakes). We'll have to see what's next to know. (Although, I remain a 5x6 "ethical conflict" truther, especially after seeing Taylor reporting on the man buried alive in the promo).

[flower-boi16]

My opinion on Stolas might be a bit different from most people who openly voiced their hatred towards him.

Honestly I wouldn't say he's evil, but I also won't say he's a saint either. The guy just honestly needs a bit of a wake up call that yeah, he kind of was looking down on Blitz by calling him his little imp plaything and what happened in Ozzie's. To truly think about how the way he treated him and being called those things would lead Blitz to thinking that he doesn't love him.

And to be blunt... it seems more like he in love with falling in love. Let me in explain. The guy was trapped in an unhappy marriage where the only light in it was his daughter, so of course he might wanna look for an escape of sorts. Something akin to a knight in shining armor saving a princess from an evil witch, taking her on his steed and living happily ever after.

But the problem here that in pursuit of that fantasy, he's also neglecting Octavia. So what I'm hoping for is for the call out to come from her and that would be the breaking point for Stolas, that he really wasn't the innocent party in this as he thought to be and take the steps to truly improve and find a way to make it up to Blitz.

The thing is, that is exactly what Season 1 was trying to do. Season 1 Stolas was a man who made many mistakes that ended up hurting others, he was consumed by his own lustful desires and in the process he hurt the ones he cared about.

Part of what makes Loo Loo Land such a fantastic episode is that Stolas goes through some level of character development in that episode; he realizes that he made a mistake that hurt his daughter and, he decides to fix it by taking her to a place that she likes, even if he probably doesn't care for it.

It shows that he has more dimension beyond being a horny twink. Season 1 knew that Stolas wasn't a great person but it still gave him redeeming qualities to make him at least reedamable. I don't Season 2 Stolas (as a person) is irredeemable, but Season 2 really took everything that made Stolas interesting and threw it out the window.

The fundemental problem with how Season 2 is handling Stolas is the season's insistance of painting him as the vitcim in every situation he's in; I've said this many times before but it bares repeating; anyone who was hurt by Stolas' past actions is demonized by the narrative. Stella is turned into a one-dimensional bitch so Stolas cheating on her could make him look sympathetic. Octavia is told to cut her father some slack because he's "trying his best" even when the series shows us the exact opposite. And Blitz is told that he just hates Stolas for being a prince and is frammed as jaded and biased by the narrative even when he has no reason to think Stolas loves him given everything Stolas did to him in Season 1.

Every problem Stolas has as a character began in The Circus, where it decides to add in that "Stolas just wanted genuine affection and thought he had that with Blitz" thing, which came out of nowhere and directly contradicts what Season 1 first established, it's such a weird change in his character and feels completely different to what Season 1 gave us. It's a retcon because it doesn't line up with what was set up in the first season.

And this, in a vaccume, isn't even a terrible idea for a character, it could be interesting on it's own, but it contridicts what was previously established and turns Stolas into an UwU soft sad boy.

I don't really think that they are going to call Stolas out, at all. From what I've heard there are leaks that say that Octavia was tricked by Andre and Stella into hating Stolas, so he is now being frammed as a victim again.

Stolas had the groundwork for being the best character in the show but bad writting turned him into the worst. And at this point I don't think there's any fixing him at this point, it'll just come across and as too little too late.

[helenasandsmark]

Hi Skid! You know Kon far better than I do, so...

I've seen way too many people shitting on Clark for being a bad dad, but... I'm not sure that's exactly how things went down outside of the Young Justice cartoon?

Yeah, yeah, they never consider each other father and son in the comics, but I guess I just wished to know what do you think about how their relationship developed compared to the cartoon?

I'm just tired of seeing it

I’ll be honest… it’s been a while since i’ve read any Kon stuff :( BUT that being said I do know a bit about his original relationship with Clark outside of the comics so don’t run away yet (it’s crazy to think about how young justice was also my first introduction to him and I absolutely hated him until i got into the comics)

Originally Kon was just one of those metahuman clones made by Cadmus and he was created using only human DNA that was altered to be similar to Superman‘s. But then there was the whole DC retcon thing in like 2003 i think where he was made like a hybrid clone using human DNA (Lex’s) and kryptonian (obviously, Clark’s) and i rly dont know much abt their relationship after that.

So at first yeah it was never really a father-son or even a brotherly relationship between Clark and Kon, Kon was just sort of this weird freaky lab thing to Clark that he didn’t really like and didn’t know how to act around. I think he was kind of mad about them creating Kon and like the purpose they created him for (which like fair enough) but I wouldn’t say he was mad at Kon directly but he was upset more at his existence. And ya know it was to the point where Clark didn’t really acknowledge him and I mean like Kon at this point didn’t even have a name; he was still going by Superboy and didn’t have a civilian identity so the relationship there was definitely rocky I would say.

Clark definitely came to respect Kon more after working with him a bit on missions and such and eventually he gave Kon the kryptonian name of Kon-El, and again I wouldn’t necessarily say that at this point it was a father–son relationship either, but more like a cousin kind of relationship. Like “you’re part of my family even if we aren’t directly related or anything” ya know? And eventually Kon does go to live on the Kent Farm with Clark’s parents so their relationship definitely improved but I honestly still don’t know if in the comics I would say it was as brotherly of relationship as the cartoon made it out to be but that might just be how I interpreted it?

My opinion though of how their relationship developed in the comics compared to the cartoon is I kind of like a little bit of them both. Like I didn’t enjoy how he was written in the cartoon obviously, but I do like the idea of them being more like brothers than they were in the comics especially bc Kon was living with the Kents. We didn’t get really anything development wise of their relationship between the five-year gap of season one and season two so it feels a little forced or like fakey ya know (i do know there is comics based on the cartoon and some of them take place during the five-year gap but I don’t really care for those and I don’t plan on reading them either lol).

The development of their relationship in the comics feels a little more well written to me in the sense that it’s more realistic of Clark to see Kon as family, yes, but as a cousin, ya know like just someone who is part of your family and you can come to care for them, but they’re not your son or your brother and you don’t hold any huge responsibility to them (that’s like a whole other thing I feel like I could talk about). we do also have to cut the cartoon some slack and factor in that comics in general have a lot more time and space to establish a relationship and it’s definitely probably easier than trying to cram it into 20 minute episodes

In both the comics and the cartoon though I think Clark sort of you know rejecting Kon at first is kinda essential to Kon’s development as a hero and individual and to showing that Clark isn’t flawless and he makes mistakes (another thing I could complain about for a bit)  but really because I haven’t read the comics that were based on the cartoon—which has what seems like a lot of developmental stories to the cartoon universe—I don’t know if I could fully judge or compare the original comic’s relationship to the cartoon’s relationship lmao

I definitely though don’t like the idea of Clark being Kon’s father. I know, I know, a lot of people favor a father-son relationship for them, but I think Clark being a father figure to Kon feels very very fanon-y, which by no means is me saying that fanon is bad or anything, but I think it’s playing a lot on the 2003 retcon that made Kon a hybrid clone of Clark. The retcon itself I feel like also kind of pushed an agenda of Clark being more of a father to Kon then he was pre-retcon so i dont really blame people for seeing it that way either. But essentially I think how some people talk about Clark and blame him entirely for not “being there“ for Kon is pretty dumb and the cartoon fueled and promoted that idea a lot i think. Yes Clark treated Kon unfairly in both the comics and cartoon at first, but it’s unfair of people to shit on Clark for that when he does change how he sees Kon, and even comes to care for him (maybe more so in the cartoon than the comics but either way)

Shit, well, I really definitely did not mean to write this much but once I started going I just couldn’t stop BALDLSLJD rip to u if u were looking for a quick answer, and please please ignore how bad the punctuation is, I voice typed a lot of this

[sparklinpixiedust]

Basic Training

This post has been sitting in my drafts for months now, during which I've come up with a few ways I wanted to write this post. This is what I've come up with.

Basic Training is the episode which made me hate Ben the most. The whole episode consisted him of being a stuck up brat only to be rewarded for it in the end.

This episode was the perfect opportunity to have Kevin in the spotlight and show how skilled and smart he is.

Gwen's presence in this episode was actually fine, there's no change needed for that.

Look, I know the shows named Ben 10 but we have seen Ben be the hero tons of times already.

And Ben being egoistic about his heroism is not something new in the franchise.

There have been episodes on the OS where Ben got a big head, yet I dont ever see anyone complaining about that.

Was is it because he was 10 that we excuse this behaviour? Nope.

15 - 16 is still pretty young and his attitude can be excused at this age as well.

My opinion? It was handled better in the OS.

There were times when Ben wasn't always the main focus.

In Lucky Girl, Ben has his ' who's your hero?' Moment.

They showed Gwen feeling jealous and hurt by the fact she wasn't noticed much.

It was realistic.

Then the epsiode proceeded to focus on Gwen , having Ben being kind of like a sub plot to the story.

Towards the end Ben compliments her.

So yeah Ben got big head, but at the same time they shifted focus so that the audience wouldn't find it annoying.

Gwen was in the spotlight for a bit, giving people a break from Ben.

Secondly  , in Be Afraid Of The Dark, Ben again is shown to be slightly stuck up, but towards the end of that episode he learns and acknowledges Gwen and Grandpa for help and understands his crime fighting is more of a team effort.

In Galactic Enforcers, we are shown there are other heros besides Ben as well.

Ben wasn't the sole focus of that episode. Yes it was about him but also about the Galactic Enforcers.

I don't think he was shown to be over confident here , but it was nice to see some other heros in the scene.

The Ben 10,000 episode focuses on how Ben was too focused on his job and the lesson at that was Ben needed to relax and have them Galactic Enforcers take the lead instead.

Again , his attitude towards everything was brought in focus but towards the end he learnt something.

I recently started watching Generator Rex and I can't help but compare Rex's character to Ben's.

Rex is also proud , rushes into things and considers himself to be a hotshot. But they also show him being down ,having trouble with his nanites and actually voice out his insecurities.

He's still the hero, still has things go his way most times but it's not annoying like Ben.

( I've only seen like 7 episodes so far so I don't know if this going to go down hil or not but so far so good)

The issue with the sequels after the OS was that Ben was the focus a bit too much.

We as the audience were rarely ever given a break from him.

Other than a few conversations here and there about his attitude,  nothing really was done about it.

Gwen should've been appreciated more for saving Kevin and Kevin should've been appreciated for stopping Aggregor.

But they weren't.

If it had been Ben , they would've made sure to show him getting some sort of recognition or trophy.

Back to the Basic Training episode.

We know he's the legendary Ben Tennyson, we know he's a hero. We didn't need another episode on it.

Instead the plot should've focused on Kevin. His skills, his abilities.

Ben would act the same but Magsiter Hulka should've put some sort of cover so Ben couldn't use the omnitrix.

Ben goes on breaking rules,  and having a hard time being a hero without the watch.

Towards the end, it should've been Kevin who cracks the case and saves Hulka. Ben is mad he can't use the omnitrix but instead uses the guns and other weapons he's learnt to use at the academy

He's not amazing at them , but it makes him realise that he is hero , watch or not, something that has been emphasised in the show. Its not impossible for him to function without the watch.

Towards the end, Ben getting a 95 was a stretch. I'm sorry , but the guy wasn't great with using weapons and without the watch I dont think he would've been able to complete that hostage excercise.

I'm thinking more like 89%.

Gwen gets 98, that's fine and Kevin gets a 100.

Hulka comes in and awards the medal (?) to Kevin, suggesting he's becoming more like his father.

( im ignoring the ret con, plus the retcon I'm assuming wasnt thought off at this point by the writers)

Ben is shown to take one of the guns back to earth, because he thinks they're cool and he wants to practice and get better at them.

The whole hostage situation makes him want to get better at making strategies.

Yes he's good at improv, but he needs to learn to properly plan as well.

It doesn't matter if he's never shown to use the gun ever again, and he's back to relying on the omnitrix.

Or maybe some time down the line, he could use the weapon, even if it for a second, to show that he is improving and getting better.

Before you say 'he's already a hero, he doesn't need to learn anything ' sorry but no.

He's 16. He may have saved the world but he still has growing up to do. Different battles are going to arise all the time.

Saying he is perfect at 16 is dumb. Saying he's perfect when he's ben 10k , it'll make some sense. He's been around for a while and is pretty experienced.

The watch is a part of him, but seeing him try to explore other options would've been a fresher idea.

Another scene that made me mad was the court (?) scene in Vreedle, Vreedle.

Ben being a hero shouldn't make him above the law.

Domstol ruling in favor of Ben just because he's the legendry Ben Tennyson was stupid.

After Ben's little monologue , and destroying Domstols desk, the judge should've just informed him that being a hero does not excuse him from following the law.

Kevin could've had his little moment doing some negotiation ( would've been nice to see how he works as con artist) and Ben could've jumped in and helped while making some good points for the argument, showing us he's not stupid.

Then having Domstol rule in their favor would've made sense.

On the way back to earth there could've been a joke about how Ben watches Judge Judy too much which is where he learnt about trials and stuff. Or maybe Gwens dad taught him a thing or two at some point.

All this doesn't mess with Ben's character all that much, he's still the hero of the show, he still has his ego but it makes him more likeable, shifts focus from his attitude, and shows us he's pretty smart and is growing into a good hero.

Ben's not a bad guy. I mean he is the hero of the show. There are tons of scenes which show he's good , like the whole sacrificing thing so the ultimates could live and all.

But little scenes here and there tend to be enough for someone , especially for someone who isn't a super hard-core Ben lover to form negative opinions on him.

Although calling him a psychopath / narc is out of line because I don't find him to be like that. His attitude was magnified by him being in the spotlight too much and writers not having a good balance in writing situations.

Ben being the main character of the show is at risk of becoming hated or less appreciated just because he's the font runner of the show.

Admit it, side characters tend to get more love most times than the main agonist of shows.

I've been watching videos on YouTube on this topic as to why this happens , and what I've come up with is that writers of shows tend to focus too much on main character. Things seem to go their way most times and this tends to get on peoples nerves, consciously or subconsciously because it's not exactly realistic.

Having shows where everything focuses on one person most times tend to backfire.

I don't mind Ben having a big head, I dont mind him making jokes and being so casual.

It's his defense mechanism to protect himself from drowning into the struggles and pressures of being a hero. But always having him be that way isn't good.

The writers should've executed it properly.

( okay this post got really long,  more than I thought it would. If you're read the whole things , congratulations on making it here lol.

I'm not going to stop anyone from replying to this because everyone has different opinions and we all have the freedom to express them.

Although I believe I've made my point and I've made sure to keep in mind all the arguments about why bashing Ben is wrong when he's not a bad guy while typing this out.

I don't think I've directed any major hate towards him , its mostly towards the writers for making the situations like that,but if you think I have you can reply to it.

I'm not gonna reply back though , because again I feel I've made my point.

Any agreements / disagreements you have with the post feel free to share because it is your right.

Any disagreements you have with other members,  as long as its related to the post you can share it.

Any issues you have personally with other members,  please keep them to your selves.

I will not tolerate bullying , harassing,  name calling and petty arguments on my post and blog page.

If this happens I will simply delete this post and re-upload it.)

[iamnmbr3]

And here's the thing about TVA... even if/when they are gonna be revealed as bad guys (in Phase 4 Multiverse of Madness is happening, the timecops have to go down for that), the first impression I've got is that the show presents totalitarian organization in 'funny', zany, catroonized way. I know very little about Rick and Morty, but I've heard their style of jokes can be twisted and weird. And I just think that something working for animation medium is not always good for live action. Add to that Loki's humiliation and declawing made through stupid gags... I'm starting to think Marvel made a mistake hiring those creators just for name recognition...

Yeah! Exactly! We're not supposed to find them scary or take their evil that seriously. Look at all the things they do in Avengers to villain code Loki and to present what he is doing as evil and sinister. And en even better example. Avengers 2011. The bit where Sif & the W3 come and confront Loki once he's on the throne. Loki actually hasn't done anything wrong there but the camera angles and music and character reactions etc. all cue that audience that we're supposed to view this moment as sinister. Same for lots of other villain moments in various MCU films. Even the Grandmaster, who is presented as a more fun and funny villain, is still clearly framed as being evil and in the wrong. We don't get that with the TVA.

They copied the melt stick scene from TR but whereas in TR the joke is that the GM seemed silly but he's actually dangerous, the joke in the Loki Series appears to be that Loki is scared and is making a silly face. We're not really supposed to engage with the TVA being evil because it's all part of the joke. The humor derives from what they are doing to Loki. And we're not supposed to feel bad for him or mad at the TVA. We're just suppose to laugh. Despite the fact that the TVA are the most evil villains ever in the MCU - they commit mass genocide, enslave people, torture people, surveil them without leave, commit acts of police brutality, and WANT TO ELIMINATE FREE WILL. That's very evil. But it's presented as a complete joke. That might be fine in a cartoon parody. But it feels weird here. It also robs the story of any tension.

Now that doesn't mean that the show won't engage at all with the TVA being evil. I sure hope they do! But I don't think it will be handled in the right way. We know the multiverse has to get opened up, so I suspect something along these lines might go down. I think it'll turn out that *gasp* the extremely antisemitic tropes space lizards are evil and Loki will rebel against them and decide to change his own fate because he doesn't want to be a villain anymore and instead wants to try to be better (thus retconning his complex character history and motivations and turning him into a simple villain who now wants a redemption arc) and he will probably team up with Mobius to free the timeline. He may kill his alternate self along the way or possibly they will team up (I hope!).

I don't think Mobius will be characterized as evil for what he did to Loki in this episode. It will be portrayed as tough love. I also don't think the other TVA characters we've met will be portrayed as evil even tho they and Mobius work for an incredibly evil organization. I mean we know the Renslayer actress said this is an origin story for her character so I doubt she's getting killed off, and the head writer seems to love Mobius and think he is a good guy so I doubt he'll die. Instead I think it'll be framed as them and Loki both learning from each other and becoming better. And then Loki probably leaves or maybe heads off with Mobius to deal with some new threat next season.

I don't think Mobius will be characterized as evil for what he did to Loki in this episode. It will be portrayed as tough love. I also don't think the other TVA characters we've met will be portrayed as evil even tho they and Mobius work for an incredibly evil organization. I mean we know the Renslayer actress said this is an origin story for her character so I doubt she's getting killed off, and the head writer seems to love Mobius and think he is a good guy so I doubt he'll die. Instead I think it'll be framed as them and Loki both learning from each other and becoming better. Then Loki will probably leave or maybe head off to confront some new threat with Mobius at his side so they can set up for another season.

They will probably validate the idea that Loki's experience with the TVA was positive and taught him to be a better person. The fact that Mobius's treatment of him was utterly inexcusable will be ignored. The fact that the TVA characters were part of an organization committing acts of genocide and torture and enslavement will be ignored. The framing will be that Loki was a villain up until the TVA experience "taught" him to be better and made him want to rebel against his villainous role. His motivations will be retconned to him just being a bully who feels weak and pathetic and takes it out on others to feel stronger.

I would love to be wrong.