#if I wrote that as my main villain it would be so flat but so fucking realistic

[seaglassdinosaur]

Nuanced well-planned villain writing be damned I’m just gonna start looking up terrible people and making them into characters to be crushed. I cannot come up with anything as convincingly evil as the guy who wanted to destroy a children’s playground to build a parking lot.

[jp---v]

Deku is someone I really used to like but my main problem is that he confirms to a society that would normally expell him.

Horikoshi is someone who can build up a massively flawed hero world but he didn't flesh out these plot points.

Even though Deku has stated that all men aren't born equal he follows regulation that don't help everyone.

His desire to become the Number 1 Hero is a responsibility that Deku would still need to comprehend.

Ever since Deku received a quirk that made him lose his uniqueness. Deku also doesn't seems to be open to reforming his villains.

The spinoff manga vigilantes is actually what Deku's story should have been.

What exactly will changed for quirkless people?

People will see exactly what they want to see, someone with a powerful quirk who worked himself on the top again.

Honestly, Horikoshi just flat out ignored anything related to quirkless discrimination to the point I've actually seen some people claim it got retconned away.

There's so much this series could've been if it weren't for Horikoshi ignoring, forgetting about, or leaving behind entirely.

And Midoriya didn't want to be Number One. He wanted to make people feel safe. He wanted to make people feel hope.

And while he did, for a short time, as a teenager, do that... the ending leaves it all sour.

He did the schooling, he presumably passed the tests. He could've been a quirkless hero without that suit.

Horikoshi wrote a quirkless character that equated quirks with worth. An entire villain faction, the MLA, had the exact same views, but a different outlook on everything else surrounding them.

And none of that was explored. Such a shame.

[the-plot-blog-thing]

For Fun: Here's My Favorite Disney Songs That Were Deleted/Changed In The Final Film (Part 4)

"Someday" was meant to be Esmeralda's song in Hunchback of Notre Dame, but was replaced by "God Help the Outcasts" in the final version. It was sung over the credits, however, and both would be sung in the stage adaptation.

"Shooting Star" was the original "I Want" song from Hercules, but was cut for being "too soft". I could take either or, but "Go the Distance" is still a classic.

"I Can't Believe My Heart" was Meg's original song. It was cut for similar reasons as "Shooting Star". I definitely prefer the version we got.

Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the lyrics for Pocahontas and Hunchback with Alan Menken as well as all the music for Wicked, was originally tapped to write the music for Mulan. He left early in production to work on the music for "The Prince of Egypt" at DreamWorks. "Written In Stone" is the only song of his version available to listen to. It would've been in the spot where "Reflection" exists in the final film.

Speaking of "Reflection", when composers Matthew Wilder and David Zippel joined the film after Schwartz left, they wrote a much longer version of the song. The fact that this version is not in the film is a crime.

"Keep 'Em Guessin'" would've been Mushu's song as he introduces himself to Mulan, but Eddie Murphy's dialogue worked much better, and made things much more succinct. The song is enjoyable imo, tho.

Famously, Disney was working on a film set to release in late 2000 called Kingdom of the Sun. It was a sort of an Incan retelling of The Prince and the Pauper, with some magic and gods thrown in for good measure. It was supposed to be another grand musical on the scale of The Lion King, even sharing its co-director, Roger Allers. To match that scale, they brought in musician Sting to write the songs, thinking he'd bring the same energy that Elton John brought to Lion King's songs. Sting and co-composer David Hartley wrote three songs for this version. The first, "Walk the Llama Llama", would've been the opening song. It was to be sung by the main character, Pacha (here played by Owen Wilson), a teenage llama herder who coincidentally looks exactly like the spoiled teenaged Emperor Manco (played by David Spade). The song is Pacha expressing his love for the llama as he herded them. Pacha's singing voice would've been Sting himself in the final film. There also would've been a reprise halfway through the film and at the end, though nothing from these reprises has appeared online. Unfortunately, the only clean version of the song is this country-fied version by Rascal Flats on the Emperor's New Groove soundtrack.

The second song, "Snuff Out the Light", would have been sung by the villain of the film, Yzma (as played by Eartha Kitt). In this version, Yzma would have been an aging sorceress who hated the sun for causing her wrinkles. She would've discovered that Manco and Pacha swapped, and turned the real Pacha into a non-speaking llama. She would've manipulated Pacha into doing what she wanted. She planned to summon the Dark God, Supai to block out the sun so she wouldn't grow old. This song was fully recorded, and the sequence had quite a bit of animation finished on it before the story changed.

The third song, "One Day She'll Love Me" would have been the love song of the film, and been sung by Pacha and the emperor's betrothed, Nina. Pacha has fallen in love with Nina, but feels guilty for living a lie. Nina is starting to fall in love with him, but still believes he's Manco, and doesn't know why he's changing.

Continued in Part 5!

[runabout-river]

Sorry, but I need to say something I've been thinking about for a while. I found geto's death forcing. 1.he loses to a boy with no experience and the power of ''love''. 2.he was stronger and had more knowledge and experience than the boy yuta. 3. It seems that the author just wanted to get rid of geto so that this annoying villain Kenjaku could come. 4. In my opinion, Geto is the best villain. I don't understand why the author didn't want to continue with him. 5. His death was forced because Saturo already had a change in character and personality. What I'm trying to say is that in the film, Satura is already different, he's no longer that immature young man. 6. the serious work was much more dramatic if geto had survived saturo blow he would have become stronger and returned as a villain again with sukuna. Sorry if it's big, but I have these doubts that such a good and well-constructed character had a horrible ending and very little.

I can agree with much you said here but you have to realize one giant elephant in the room that makes all of this a little meaningless:

JJK 0 came out one year before Jujutsu Kaisen as a 4-chapter short story under the name "Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School" in 2017.

JJK came out one year later because the editors of Shonen Jump liked the concept of this short manga. Everything else in JJK was built on top of the decision to continue the story + change the main character and the two main antagonists.

That's why Yuta and Yuji have so many similarities like being new to jujutsu and having a "demon" inside of them. Megumi's equivalent in concept is Maki, his cousin (with Maki's power transferred to his father), and the reason why Kenjaku is a body hopping villain is because Gege took over the design of Geto while making him another character.

This is the reason why JJK 0 feels like a weird cut and end point for a fantastically written hero-turned-villain.

Geto's concept was:

Villain for a short story

Doesn't have prior connection with the protagonist because Yuta is new to the power system and has his own antagonist (Rika)

Gets a connection with another important character to make him a rounded villain instead of a flat one

That connection is with Gojo

That connection is being former best friends

Gets defeated by the protagonist

Dies at the hand of his former best friend

Everything in Hidden Inventory came after these facts were already established and played out. Gege had already written Geto's end and then he wrote the beginning and from what your thoughts are (though this is different for everyone) Gege didn't manage to quite connect the new beginning to the old end in a way that felt like a believable progression.

But to be fair, I'd rather have Gege break the constraints of a four-chapter long manga with limited time to tell a good story about a villain, than hang on to that and make his current story worse.

I love the way Hidden Inventory was written and Geto is a big part of that. It would've been a shame of Gege curtailed Geto's parts in it to make JJK 0 fit better into the narrative.

[bluecladone]

Ngl if Varric dies in DA:TV it's going to severely impact my enjoyment of the game. I'll still play it, of course. I'm not the type to completely write a game off because of a plot point i don't agree with, to make no mention of the money spent. I'm sure the game is fine as a whole and I want to see Solas's story--and by extension, the DA setting--come to a close. But God, to kill off Varric of all characters...more under the cut.

Like don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of angsty, high stakes, kill-your-darlings type of plots, but it MUST have some kind of point. Killing Varric right at the start doesn't really serve much of a purpose. Like we don't need any motive or other driving force when we've been given plenty enough already a la the events and ending of Inquisition. We're well aware of the stakes. Killing Varric away from the people who loved him best (Hawke and crew, or whoever's left) surrounded by strangers (with the exception of Harding and Solas) would be such a disservice to his character. Add in extra yuck with the way EA/Bioware treated his writer, Mary Kirby. It just feels like an extra 'fuck you.' Besides, using him as such a heavy marketing tool for years only to kill him off is so cheap.

Maybe the writers didn't know what to do with him. (And maybe this is a direct result of Mary Kirby's layoff) Maybe they were afraid of the criticism they'd get if they just wrote him into retirement. I get it. Varric is a notorious busybody who shoulders a lot of responsibility, and he's so tied up into the story at this point. He's had a hand in most major plot points in the series. Not everyone would be satisfied with the retirement card. But the guy is getting old. I'm hoping and praying that they'll just settle with destroying Bianca and maybe injuring him enough to where he's like 'I'm way out of my league here, plus I've got a city to run. Time to pass this along to someone more capable.' He'd make a good advisor/mentor figure--there in the background, but still involved with the plot just enough. I feel like the team was so worried about people being disappointed that they couldn't have him as a companion that they jumped to the extreme to give us a good reason why and a chance for D✨️R✨️A✨️M✨️A.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind so much if they chose to kill him at the end, or shit--literally any point besides the very beginning. It's the last game in the series. Much like in Mass Effect 3, the world as we know it is ending and the stakes are ever higher. Not everyone is gonna make it. I know nothing is confirmed, but the set up in the trailer is so obvious. As soon as Varric tells Rook to take care of things, i got a sick feeling. Maybe they'll surprise us, but I doubt it. It's hard not to be cynical after hearing about the layoffs at Bioware and watching in real-time the development hell this game has gone through for the last decade.

Like imagine in Mass Effect Andromeda, say someone like Garrus or Liara shows up only to die right at the beginning of the story. They had no effect on the plot, other than explaining to Ryder the plot of the last 3 games to let them know why what they're doing here in the newest game should be important to them. Then they die to kickstart the plot and for Ryder to shake their fist at the villains and exclaim 'this time it's personal!' Ryder doesn't know Garrus/Liara. They met like a week ago. Plotwise, the moment falls flat emotionally when we know that Ryder wouldn't mourn Garrus/Liara as much as we know Shepard might. It should go without saying that a character dying would impact your main character more if those characters got to know each other throughout the story, but it's what I'm saying. I think it's better to shock your characters more than your audience.

And that's what this is. Shock value for the audience, to make us clutch our pearls and shake our fists at whoever is responsible for a beloved character's untimely demise. To make us care about a plot we're already invested in, and have been for 10 YEARS. Or maybe to get away from the uncomftability of having a character with an arc they don't know how to end gracefully. If they go the way I think they're going, anyway. Fingers crossed so so so hard that they surprise me.

[doctorstrangereview]

0042: Strange Tales #148

Cover Date: September 1966 On-Sale Date: June 9, 1966

"The Origin of the Ancient One" is something a lot of readers were probably clamoring for (maybe.) The ancient sorcerer who has been a mainstay of series since its inception is a bigger mystery than the main character. We find that his history is intimately tied to our arc's villain, Kaluu. One would think that the origin of such an important character would include his name, but no. We will need to wait another 38 years to find that out in Epic Anthology #1. (Sneek Peek: It's Yao. Young Ancient One. Get it? Yeah, it fell flat for me, too.) The colorist was more progressive than usual for the time. The Ancient One, Kaluu and all the Kamar-Tajians have the same flesh tones as Doc. Maybe sickly yellow ink was in short supply that month.

Picking up from the end of last issue (but skipping over the mystery eyes that were peeping into the Sanctum) Doc and The Ancient One are staring at the empty lectern that held the Book of the Vishanti. Despite the fact that they are in Doc's Sanctum, the are surrounded by starts and planets. Ditko reserved the craziness for when characters travelled to different realities. Everett is just being weird.

Doc attempts to conjure an image of Kaluu. It doesn't work and Everett uses the opportunity to draw some more weirdness, this time very derivative of Ditko. Especially that snake jaw.

The Ancient One gets impatient. As I said last issue, he is out of character as written by Denny O'Neil. Ditko and Lee always wrote him as maintaining an aura of serenity and it's gone here. He keeps coming across as a jerk. He pretty much tells Doc that he's not being serious enough about the threat. This is actually unlike Doc who usually is careful take a measure of his foes before engaging them. This, combined with Everett's open and "billowy" style is a bit disconcerting. The Ancient One is like "Shut up, Doc! I guess I have to tell you how it all began as I appear to have kept my entire history secret from you even though you were my student for years and years and this is actually pretty important."

Picture it, Sicily, uh Kamar-Taj, 500 years ago from whatever year this is. Well, Marvel's history is still pretty new yet and they haven't instituted their sliding time line to keep Reed Richards and Ben Grimm from being centenarians. So this is probably contemporary with the year it was printed or close to it. Anyway, OAO (Old Ancient One, get it? Yeah, it sucks too, sorry.) tells of his people, a bunch of simpletons who were great artists and farmers. Ancient and Kaluu were different. They found a bunch of old scrolls and scream MAGIC! Ancient One is like "I'm gonna help our people so hard!" and Kaluu is like "I'm gonna conquer everything around me so hard!"

Kaluu then leaves so his farmers can train to be soldiers and be strong enough to ferry him around on a sedan chair. The Ancient One does nothing but hang around under the "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" doctrine he learned by peering into the future and watching The Godfather movies (except that last one where the biggest horror is Sophia Coppola's "acting".) The not-yet-Ancient One stands next to Kaluu and helps out his conquest.

"The people need a king," says Kaluu, "it should be you but it's gonna be me because I'm greedy and power hungry and stuff." It gives Everett the opportunity to draw some more weirdness and give the two sorcerers a giant classroom globe that, for some reason, shows the Americas even though we're in the far east.

An interlude brings us back to the present and Doc asks why Kaluu's magic is so much more powerful and the now-Ancient One says it's because Kaluu's been hanging out in the dimension of Raggador. This is a convenient excuse to switch to camera two and check out Raggador for ourselves. Present day Kaluu has exchanged the bare-chested barbarian-sorcerer look for a spiffy new outfit. He needs to impress that stolen Book of the Vishanti after all.

Back at base, the Ancient One, still sitting on his flying carpet above a magical jungle gym continues his tale.

The people of Kamar-Taj are puppets barreling through nearby villages like Sherman through Georgia. Kaluu looks in on a nearby unconquered village and thinks "I have a clever plan! If we steal all their food and crops my farmer-soldiers can spend all their time training to be nasty and evil! Oh boy, I am so smart!"

After they conquer the village, the not-yet-Ancient One finally decides to speak up. "We got enough now, man! Let it go!" Elsa gives good advice in this matter. Kaluu isn't satisfied and says he's gonna turn not-yet Ancient One into his personal slave, but instead freezes him like a statue. Kaluu gives his army spiffy new armor and goes on with conquering dragging his frozen buddy along in a cart. As the months (years?) go by, everyone else is doing the Kamar-Tajians work for them. Like those guys from Well-E, they turn into a bunch of cute, roly-poly lay abouts.

Apparently eating grapes right off the bunch is a universal sign of hedonism. While the not-yet Ancient One appears helpless, he has his own clever plan and has called down a spell/curse on Kaluu and his Kamar-Tajians. Things don't go quite as planned and suddenly a nearby serving girl is struck dead. This is soon followed by the complete collapse of Kaluu's empire in record time. Kaluu bolts, swearing vengeance, but is too polite to actually shake his fist. The not-yet Ancient one is freed from Kaluu's spell, which had the ironic effect of protecting him from his own curse.

While not explicitly stated, it appears that Kaluu is cut off from our dimension. Unfortunately, when Dormammu and Eternity blew themselves to bits, the barrier fell and badda bing, badda bang, Kaluu is here. Thus endeth the tale of the Ancient One. And endeth the tale this month. We will continue in the next installment. Lee/Ditko were much better at endings than O'Neil/Everett. The last panel is very anti-climactic.

I think this was a story many regular readers would have been interested in. When I discovered what was in this issue (published before I was even a twinkle in my daddy's eye) I sought it out and managed to snag a copy at a reasonable price. I was surprised that the serene, grand mage had such a violent past. Also, that his powers were very DIY "we found some old scrolls lying around, let's learn magic" instead of the more traditional sought out or stumbled onto a magician and become a disciple. Characterization for the regulars we have seen so far still seems off. Looking back, I think I like this less traditional origin for a beloved character and that his hands aren't as lily white as we previously suspected. Kaluu is still barely seen. He seems a one-note character so far. We'll see more next issue. When Kaluu returns in a couple of decades he is given some depth and is actually cool and somewhat likeable. Next issue awaits!

[rikomoriyama01]

7, 9, and 11 for your tag game 💜

nah love i need you to answer all of them but yeha only fair i do mine to lul

What is your favourite character in the Foxes? I don't really have favourite there i think Neil will be my favourite in future right now it's Renee

And favourite in the series aside form this one? I will let you guess

Drop your beloved head-canons about both! Renee does not in fact believe in god she participated in Christianity for sense of community it gives her, Riko is deathly allergic to peanuts and wishes he was born a girl but not in the trans way. He just know his life would be better if he wasn't a man. I also feel very strongly about him having adhd/bipolar .

Fic(s) you are always happy to recommend or fic tropes you will always read. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12283962/chapters/27922614#workskin Little Boy blue , I generally can be baited into reading any fic where riko is treated with bit more nuance than flat line Disney villain. I adore extreme hurt with happy ending

Which of the books is your favourite The foxhole court i enjoyed this story much more without seeing it's full development also loved Kevin much more before he was pushed aside, my first idea of what this story would be was much different .

Opinions on AFTG audiobook release? Worth a listen juts to laugh at girls voices , but i adore Renees soft tone in it, I think it,s main reason I adore her sm actually.

If you write/draw/create aftg stuff, what is your favourite work of yours?

i adore this fan art a lot bc it,s funny light hearted has clever joke that references rikos obsession with court numbers and has fox jean and riko on it + riko kind of looks like girl here and i think it's very hot look on him

welp the numbers got fucked

Favourite event/plot point in the books Foxes reaction to seths death and seth death, it set really god tone for rest of the story and was the only event that genuinely surprised me bc i did not expected anyone from hero team to drop dead

Least favourite part of canon (can include Extra content) The fact that both foxes and ravens are groups of abused individuals but one word ,, mafia" is enough to put blame for all bat things on riko only even though he was pawn to his caretaker the way she wrote jeans abuse list it feels excessively edgy for sake of begin edgy i find nothing deep or sad about this i can also write down random list of numbers and attach to it words like rape and broken bones

If you could sent Nora an ask and get answer, what would you ask about? i wouldn't ask about anything bc her giving me answer i'm not looking for would feel bad

If you could make an idea of your choice canon to aftg, what would it be? I'd have a riko make a joke about how foxes should be in prison by now considering they are dressed the part (orange) (and most of them broke the law) id also replace neils car lighter burns with something else bc they are annoying to draw

Feel free to share some random hot takes if you like Andrew "murdering" their abusive mother is creepy as fuck and her being abuser or him only teenager with not fully developed brain is not really making this any less creepy and i enjoy his character because of this I don't mind aaron being homophobic , i'm cool with those character being murderers abusers and bigots , it's fictional characters they had not hurt anyone in real life so i don't really care about their fictional flaws and enjoy interacting with their content all the same I don't like only one of the foxes and i don't think this fox should be part of this team i don't really care about story and whatever, it's my personal bias so discussing it deeper makes no sense unless you want to unpack my past and all people who lead me to feel that way rlly

[agentnico]

Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023) Review

A month ago at the point of Quantumania’s release I was discussing superhero fatigue, especially with the MCU. However now it seems it may in fact be fatigue of cinema as a whole! 2023...what have you done.

Plot: A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers embark on an epic quest to retrieve a long lost relic, but their charming adventure goes dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.

Straight off the bat I’ll say that I am not really an avid diehard D&D fan. I have played a few games during university with one of my more nerdier mates back then. Yeah, you know the one. Everyone has that one geek king in their uni years who’s an expert in all things pop culture, comics, movies and D&D. So yeah, that cool dude! However outside of those few D&D sessions where I’d cameo as my dwarf character that I aptly named Gimli the Second, my knowledge of this trademark tabletop game begins and ends there. So of course I won’t get all the references and Easter eggs that are sure to please fans in this movie. That being said, as more of a casual viewer I must say...I didn’t really like this movie.

I know, I know, many of you liked this one. I’ve seen the positive critical reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and the excited audience response on IMDb. Yet I am not one of these lucky chums. Look, I’ve been getting really frustrated with the sheer mediocrity that Hollywood has been churning out recently. This year alone we had Adam Driver take on dinosaurs and somehow make it boring; M Night Shyamalan tackled the end of the world and there was no signature big twist; Nicolas Cage starred in his first ever western and surprisingly did not Cage-rage once; the new MCU big bad Kang ended up not being that intimidating...look, it’s been a crappy year for films so far. The fact that I’m considering Cocaine Bear at the top spot is heavily concerning. Now we have the new Dungeons & Dragons movie that I personally found to reinstate that fact of banality. 

The plot of the film is filled with predictable clichés all ripped from the likes of Lord of the Rings, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Princess Bride, only all those did it better. I found myself daydreaming multiple times throughout the movie and being flat out bored by a lot of what was going on. It was a weak narrative with very cringeworthy dialogue. Heck, even the comedy wasn’t really good. Hugh Grant does his usual over the top shtick, yet even though that worked superbly for him in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, in here it came off pompous and annoying. Chris Pine, as charming as he may be, is miscast as the lead bard, as the main character is supposed to be more of a know-it-all doofus, as such I feel someone like Jason Bateman would have fit the part more. In fact, this movie is directed and produced by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, whom both worked with Bateman previously on Game Night and Horrible Bosses, so I feel like they may have even had him in mind when they first wrote the script. Michelle Rodriguez is bland as ever, Sophia Lillis is forgettable, Rege-Jean Page was only cast for his looks and Daisy Head isn’t menacing enough as the villain. Justice Smith is the only one really who actually got some laughs out of the audience in my cinema, and also the only one to really have a proper character arc in the whole movie.

The visuals in all fairness were solid. The creature designs were realised really well, and the use of some practical effects is always a welcome. But overall this D&D adventure came off as a lazy fantasy rehash, and one that offered minimum thrill. Again, this may appeal more to hardcore fans of the original game, but overall the cure of 2023 movie mediocrity continues. Here’s hoping Chris Pratt voicing Mario isn’t as bad as it sounds...

Overall score: 4/10

[frankhightower]

Disney’s Wish

Today I have to write about the movie everyone loves to hate… but, in my view, it’s for all the wrong reasons. On the one hand, it’s movie made to coincide with the 100th anniversary, it “had” to come out on the 100th anniversary day which meant parts of it would be rushed, what did you expect? On the other, people keep echoing a single word: soulless. There’s a lot of little things in this movie that make me disagree. Now, sure, I can already hear the counterargument that an overworked inbetweener pouring their soul into an animation sweep does not compensate for the lack of effort from the higher-ups, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Firstly, the only reason I was able to watch it was that someone finally put it up for pirating, so no yelling at me for giving Disney money to see it, I’m still too poor for that. Secondly, friendly reminder that when I watch movies, it’s as therapy. Did this movie fulfill that role? It’s debatable.

To start, no I do not find the “quirky Disney princess” to be a tired trope as literally every review I come across points out. I could see it working in some scenes. If anything, I’d argue our “princess” (whose name I can’t remember and that’s a problem other people are way more qualified to talk about) is not quirky enough, and that’s why it feels like it falls flat. Secondly, no, I did not catch the “her seven friends are the seven dwarves” reference. Not even with the blatant “I’m grumpy” line. So everyone pointing out the movie is too obvious and heavy-handed, I’m living proof it’s not.

I also had no problem with the multiple references. The movie is clearly trying to seed a “grand unified Pixar theory” for the Walt Disney canon. When the Disney Princesses line was created, one of the main rules was that no princess can ever acknowledge the existence of any other: if two or more princesses appear in the same image, they can’t look in each other’s direction nor interact with the others’ items in any way. I’m sure you just said “that’s stupid” aloud; because I did, too, when I first read it. If this realization has finally reached the Disney higher ups, I’m totally here for it and can’t wait to have The Great Mouse detective nervously negotiate a safe passage past Lady and the Tramp because his latest case involves Peter Pan since these are all set in about the same time period.

And yes, I liked the dancing chickens ...and the star

My problems

My problems with the movie actually start with the “I want” song. If you haven’t watched it, the song that plays during the trailer (“This Wish”) is that song, and is a bit of a unifying theme to the movie. Most people fault this song for “so you want …what exactly?” I found it strangely fitting that the protagonists wish is incredibly open-ended and vague; after all, it’s what our villain faults her grandfather with. Slight spoilers for the first 10 minutes but, the grandfather’s wish is to write a song so heartfelt, it inspires an entire generation. The villain says “inspires them to …what exactly? To create or to fight? It’s too vague!” So having vagueness run in the family works for the movie.

The problem is that this never affects the movie in any way. How fitting would it have been, for “This Wish” to have been the song the grandfather wrote? (Spoilers for the ending, but it is revealed that everyone in the town knows this song! If the grandfather wrote it, he had already succeeded! Everyone in his generation clearly taught it to their kids and them, in turn, to their kids! It would’ve been a beautiful message for the movie to say “you don’t need a billionaire to buy your idea off you for it to come true, nothing can take that drive away from you!”)

Then there’s the talking goat (he talks in the trailer, so this is not a spoiler). Yes, I know everyone complains about the goat, but the goat, too could’ve been a beautiful message. Expanding on Tangled’s “Well that's the good part, I guess. You get to go find a new dream.” Our protagonist clearly has more than one wish, and the goat being able to talk is explicitly stated to be one of them. Society tells us to focus on just one thing, which is something modern media is questioning (see the Kung Fu Panda series). So the villain asks you to give up a wish, your deepest driving desire. So what? You can have multiple deep driving desires. Even if we accept the premise that there are some wishes that can only be granted by essentially winning the lottery, you can still be, pun intended, fulfilled by chasing your other wishes.

My second big problem

Which brings me to the second big problem with the movie, and here’s where the more serious spoilers start: the protagonist’s magical ability. She clearly must have some, otherwise why would she have made it to the interview phase to be The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? Yet she goes from being an amateur to being able to create intelligent life with no effort on her part. We’re told it took the villain a lifetime to achieve that level of ability. This seems to be a very bad message to give, and as one YouTube commenter wrote, runs directly against the message of The Princess and the Frog (which I interpret as referring to “the star can only take you a part of the way”). Sure, the magic star refuses to outright grant her wish, making her work with the new ability, but it’s still a bit of an overkill ability to give her for nothing.

But my problems with this don’t end there. The villain feels the need to stop this new power …but doesn’t know what the power is. If he was upset at precisely what I’ve just described, the conflict would feel earned, and it could be a commentary between people who just “get it” (i.e. they’re “naturals” at a certain skill) versus people who have to struggle to consciously remember all the little quirks.

What we instead get are pieces that hint at “I made a law that made magic illegal. No one in my kingdom would break my laws because they love me so much. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is someone in this kingdom is a traitor!” I mean… no? You could be getting invaded, the move does state it’s an island in the Mediterranean. And is it the policy of this kingdom “people show magical ability, they get interviewed, rejected and then are expected to never practice magic again”? That’s just not human nature …or have all the magic users given up their wish to get good at magic to him? He does state no one ever wished to be his apprentice, so the problem is they wished to harness their magic without the villain watching over them? I have so many questions!

My third biggest problem: the Mediterranean

But I did mention the Mediterranean, and this is my third biggest problem with the movie: no “once upon a time in a small kingdom” Disney movie yet has chosen a real place to set that kingdom in. Even Frozen which is “obviously Scandinavian” hasn’t explicitly said they’re Scandinavian, just that it’s a kingdom that has “southern isles”, which could very well mean an alternate history Alaska, if we want to get creative with our interpretation.

…and then they go and put a raccoon in. Which are animals that are not native to the Mediterranean. Forget the bear which is not native to the Mediterranean but could have wandered there or escaped a roman circus – raccoons belong to the new world. For a movie that’s trying to be consistent about being the ur-prequel to all other Disney movies… why, just why?

(You thought I was going to complain about the weird character names, didn't you?)

Fourth problem: the wishes themselves

My fourth big problem is the fact that the villain keeps the wishes and I just have to ask… why? He doesn’t discover that wishes can augment his powers until later, so that clearly isn’t the reason. He doesn’t even like to look at them so an “obsessed collector” theory doesn’t work either. And, unlike Fantasy Island (70s TV show this movie is clearly ripping off), he gains no money from this and the people learn nothing.

There’s also no indication of him considering the problems taking people’s driving wishes can bring, such as making the citizen unproductive (though it’s suggested that, when he reviews them, he grants those that would keep the citizen from being productive, but we don’t see that, in fact the opposite!)

Several reviewers have suggested it’s because it keeps the population complacent, but again, what happens when someone has two deep driving wishes, and only the second-deepest is a problem? We don’t see any villainous hubris of that assumption (like we do in, say, Snow White with the evil queen repeatedly dismissing the power of true love). Has this simply not happened yet? Why isn’t this part of the message of the movie?

5th Problem: The queen

My fifth big problem with the movie is the villain’s wife. When the villain goes into full villain mode, she remains calm and collected and queen-like, and that’s fine. But when the villain is defeated …she just smiles. There is no sense of loss coming from her, ever, that the man she’s loved for her entire life… is so “far gone” in every sense… she’ll never feel his cheek against hers …ever. Forget realism, what kind of message does that send?! We hear from the protagonist’s mother “oh this is grief, I know grief” presumably referring to the death of the protagonist’s father …is there no grief from the queen?!? Is there only grief in this world for the loss of wishes?!?! If this was supposed to tease at her becoming the “evil queen” later… where are the other hints earlier in the movie?!?!?

Other problems

I mentioned the protagonist’s father, and a lot of people have complained that we never see this father. I guess my brain went “oh this is another ‘no Disney dad’ movie” and that’s fine. The mysterious missing Disney dad is practically a running gag by now. Modern movies have started adding them, but if you need proof it’s not really necessary, consider, again, The Princess and The Frog: for a long time, my only way to watch it was when it aired on TV, and I would always catch it late …but I never knew I was catching it late. The entire movie worked for me without the “little girl Tiana” scenes.

…But the villain clearly knew him, and he was clearly some kind of astronomer, and the protagonist clearly used the knowledge he taught her to pick out the right star to wish on …but we don’t see that! It would’ve been just a few more lines of dialogue, possibly something along the lines of “my father always told me to wish on the second star to the right, for it is always the first star you see tonight” would have sufficed, but we don’t get anything that comes close. And there are clearly some lines they only added because they were rushing production …Why was something like this overlooked?

Another thing people seem to have problems with is the fat boy’s wish to be a knight. This seemed to me to be a pretty realistic wish for the time, especially considering how old he was. And the fact that he had nothing else in life once this was taken away also to be pretty realistic: not everyone is creative or ambitious or has easily-transferrable skills.

I’ve also seen criticism on the fact that the protagonist’s grandfather is 100 years old, most of them assuming this means he’s been waiting for his wish to be granted since he turned 18. I, again, take no issue with this, because the kingdom is established in the opening narration to be a nation of immigrants. For all we know, the family arrived in the kingdom a year ago, possibly because the king needed an astronomer, and the fact that in the grandfather’s vision of his wish he looks as he does now, hints at the wish having been surrendered rather recently. (The alternative of the vision aging up as its owner ages à la Dorian Grey is a little uncomfortable and I don’t think Disney would go there.)

You’ll notice I didn’t number these last thee, and that’s because I consider them pretty minor.

So what’s left?

The movie, however, does have an important message, and it’s not “everybody has a wish” (though that’s a good message too). The problem is we only see it twice: It first crops up with the baker friend, who bakes beautiful cookies that look like portraits. Clearly, this wasn’t her wish, since you have to give up your wish in this world as part of the social contract, but the movie does not go into details here. We later find out her wish was to make beautiful dresses …and this is never really addressed again. Later, we see the protagonist ask everyone in the town to make a wish, and this is so powerful it helps defeat the villain.

The message, then, is that you can always make a new wish (this is distinct from my earlier “you can have multiple wishes to begin with” because the new wish here comes after you’ve lost your old one). Yes, you will feel grief when you lose your wish. You will feel empty. (And in fact, if you see someone that looks like that, this is probably why!) But you can make a new wish and become an excellent baker, because losing your wish does not make you lose your abilities, your personality. A wish drives you, but the wish isn’t you. And that makes you and all the other wish-makers more powerful than the billionaires.

Sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? Almost as beautiful as the messages I proposed earlier. But if that was the movie’s message, why do we only see it twice?!

[barkingbarghest]

hi please tell me about the zombie christmas musical. i have an inkling i know which one it is and i would love to hear more about it!!

omg lol... ok so it's called Anna and the Apocalypse (AatA) and its primary sin is that it wanted to be Too Much All At Once and consequently became a shambling mass of disjointed ideas. Also it's a great example of writing that is Not Tight. They're trying to do a lot but they're not being efficient about it.

[edit: putting a read more because i.............. well. i typed a lot.]

the Biggest example of this, there's a lot, but like ok they really liked the musical episode of Buffy. And not to spoil Buffy, but the song at the climax of the musical episode of Buffy is where Buffy sings about her conflicting duty as The Guy Who Fights Monsters and her desire to stop fighting and take the rest she's earned from saving the world you know like, several times. There's more to it but again I don't want to spoil Buffy in case that's something you're into

How that relates is, that the people who wrote AatA really liked that number and they were like "ok let's do that" so the song at the climax of the movie has our heroine singing about how she's a reluctant hero who will fight since that's what's expected of her. "It's been said the world's a stage / and everyone must play their part / well if that's true I'll act with all my heart" and "There are some things in life / you just can't control / but I'm ready to fight / I was born for this role" it's all very reminiscent of Buffy "magical girl who is the only person who can fight vampires and whatever" The Vampire Slayer... except Anna, our heroine, is not at all like Buffy and has no reason to feel this way.

Anna and the Apocalypse is a story about some high school students in a small town in Scotland who have to reckon with zombies at Christmastime. Anna is our main character, and she is a disillusioned teen who doesn't care about stuff and she just wants to get out of this dead end town and she doesn't care about people etc etc. It would be a fitting narrative if she started off like this, and through the events of the movie and the zombie apocalypse, she learns that when push comes to shove she does care about people and she is willing to fight for them, but she doesn't. Her characterization is a flat line except when the movie needs her to be something else. It's very noticeable and weird.

And like, the whole cast is like this. We follow a handful of kids besides Anna: John is Anna's friend singular and he's got a crush on her but she's friendzoned him and that's kind of it, Steph is a social justice warrior working on a film project and struggling with being an outsider by proxy of being a transfer student, Chris is a filmmaker roped into helping Steph, Lisa is Chris' girlfriend who exists for 1) singing a horny song and 2) it's sad when she dies via zombie, and Nick who is a Mean Hot Boy who had a fling with Anna and maybe he wants more of that but she doesn't but it doesn't matter because it doesn't go anywhere because this movie is 98 minutes long and we've got a lot to do and we're not very efficient storytellers!

The antagonist is the vice principal (vice dean?) Mr. Savage who is Comedically Villainous and not in a campy way just in a sledgehammer way. He hates kids and he hates the idea of fun but he likes being able to take away their candy and boss people around. Which leads me to my next point: tone. this movie does not balance comedy and drama. It's so bad. It wants these heartfelt moments but it can't commit to them and it wants to be funny but The Christmas School Pageant is so bad and guys we can be funny without resorting to kids and adults reacting to Lisa's horny song and the bad rap about fish that's bad on purpose which is the joke.. it's so bad. That screen time could have gone to so many other things. Better things.

They should have given a side plot to John and Steph, 1) because it would give John a much needed focus-that-isn't-Anna and 2) because John and Steph share an insecurity about not being bold enough. John sings about how he's too cowardly to tell Anna how he feels and Steph sings about how she's worried nobody will take her documentary about the homeless problem seriously and she's just another voice in the crowd. Do something with that! C'mon!!

And it's wild because like there ARE good things about this movie like the songs are pretty catchy, and the actors mostly do a great job with what they've been given, and I remember the choreography being pretty fun, but christ bacon sandwich the writing!

There's like, a song where the kids are huddled in a building looking at news stories about the zombie thing and being worried about their families and their own survival, but then the song they are singing is about the tragedy of kids these days being on their phones all the time and lacking a 'human connection'??? It's so disconnected from the story.

'Turning My Life Around', a duet between Anna and John where they juxtapose the characters' cheerful optimism with the zombie thing starting (imagine kids dancing down a street and in the background of the shot there's a guy spurting blood it's that kind of thing). It's a fun song and a fun scene and it's great. For some reason, Anna has taken her antidepressants for this song and this song only! Immediately before the song she is a sulky teen and immediately after the song she is a sulky teen. But! For the bit! She is cheerful!

Ok I've gotta stop because but I'll close argument with this list of inspirations from Wikipedia:

"Director John McPhail said that Anna and the Apocalypse was influenced by the films West Side Story (1961), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and The Breakfast Club (1985), as well as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode "Once More, with Feeling". McPhail also said that the film includes "nods" to the zombie films Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), The Evil Dead (1981), The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) and Shaun of the Dead (2004). The crop tops and short shorts seen in the film were inspired by the costume design in the slasher film Sleepaway Camp (1983)."

My guy that is too many things to try and be at once.

wait wait wait also John's harmony at the end of Break Away is so good and I love to sing that part where everyone's singing the refrain and he's singing about how he doesn't want Anna to leave in direct contrast with the rest of the cast singing about the things they're trying to get away from. Malcom Cumming if you're out there you did a great job on this movie.

also the incredibly Scottish line "What was I thinking / This isn'ae Disney" mwah chef's kiss

[folkdevilism]

Hard agree on what you said about DH1's success and the gameplay being the main thing that made it a hit. I do like DH1's story, for what it's worth, but you can definitely tell that it was mechanics and gameplay first and foremost, with the narrative following the gameplay, but it worked.

Second hard agree on DH2 Emily basically being "female Corvo." I previously touched on the topic in a different response here, but the bulk of Emily and Corvo's lines in DH2 largely felt flat and interchangeable, but with only slight modifications to align with the chosen player character.

I'm also really glad to see there are other people who hated the fact Delilah was brought back for the sequel, because she felt like such a fucking pompous one-dimensional cartoon villain throughout the entirety of the story, and the sob-story background lore and class themes didn't really change that. I saw another post that essentially described her as "swaggering, puppy-kicking evil," and that's basically how I felt about her as a whole in DH2. It might have worked for Burrows in the first game, but Delilah in DH2 felt like one of the most obnoxiously one-dimensional characters in the entire cast, imo.

I differ somewhat in that I actually liked Jindosh and the Outsider, and I still find the Outsider fascinating in his own right, but I think his appearance in DOTO was probably my least favorite incarnation of him. Yes, in DOTO he's still cryptic and randomly appears to grant the protag supernatural powers and make comments on the player's choices, but with the removal of the chaos system, the gameplay as a whole felt a lot more hollow. I feel like the Outsider works best as a character when he's acting as a cryptic spectator to the player. I think he still works fine when you interact with him directly in short bursts (like on the island in the Void) because it's still mainly him commenting on the game's events and the choices you'll be faced with without forcing anything on to you, but also felt like the scene where he grabs Billie and presses the supernatural arm on to her to be really jarring and out of pocket, and it felt like such a far cry from how we've seen him act in general.

I also agree that Billie was a good choice for DOTO as a protagonist to end the Kaldwin arc, but she still suffers because so much of DOTO feels half-baked compared to the prior games.

>i want a new cast. we can see them, visit them & maybe ally with them, but i never want to CANONICALLY play as corvo or emily again. Maybe Billie bc she's just fucking based as shit idk sue me.

If they ever got around to making a DH3, I'd rather it take place in an entirely new setting and with new characters as well. I could also roll with DH3 if it took place in a new universe with similar game mechanics, but functioned as more of a spiritual successor to Dishonored instead of a formal sequel in the same world/timeline. Like you said, revisiting Emily and Corvo as bonus content or NG+ content would be fine and cool to do for funsies, but as much as I enjoy those characters, I also feel like they wrote themselves into a corner and they've already done everything they could possibly do with the Kaldwin storyline at this point, imo.

I'll always have a soft spot for Dishonored 2, but I still occasionally wonder what kind of game we could have gotten if it had been allowed to focus solely on Emily instead of trying to accommodate two playable main characters.

[linkspooky]

Got any fac superhero comic villain that isn’t Batman villains?

I mean… let’s be real here tho, most interesting and well written villains do mostly be from Batman.

But I am curious if you have any fav villains out side from Batman’s?

Okay, so the reason I primarily talk about batman and Teen Titans is they're primarily what I've read. I actually like villains from other rogue's galleries, flashes is good, superman's is good, but the thing is... I've read every Teen Titans comic ever so here we go.

3. Deathstroke.

One time I heard someone refer to deathstroke as the "Anti-Teen Dad" and no phrase has better captured his character. Deathstroke doesn't work as a batman villain, he doesn't work as an arrow villain, he is at his best as a Teen Titans villain because Deathstroke is someone actively harmful to children.

He represents the uncaring and horrible adults in the world these teenage heroes face as they are growing up, there's a reason Deathstroke's biggest arc is basically grooming and destroying any chance Terra had to be a good person (and other gross stuff but it's triggering I don't want to talk about it), there's a reason Slade's backstory by Wolfram is that he basically destroyed his family's lives, let one son die, let the other son's throat get slit, abandoned the third. He is the ANTI-TEEN DAD!

Christopher Priest who wrote the character's rebirth run put Slade's character into words better than I ever could.

I often had to fight City Hall and repeat, ad nauseum, that Deathstroke is a villain. In the first issue, Slade kills a bear in order to save his son. Then he goes back and kills the bear’s cubs because, to his thinking, it would be cruel to leave them without a mother. That is Deathstroke. But I had to fight to get that in because of concerns over the character’s likeability. This was the unfun part about writing this character, a guy who should have an even sharper edge than Wolverine. Please write this down someplace for future reference: Deathstroke is an ass.

I wrote this in my Joker analysis too, there's nothing good or redeemable about Joker, but he still has an extremely important role in the story because he represents the death that Batman is fighting against in the world, so for Dick Grayson who is trying to grow up and help all of his friends grow too, he's the perfect counter and opposite someone who not only destroys his kid's lives but targets other children too. "Please write this down someplace for future reference: Deathstroke is an ass." Any attempts to make Deathstroke more honorable and more honorable just kind of fall flat, his name is DEATHSTROKE, he represents the force of uncaring death and danger in the world that's utterly hostile to teens and these kids have to deal with.

2. Blackfire.

I talk about Blackfire's character more in depth here, but her character works best if you consider her the "Red Hood" to Starfire's "Nightwing." Her character itself starts out as just kind of an evil sister who is one dimmensionally obsessed with killing and hated Starfire and was jealous all her life. The wicked sister to Starfire's Cinderella. However, she gets a lot more depth over the story.

I don't want to undermine how much Blackfire did in fact commit sibling abuse on Starfire, but there's a really good "Generational Abuse" storyline in both Starfire and Blackfire. I think a lot of people want to talk about the cycle of abuse in storylines but don't want to really read stories where characters who are abuse victims end up perpetuating abuse which like... how do you guys think the cycle of abuse happens then? Anyway, Blackfire's extremely messy especially since there's really bad shit she does in her early writing when she's more one dimmensional.

HOWEVER! Literally everyone complains about "I hate how in every marvel movie, the villain is just evil version of the main character" Blackfire subverts that whole trope in fantastic and brilliant ways. The story allows Blackfire to be right, and have a point of view outside of Starfire's that's equally as valid. Blackfire has an entirely different take on her childhood because she was neglected horribly by her parents. She says the true source of the abuse in their family was her parents and she's right. She advocates for stronger leadership in Tamaran because her parents are wishy washy and can't defend their own parents and she's right there again. In later versions of her character, Blackfire's bloodthirstiness and warlike personality didn't come out of nowhere, it's a survival mechanism that evolved out of necessity to survive and she's not conquering the planet for her vanity or ego she genuinely thinks she'll be a better leader. Honestly, a more three diemmnsional Blackfire is just more interesting because evil big sisters are just boring.

1. Terra.

Have I ever told you I love Judas Contract? I love Judas Contract. Of course there's a little bit of weird writing in Terra's character, where she's clearly a grooming victim, and also an abuse victim by her parents and a teenage runaway who's genuinely had a hard life and the writers go (no, just ignore all of that she was just born a sociopath, we aren't shaped by our traumatic experiences at all don't be silly).

However, SUBTEXT is a thing, even if the intention was to just write Terra as a flat sociopath the subtext is there that she is a really complex victim. Terra's entire character revolves around the fact she is a victim, but she's not an innoecnt person either. Her being groomed by Slade doesn't absolve her of all responsibility for her actions.

TERRA IS THE ULTIMATE BAD VICTIM IN COMICS, her entire character revolves around the fact that she was abused, and was not a perfect selfless angel about it, she didn't feel like helping other people, she hated the heroes around her because of how good and selfless they are when she wasn't, and yet she's still sympathetic. IT's a tragedy that she died, because human beings especially children no matter how amoral they may be or what their actions were don't really deserve to suffer to the extent Terra has. Terra's entire character revolves around the fact she self destructs. I believe there could be an arc where Terra was saved, or at least given a chance to be her own person outside of SLade, but the whole part of the Judas Contract is that the Titans as well meaning as they were just COULDN'T get to Terra in time b/c she didn't fit into their neat little boxes of what victims should look like. I don't think Terra is a bad person so much as, she never really got the chance to be her own person outside of the horrible tragedy that rocked her life because she died too soon. That's another thing, it's ALWAYS tragic when a child dies, especially since you can generally still reach those children at that age and when you cut off their future like that you cut off any chance they had to grow up. Like there's a lot of TERRA BROUGHT IT ON HERSELF, SHE DIDN'T WANT TO GET BETTER, like chill out dude she's sixteen. Anyway, Terra is my favorite comic book character of all time she's a bitch and I love her.

[miss-lucy-not-westenra]

so i've finally watched wednesday, and i have...so many thoughts. spoilers, btw

(and i'm mostly looking at the show as separate from the previous iterations of the addams family, because i don't have the energy to look at it as an adaptation at the moment. also, i'm not well-versed enough in the history of the addams family. maybe another time. anyway!)

i thought the show was fun. jenna ortega was great. i didn't hate watching it, and i could see myself watching it again if i got bored. in fact, i'll just say flat-out that yes, i liked it. but i have many critiques.

overall, the show felt disorganized. it felt like it needed to go through another round of edits and cuts, bc there were so many points where it felt lacking in focus. even though things did tie together, it could've been tighter.

the references were shallow. like, yeah, poe wrote spooky stuff and this is a spooky school, so let's make poe the mascot. but there wasn't anything more beyond that. and i'm not saying that poe could have or should have had thematic relevance to the show—i'm saying that it's obvious that the writers didn't even try to see if he and his work could have deeper thematic relevance.

the metaphors were shaky as well. when they tried to make enid's lycanthropy troubles a conversion therapy metaphor, that literally did not make sense, because up to that point, if enid's lycanthropy was a metaphor for anything, it read more like a metaphor for menstruation. (the implications of enid being a late bloomer, she can't be a functioning pack member (ie, an "adult"), she should have experienced this by now, etc.) enid's problem was also that she wasn't weird enough, so the whole "conversion camp" thing just fell flat and felt backwards.

and as a small side note, it drove me up the wall that they were acting like "goody" was goody addams's actual name. were the writers aware that in the witch trials, "goody" was a title, like "ms"? were they aware that "goody" was not their first name? bc hearing the characters talk like "goody" was her real name was embarrassing.

the tyler twist felt unearned, specifically when he started boasting. tyler was portrayed too sympathetically for that to feel natural. it would've made more sense if, as a hyde, he really was completely unaware of what was happening and wasn't acting of his own free will. it would also make thornhill a more threatening villain, because it demonstrates her having an amount of control over the uncontrollable.

(there's also something to be said for tyler being an asshole all along being a very strange choice, considering that whole situation reads a lot like a victim of grooming. already, people mock male victims of abuse, especially if the abuser is a woman, so...idk maybe they don't also need to be demonized?)

and lastly, with tyler's being a hyde, they really shot themselves in the foot on the whole "acceptance" thing. bc all outcasts are good! except for this one Bad One! it reinforces the whole "be accepting of the mentally ill, except for the people with The Scary Evil Condition" and "if you're mentally ill, you're not evil, unless you have Bad Person Disorder" thing. there's a lot more to be had with that conversation, but that's the main, simplified gist.

in general, i wasn't fond of the xavier/wednesday/tyler love triangle. but a trick to make that more enjoyable is to read it as xavier and tyler being bitter exes.

i know there are way more discussions to be had with this show, and probably more things to critique, but those are my thoughts for now. who knows? i'll probably have more later on. cheers!

[beyblaiddyd]

Chainsaw Man Extended Thoughts Edition Under Cut

Denji: Just makes me sad not even on an effective emotional level it’s just a flat ah man kinda sadness that you feel when someone like trauma dumps in another person’s twitch chat and you feel bad for them but are also like dude I didn’t ask. I think theoretically speaking exploring the like Stupid, Naive, Young Shounen Protagonist and how rife that situation is for manipulation and exploitation Could be really interesting and the author’s clear personal investment in the situation could’ve primed him to do something interesting with it but the fact he hasn’t at all come to realize why these things happen in society and is just haunted by the Woman Devil or something. makes it. uhm. He’s sooo scared of the idea of a woman wanting to date him for an ulterior motive he does that plot literally 3 times. At least this final time it’s like another teenage with her own complex motivations and not just literally the USSR’s Bomb Devil Sleeper Agent (real plot point). I will say there is a certain low tier intrinsic satisfaction to seeing his development with Asa where he says he won’t just listen to what he tells him and is going to go do what he wants.

Makima: When she’s not on screen with Denji I did actually find her to be an interesting character and villain. The idea of a devil who by her very nature doesn’t hate humans and instead wants to build a perfect cage for them is like, not unexplored, but certainly less common than villains who just want to destroy shit for fun, so that was at least a little more fresh than the alternatives that could’ve been done. And the thing about her losing because in her egoism she never once recognized Denji as an individual person and only cared about him for Pochita is like a fine narrative cap even if the way that Chainsaw Man obsession was written was fucking unimaginably misogynistic. But my god her writing around Denji most of the time oh my god oh my god this writer hates women so much.

Power: I mean she’s just a joke character the writer got far too invested in. Having her around as the only teenage girl of the main cast to give Denji someone his age to bounce off of was something of a relief though the way the author framed and wrote her also made me want to kill him with a tire iron. Her plot progression ultimately felt so condensed like he realized he forgot to do a narrative for her and needed to do it all at the end. The whole “find me again and make me Power again” thing was I guess cute #besties.

Aki: Only character with an actually compelling story that was told completely. It felt a little rushed, unlike every other plot where I was begging for any kind of development or progression at all he was having progression happen to him all the time in fast forward and then he exploded and died. The snowball scene was horrifically corny but at least kind of emotionally impactful. Predictably his dynamic with Angel is the only thing I actually care about.

Kobeni: I can’t think about Kobeni for too long or I’ll get actually angry. The fact so many misogynistic men who were fetishizing her until the anime and then were like “omg she’s actually so annoying” and people were like “lol that’s the point !!! see it’s not misogynistic it’s feminist” makes me literally want to kill somebody. It’s not even like she’s that bad of a character like she’s being full force blasted by the misogyny beam but I could’ve tolerated her better without knowing the external reaction to her from every source. I think the only way they could’ve salvaged a good gag from her character is if when her car got totaled she’d flipped the fuck out and killed Santa herself like that is the only possible way Fujimoto could’ve salvaged any part of the joke of her character but that would mean letting any female character have a smidgen of agency and he couldn’t do that so. Other than that I think the only tolerable part of her character is that she became absolute besties with the Violence Devil if ONLY that had gotten explored more.

Angel: Not technically a main character but he is in my heart. The fact he was able to break out of Makima’s mind control has so many interesting implications that will never ever be explored. Is it because as a fellow devil who holds no hatred (though still holds malice) towards humans their powers are actually very close to each other? We will never know because the author doesn’t care! The scene with Aki grabbing his hand to save him is the only one that exists in my perfect mindscape.

I guess I HAVE to talk about these guys since they’re main characters now

Asa: I cannot fucking believe that this guy who clearly thinks it’s the ultimate evil to sexually exploit teenage boys is perfectly fine drawing Asa the way he draws her. Her researching fish for hours to go on a fake date with Denji is some kind of maneuver I am mildly charmed by her but the noxious radiation of how she is treated and also the fact this manga is Still Going For Some Reason makes it hard to think about her.

Hirofumi: I’m glad he’s back I found his design so cutie he is like a cat to me. Straight up thought he died in the Hell Devil/Darkness Devil encounter. We don’t know enough about him for further commentary.

[oh-shtars]

1.) Sometimes like in my case, the reason I’m rewriting the movie is because I’m really passionate about it and I grew up LOVING Disney. I wanted to see their best. And it hurted that what came for their grand 100th anniversary was something….mediocre.

And besides, in the end, all that really matters is that you’re having fun and letting your creativity shine with what could’ve been. Maybe it’s what Walt Disney would’ve loved to see. How his works still inspire people to ‘create.’

So I hate when people just quickly assume that everyone in the Rewrite community are just a bunch of ungrateful and whiny people.

(Okay admittedly, I’ve seen some rewrites done just to spite Disney and well….where’s the fun in that if you go about it that way?)

2.) “Starsha is incest because Sabino is meant to be Star”

Guys, Star-Sabino was only one of the concepts considered. There are multiple other concepts that don’t have Starboy as Sabino.

Besides, it’s a concept that’s not used and not even canon. People are making up their own versions of what Disney didn’t even use. And most of them don’t even have Star related to Asha in a familial sense.

Heck, not everyone even ships those two romantically. Just look at the WRTS!Au. Those two are just as cute in a platonic sense.

3.) “Starboy and the Evil Villain Couple would’ve made the story so much better!!”

As much as I like the concept art, No. I don’t think this is the case. It all still highly depends on the execution of these ideas. If they included these concepts but still don’t utilise them, I’ll still think the movie will need a lot of work.

I also probably would’ve like the actual canon movie more if it was executed better. Even without the concepts. I’m sure it could’ve still worked if we kept Star as the little plushie it is, Amaya as the good queen, and if Asha and Mag were written better.

Unfortunately, it just flopped to me.

4.) “Starboy was originally meant to be Asha’s love interest.”

I don’t think it was? And this is coming from a Starsha shipper myself too.

I like the idea but I don’t think it was even meant to be that way at all. Julia Michaels only said she wrote “At All Costs” so that it sounds like a love song to be played at weddings. But it was all meant to be sung towards the wishes. (Even though it’s weird in the movie’s context.)

Idk, unless someone could find more evidence for this case, the only other thing I could find about this concept is that “They were soulmates.” But even then, they could also mean it in a platonic sense.

Soulmates aren’t strictly romantic.

5.) “Asha is selfish and Magnifico was completely innocent.”

This take itches me the wrong way.

Sure, I found Asha a little whiny but I don’t think she was selfish. She only wanted people to be able to remember their wishes and pursue them. Not that she wants ALL OF THEM granted. I still wish that she went through at least a bit of character development but…this movie didn’t want to put their MC with actual flaws I guess.

As for Magnifico, he’s not entirely innocent. The worst he was in the beginning of the movie was a big jerk. But he didn’t come off as evil. Yes, keeping the passion and wishes of his people and making them forget them is a bad thing. I agree with that.

He’s a complex character. I didn’t see him as evil in the beginning but the movie didn’t want to expand on him so he comes off as horribly written. Maybe he would’ve been so much better if they just didn’t add in the tragic backstory.

But this take above in blue? It is crazy.

6.) “People who dislike Wish are racist”

Omggggggggg, it’s not that. Asha is a flat and badly handled main character that just HAPPENS to be POC.

If she was white and still handled the same, I would still have the same complaints about her character. Just stooooooop…

What are Wish takes you heard that just makes you wanna

[juniperhillpatient]

Why did you become interested in Azutara and what made it your OTP. What does it have that other ships lack ?

Hello PD thank you for the excellent question :)

I love talking about Azutara so much. Okay, so I actually started out the fandom more on the team "I don't ship Azula with anyone I just want her to heal & get better I don't care about romance for her."

The first story I wrote for Avatar that I felt I had a good grip on the characters was The Benefits of Getting a Flat Tire. That was primarily a Zuko/Sokka story with a strong focus on Zuko & Azula healing their relationship & getting away from Ozai. I set out to write a Zukka fic. Azula wasn't in a romantic relationship with anyone & I didn't intend for her to be in a romantic relationship with anyone in it. Then I wrote her interacting with Katara & the sparks just flew & I knew I had to write an Azutara sequel :)

I shipped Zuko/Katara before I ever entered the fandom or watched the show to be totally honest with you. I didn't know that much about it but I knew vaguely about the show & I knew that Zuko was an angsty villain with a redemption arc & Katara was the main hero girl so like. I have a type I assumed I would be really into that ship lmao

& I really loved Zuko & Katara's life-changing adventure, I thought it was filled with great characterization for Katara & explored her grief & rage & it was just a really powerful character moment for Katara. So naturally, when I wrote that sequel, I thought "hm how about a story focused on Katara wanting revenge on her mother's killer but instead of Zuko helping her it's Azula?"

& from there I started to realize how much Azula & Katara could help each other, how their trauma with family (a missing mother figure, a distant father figure) is similar but also so different. I've talked a lot about how Azula & Katara are narrative foils & how Avatar has such a strong focus on foils reconciling with one another & on personal growth & redemption & healing but it always bears repeating. I think that Azula & Katara connecting with one another is just a natural & beautiful direction for both of their stories to take.

Also, they're just such FUN characters to write. Azula is very obviously my favorite character there's no denying it if you look at my blog lol & I can get behind shipping her with many different characters (I've come so far from shipping her with no one lmao) because she's uniquely smooth & awkward at the same time. She's confident & also filled with insecurity. She's deeply traumatized in ways that will forever impact her every relationship platonic & romantic. & the thing is - Katara is too! (oh wow this topic is so relevant to the upcoming chapter of OGITAW lol) Katara is someone who could understand Azula both because Katara is so emotionally intelligent AND because Katara herself is in many ways "damaged."

In canon, the idea of these two child soldiers reconciling & healing & growing together is so beautiful. In an alternate universe, these two girls who are such complex & interesting characters interacting just has ENDLESS possibilities.

They have pretty much opposite ways of viewing the world (Azula is cold & rational & pragmatic Katara is emotionally driven & righteous & idealistic) which provides opportunities for both conflict AND working together. It's just so fun to write about them being drawn to each other & unsure about each other & even hating each other or going from hate to love.

Thank you for giving me the excuse to ramble!! :) 💖💖 Also, I linked my own fics & posts so much in this lmao I don't mean to be narcissistic I'm just sharing my views & how they came about ya know etc. But I'll still link just a few of my favorite Azutara authors who are not me anyway because the Azutara fandom is amazing & deserves all the love x x x