#it feels earned! it's a logical point for someone to die! he died saving the love of his life and a good friend and his best friend!

[thewickedmerman]

Winx Club - Enchantix

It's finally time for the FINAL transformation (Which is gonna STAY the final transformation)! The fan favorite, ENCHANTIX! I am making some changes both for aesthetic reasons and for character reasons. They will all have the Bloomix wings because those are the best wings out of all of the transformations. I will be doing them in order of who earns their Enchantix.

Layla

Starting off with the BEST fairy! I didn't make too many changes, apart from the makeup, the color, the wings, and the skirt. I made the skirt a flowing high-low skirt that resembled a waterfall and a wave. I still included the straps but made both pink and kept the yellow seaweed looking things. But I also added a transparent pink thing to the skirt to make the front a little longer and to add some dimension to it. Layla has had the colors of her Enchantix outfit change from blue to green in the actual show, which I guess was because of how Bloom earned her Enchantix and they didn't want two of them to be in blue (Even though Layla's color always should've been blue and Bloom's really should've been red). However, I stuck with blue but also made is an aqua shade just like all of her past transformation looks. I also add some painted toenails because I wanted to. I changed her makeup because my girlfriend, who is half-black and is very protective of black females (Particularly full-blooded dark-skinned ones), pointed out that her makeup in her official Enchantix didn't look quite right because the lips were too light. So I used a slightly darker shade to fix that, as well as made her eyeshadow purple instead of green because it just looks better. Also, just wanted to point out the two little white things by her eyes because that is part of her original Enchantix form as well. They look like two little dewdrops. She still earns her Enchantix by using the last bit of sunlight to healing the queen of the mermaids instead of restoring her sight that was stolen by Valtor. Also, apparently the queen is supposed to be her aunt, which I'm guessing is more of an honorable love like family thing because of how the royal family of the merpeople are clearly not black and aren't even the same species as Layla. Anyway, I hope you guys like it.

Stella

Stella's Enchantix went through A LOT of changes. Don't get me wrong, her original Enchantix was gorgeous but I didn't feel like it showed enough of her sun and moon powers. I also wanted to give her a more Greek inspired look and went with her prototype Enchantix hair, which is so gorgeous and suits her and the outfit so much. I still went with her hair being lighter just like with her official Enchantix because I feel it does show her moon powers. I just really love the way she turned out. She still earns her Enchantix by saving her father from a dragon.

Musa

Musa's Enchantix went through A LOT of changes. Her original Enchantix was gorgeous but I felt that it should've ditched the pigtails and had more of an Asian influence to it. I went with her Bloomix hair because it is very Asian influenced, though I just added chopsticks, which was suggested by my girlfriend. I also tried to make her makeup look Asian inspired to just add to the look, which I really love. The blue of the outfit was almost gold but I changed it so that it would match the wings. The outfit is mainly purple, which I have as her signature color, but also made sure there was red because of how it is an important color in Asian culture. I made sure to add a music note on her top because of how she is the fairy of music and it goes with her wings. I really love her look and I'm pretty proud of how she turned out. Musa still earns her Enchantix by refusing to leave Princess Galatea behind and nearly dies protecting her. However, I also have Galatea be Musa's cousin because I'm keeping the 4KIDS canon of Musa being a princess, though one that is the daughter of a prince that denounced his throne. I feel like Musa being royal adds to the story of her parents because of how her mother rejected her classical training and her father rejected his royal title in order to have a career in music. However, they still didn't have much money and that added her mother dying because they couldn't afford the right medical attention. This resulted in her father giving up music forever and deciding to beg his family to let him back into the royal family, in order to keep Musa from struggling like he did and would have the means to have proper medical attention, so he wouldn't lose Musa either. He was let back into the royal family for the sake of Musa. However, her father would not be the one to inherit the throne, which would go to Galatea's father. So this means that Musa isn't just saving the princess of her planet that is a friend, but also saving a family member. I'm just assuming that Galatea is Asian with blonde hair (I mean, Musa has blue hair, so why not?) because her father is shown to look like a Chinese Emperor and the planet of Melody is very Asian influenced. Sorry for rambling.

Flora

I really didn't do any changes to Flora's Enchantix, apart from the Bloomix wings because Flora's Enchantix is perfection. She still earns her Enchantix by saving her little sister, Miele (Yes, I prefer her actual name over her 4KIDS name, Rose).

Tecna

For Tecna's Enchantix I really wanted it to be the most revealing of her fairy outfits (Well, tied with Sirenix) because of how I had her starting to show off more skin for her Believix form and it shows how she's grown and opened herself up to others and let herself be emotional instead of just logical all the time. Just because she isn't skinny it doesn't mean she has to alway be covered up. But I did adjust the length to make it more tasteful (Even though her original Enchantix wasn't distasteful). I also wanted to add some elements from her Bloomix form besides just the wings. I added the technology pattern she had on her leggings because they looked so amazing (But were a pain to do) and gave her that transparent fabric she has in that form. While Tecna's hair has grown in this transformation (Just like with all the girls), I didn't want to make it more than a few inches below the shoulders because her short hair makes her unique. I didn't add sparkles to the armor because I wanted to make clear the difference in material. Since I have her color being green, I did have to mess around with the coloring a bit and I love the way it looks. The way she earns her Enchantix is my favorite of all the girls because she saved not only her home planet, Zenith, but other planets by closing the portal to the Omega Dimension on Andros. That's just a whole new level of sacrifice. She doesn't die and does manage to escape, of course, but the impact of what she did is just a staple in the Winx Club and how much she means to the group and what an awesome character she is.

Bloom

Bloom's Enchantix was one I was VERY excited to do because of the GORGEOUS hair and how I really wanted to make her dress look like fire. This has gone from one of my least favorite Enchantix forms to one of my favorites. Don't get me wrong, her original Enchantix form was gorgeous but really didn't feel like it suited her powers. I did combine this with her Bloomix form because for one, the hair is just GORGEOUS and I really wanted to include the scales from the form. I wanted to have the top also have some flow to it. I especially wanted that with the skirt. I wanted it to appear like actual flames with red, orange, and yellow. I also blended the colors as they transitioned. I added blue-looking flames because of how fire does have a hint of blue to it, which is the hottest color. I decided to make her gloves orange to go with her fire powers and made her jewelry gold to go with her fire powers, as well as purple gems to go with her wings. I gave her a dragon necklace because it looks really badass. I went with a fiery-looking eyeshadow with blue and orange, which was easier to do because of how her hair isn't orange here. As for how she earns her Enchantix, I am NOT having her earn it by that bull crap of it being sheer force of will, which I know that my amazing friend @bellatrixobsessed1 will appreciate VERY much. Also, just so you all know, I'm keeping her birth parents and the entire population of Sparx DEAD! Yes, it's tragic but it's also something that gives Bloom a huge layer of depth. Anyway, what I decided to have happen is that she is on Pyros doing all she was doing in the show and basically trying to cheat to get her Enchantix with the help of Maya. However, Valtor, wanting to destroy Bloom once and for all and knowing that Pyros would be where she was at and that he couldn't enter because of a barrier that kept out dark magic decided to get Bloom to come to him by going to Earth to put her adopted parents in danger. Bloom, deep in meditation learns that her parents are in danger because her sister, Daphne appears to her in a vision to warn her. Bloom in desperation to save her parents begs Maya to help her to Earth. Maya warns her that if she leaves now that she may never be able to earn her Enchantix and that without it, she could die while trying to leave Pryros. Bloom says she doesn't care because Valtor may have taken her birth parents from her but she was NOT going to let him take her adopted parents. Daphne and Maya, reluctantly, use their magic to help Bloom get to Earth through a portal. Traveling through the portal was physically painful for Bloom but she kept on going and refused to give up. She nearly dies but as she arrives to Earth, just as Valtor was about to kill Mike and Vanessa (Bloom's adopted parents), a weakened Bloom with what little strength she had left threw herself in front of them to save their lives. She was close to death but this selfless act saved her life because of how it was what had her earn her Enchantix. Why? Because Faragona said that in order to earn Enchantix, you have to save someone from your home world and make a big sacrifice in the process. Home doesn't mean a place you are born in but rather a place you're loved and have a life. Earth is her home world, so saving her adopted parents allowed her to earn her Enchantix. Bloom, now more powerful than ever was able to fight off Valtor, forcing him to flee. Did you guys like my version of how Bloom earned her Enchantix? Let me know.

My final group picture of the Winx Club in their final forms. This was a lot of fun, a lot of work, and a lot of headaches. I couldn't have done it without the help of my girlfriend, @keeloves, who gave me suggestions and ideas, as well as feedback during the process. Thank you guys so much for liking my stuff, even if you didn't leave comments. I'm really happy to be done with this and I'm grateful for all the love this has been getting. Also, I have the girls flying instead of just standing like I did with their Magic Winx, casual looks, and Believix.

Credit for the bases goes to SelenaEde of DeviantArt

Credit for the wings goes to AstralBlu of DeviantArt

Credit for the backgrounds goes to xKaJot of YouTube & Keerene and SparxGuardian

[catrasredemption-moved]

I'm really struggling and hurting with what's going on in the fandom right now as im losing the only comfort i had in quarantine. could you please write something happy post-s5 catradora based on noelle's statement that once Adora realises she's in love with Catra she'd be SO into the reslationship?

((I get you, Nonners <3 *hugs* Again, white af, so I’m going to limit my comments, but - it isn’t all downhill from here. Try not to give up)) (((Disclaimer it’s almost 4am and my sleeping meds are kicking in, so I’m sorry if this isn’t completely coherent)))

Adora had never half-assed anything in her life.

And she’d be damned if she was going to start now, at a time when being fully on her game was more important than ever.

“I just want to do something for her!”

Bow practically had hearts in his eyes. Glimmer was a little less impressed. “I’m pretty sure if you just stayed in bed and napped together all day, she’d be happy.”

“I know, I know.” Adora sighed. “But that’s not - I want to do something good. Like, really show her that I love her.”

“Take a vacation.”

“Glimmer!”

“What? I’m serious,” Glimmer insisted. “If you just like... took an entire week off to do nothing but spend time with her, she’d probably be speechless. Which I would pay to see, by the way.”

Adora frowned, thinking it over. It was true that Catra would probably be floored by Adora taking a week off, no need for She-Ra or anything, just for her.

“I don’t know. Do you think it’s enough? What should we do? What do people do on vacation?”

“You could just travel?” Bow suggested. “You know, get as far from Bright Moon as you can then call Glimmer for a ride back or something when you’re done.”

It was... actually a good idea, Adora thought. They’d spent their whole lives in the Fright Zone wondering what was beyond the Whispering Woods. They could actually see things now. They could see a world full of magic!

The happy thoughts died almost as quickly as they had started. “I... I dunno. I mean, it sounds great, but that would take more than a week, and-”

“Take a month,” Glimmer encouraged. “Take six months, honestly. You guys saved the universe. If anyone’s earned time off, it’s you.”

“That’s a lot of time.”

“And you’ve earned it,” Bow assured her. “Maybe not six months - I mean, you should take six months but I know that would drive you nuts. But take a month. Go places. Spend time together. I think it’d be good for you guys.”

Adora chewed on her thumbnail for a moment before slowly nodding and smiling. “Yeah. Okay.”

This whole thing had started with Catra not feeling like a priority in Adora’s life, after all. A month together would be the perfect way to show Adora she was invested and she cared. Perfect. * * * * * * * * * * * * Catra didn’t get back to Bright Moon that night. “Your cat passed out on my couch,” Mermista informed Adora flatly, turning the screen so Adora could see Catra curled up in a tight ball, sleeping.

“Is she... okay?”

“She’s dumb. Sea Hawk found her almost sick with heat stroke and had to drag her away from the house she was working on.”

Adora’s heart jumped to her throat. “She’s... She’s really trying hard to help with Salineas.”

“And I appreciate it,” Mermista admitted in a rare moment of genuine honesty. “But I’ll appreciate it less if she kills herself in the process. If she’s going to die, I should at least get the first shot.”

“Glimmer can come get her, if you want.”

“Nah, she already feels like hell. She can sleep it off on the couch.”

Adora scrubbed her eyes, smiling weakly. “Thanks, Mermista. Sorry, I guess I should’ve warned you, she gets really intense when she actually puts effort into things.”

“She’s not someone I would’ve pegged for a workaholic. Want me to wake her up to say... I dunno, good night or whatever you guys say to each other?”

“Nah, let her sleep.” Adora wanted Catra home, wanted to talk to her about a vacation, but she was sleeping, and that was more important than anything. She’d been exhausting herself for nearly a month working on Salineas. And while it was earning her some begrudging tolerant will with Mermista (who firmly believed actions were better than any apology Catra could ever say), Adora was worried. A vacation would really do her some good. * * * * * * * * * * * * Glimmer and Adora went to Salineas the next morning to get Catra. They thought it was reasonable to assume she was still sleeping off the heat stroke at the palace.

“Nope, she took off before I woke up,” Mermista said flatly when they found her. “Sea Hawk tried to find her, but he’s not exactly subtle about it, so she probably had plenty of time to hide.”

“Great.” Adora sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’ll... track her down.”

“Tell her if she’s going to keel over to get out of my kingdom. She can die on Bright Moon’s turf.”

“Tell her not to die,” Glimmer added.

“Yes, and yes.”

Mermista pointed Adora in the direction of where they’d found Catra yesterday. She approached a half built house, quietly climbing up the ladder at the side and finding Catra working on the roofing.

“Seriously?” she asked, resting her arms on the edge of the roof. Catra looked up, surprised.

“What?”

She looked exhausted, her face flushed red. Adora sighed. “Are you coming home any time soon?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She went back to work, distracted. “Sorry, I dunno what happened yesterday.”

“You made yourself sick working in the sun all day.”

“Sea Hawk overreacted.” Catra waved Adora off. “He’s just scared you’d kill him if you found he let me overwork myself.”

“Sooooo you’re admitting it?”

“No, that’s just his logic.”

Adora shook her head. “Come on, take the day off and come home. I wanna talk to you about something.”

“I really need to finish this.”

There was a weird moment where Adora thought she understood how Catra had felt for years. Catra had been working nonstop on Salineas for a month, and Adora was starting to feel a little ignored.

But she also understood Catra’s side. She took a deep breath, hauling herself up onto the roof and crawling over to Catra, gently putting her hand on Catra’s and stopping the hammer. “Hey. I get it, okay? But you’re not responsible for fixing all of Salineas.”

“Actually, I kind of am,” Catra replied bitterly. She was far too warm for it to be comfortable.

“I’m pretty sure Hordak could stand to take a little more responsibility than he has.” Adora couldn’t help but be a bit bitter about that. He had mostly stayed in Dryl, working with Entrapta on tech that would help with the rebuilding process. And that was great and all, but it wasn’t much compared to Catra being out here every day working herself half to death.

Catra let out a long sigh, finally relaxing her hand. “I just... need to do this, Adora. Okay?”

“I get that, but you don’t need to do it at the expense of your own health. And yes, I know I’m a hypocrite. But I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Adora squeezed her hand. “And that’s okay. Have you eaten anything?”

“No.” The honesty was nice.

“Did you skip eating because you felt sick?” Catra nodded. “Okay. So... you can leave with me, or Mermista can wash you out to sea so you don’t die in her kingdom.”

Catra looked around, and sighed, finally nodding. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Getting her back to solid ground was a bit dicey, but she held herself up and managed to walk back to the palace without much help.

“She lives,” Mermista said dryly when they arrived back at the palace. Glimmer smiled, although she couldn’t hide her worry.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine.” Catra smothered a yawn, scrubbing her eyes.

“Picture of health all right,” Mermista deadpanned. “Look, you built like, an entire neighborhood on your own. Come back when you’re not burning up.”

Glimmer rested a hand on Catra’s shoulder, wincing when she felt the heat radiating off of her. Adora took a moment to whisper, “Thank you for taking care of her,” to Mermista. The princess shrugged.

“Yeah, you know. Whatever.”

Catra was not happy with the teleport back to Bright Moon. Glimmer put them close enough to the bed so she could drop straight onto it, groaning. Good luck, the queen mouthed before disappearing. Adora went to the bathroom, wet a washcloth with cold water, and returned to the bed, resting the cloth on the back of Catra’s neck. She shivered.

“Cold.”

“Yes, because you’re burning hot.” Adora settled in next to her. “So, I had an idea, and I already know you’re going to argue with it, but hear me out.” Catra hummed in affirmation. “I was thinking we should take some time off. You and me. I was thinking traveling, but now I’m thinking maybe go visit Frosta and spend a week in the snow.”

“Oh hell no,” Catra muttered. “I am not going anywhere with snow. That’s where I draw the line.”

“But you’re agreeing to the vacation?”

“I dunno.” Catra raised her head. “When? Can it wait until Salineas is-”

“No.” Adora gently clasped Catra’s face in her hands. “I know this is hard for you, but you can’t hurt yourself trying to fix things. That won’t accomplish anything, and nobody wants to see you hurting, not even Mermista.”

Catra looked ready to argue, but something in her expression flickered. “You’re willing to take time off just to do nothing?”

“Not nothing. To spend time with you. We can hold each other accountable. You keep me strapped down, and I’ll lie on top of you to make sure you don’t run off to Salineas.”

Tears slowly filled Catra’s eyes, and Adora panicked for a moment before Catra spoke. “You’d... really take time off to spend time with me?”

“Of course.” Adora kissed her gently. “I love you, Catra. And I know we’ve been through a lot and done a lot that doesn’t really... support that, and I want to prove it now. And I want to take care of you.”

The moment of silence between them was comfortable. The same silence they could have spent hours in at one point in their lives. “I love you too,” Catra finally murmured. “Maybe taking some off to spend together wouldn’t be so bad. If only to see you try and relax.”

“Ha. Ha.” Adora grabbed the washcloth and began gently wiping Catra’s face. “Glimmer gave us a month, but I’m pretty sure she’ll be happy if we want to take more. Let’s start with getting you better, then we can figure out what we want to do from there. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Catra snuggled into Adora’s chest, taking a deep breath. “That sounds good.”

It had worked. Adora couldn’t believe it. “So uh... I’m doing this relationship thing pretty good, huh?”

Catra snorted, reaching up to push her face away. “Get over yourself.”

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Hi there! I saw your wonderful post about mianmian and female rep in cql. What are your opinions on cql!yanli and book!yanli? I haven't read the books but I hear that cql added depth to her. Fandom mostly see her as "steel under silk" and seems to ignore every other aspect of her character. What do u think of her death?I mean, she ran into a battlefield knowing she could die, making JL an orphan, to talk to her brother, who as much as she knew, lost control and had a hand in her husband's death.

Hi there!

I’m glad you enjoyed the lengthy MianMian meta.

My gut reaction is to say that I don’t think that CQL added depth to JYL’s character, but just created more dangling threads or contradictions within it. However, to get at the bottom of the issues with their portrayal of MianMian, I had to “close read” each of her appearances on CQL as well as in the novel, and to be honest, the idea of doing so with JYL is a little bit exhausting because it’s not like I can limit the exercise to three or four scenes. I think the conclusion of the MianMian meta will still apply to JYL: that while some will read the production’s choice to increase her presence as an effort to address “”””MXTX’S problem with female characters”””” it is more likely a decision motivated by market logic and, in any case, not a choice motivated by a will to tell a stronger, more nuanced story than the one we can find in the novel. 

To a degree, I understand the criticism with the strong women stuff: while we are made aware of female cultivators, some of whom are very powerful, they tend not to exist in the current timeline of the story in MDZS. Aside from Yu-furen, and to a small degree MianMian, we do not get to witness strong female cultivators fighting and being “strong” in the standard of the term. I think MXTX could have done more to highlight the presence of female cultivators in the Jiang/Nie/Jin sect or during the Sunshot war campaign, for instance, even without adding too many new characters to her roaster. But that doesn’t mean that JYL specifically needed to be a strong cultivator. I had to go and read the tv trope entry about silk hiding steel to be sure what people meant with that, but I don’t think it applies. 

I do think JYL is strong in terms of will. I think it is pretty interesting that no one notes that JYL carried both WWX and JC when they got hurt as kids: sure, someone could read that to mean that she was actually very strong, physically, but to me I see it more as mind over matter: she endured it because she wanted to help and protect those she loved, and pushed her body past what it could normally do. Although she is more meek in her manners and will not necessarily fight for herself, she is ready to fight for the people she loves even if it means having a lot of attention on her or going against the opinion of people she values. She also cares for others in general, be they the people of LP or by wanting to do her part during the war. She is also someone who seems constant in her affections and opinions: she is steadfast and loyal. Those are all really positive things, and yes they are more feminine than being good at kicking ass: but what’s the point of wanting female characters if all of them should have attributes that are valued in men in a patriarchal society? 

Regarding JYL’s death, I think there are many ways to look at it. Narratively, the way the story is shaped up, JYL kind of *had* to die at that point. The question is, does it feel satisfying and earned--and of course people may come to different answers to that. I am personally not a big fan of the “person dies without being able to finish what they meant to say” cliché. I think I would have preferred it if JYL hadn’t said, literally, “I have something to say” and had just died right after telling WWX to stop the fighting first. Considering that WWX accidentally killing JZX is a moment where he breaks down and he takes it really badly, and he feels awful towards JYL, it’s good in terms of conflict that WWX never gets to hear how she feels about him and what he’s done to her. At least it isn’t her dying saying “to save the day you only need to ......”, I suppose. 

I’ll maybe articulate my thoughts on JYL a little bit more in the future! But this is what I’ve got for now.

[letsunity]

Save Your Tears

Omega is gone. He failed her. The blastershot to his chest doesn't nearly compare to the hole she left behind.

He failed.

Hunter fought many, duelled even more. It usually went the same way, him taking down multiple targets at once.

That bounty hunter moved so fast that Hunter blinked and was on the ground. His hand wasn't even on the blaster; it's like it teleported. Hunter had only seen such speed in the Jedi; not even a droid had such reflexes.

What hurt the most, however, was her face as he faded from consciousness. She was so scared, terrified, likely believing that he was dead. He should be; by turning to shoot the droid, the blast barely missed his heart. The last thing he heard was her cry for help, then his brothers waking him back up.

Not even twelve hours before, Hunter told her that she was staying with them; they'd never leave her. She'd never be alone ever again. Omega, a child with no experience with the outside world, trusted him. He failed that trust; he failed her; he failed everybody. A leader is supposed to protect their squad, but he failed.

Although Hunter didn't know, he failed Crosshair first. Thanks to Wrecker, they know he's trapped in there, controlled by that chip. Even though he's not doing it, Hunter can't help but hate him, which only makes it worse.

Hunter doesn't want to hate him, he has to hate the chip, but when Crosshair threatened Omega, it was nearly impossible.

He failed them both. By delaying removing the chips, he failed Wrecker, too.

What kind of leader fails his squad so horrifically?

When Wrecker strangled him, the electricity from that Zygerrian's whip, being shot, none of that compared to the emotional anguish.

  "Several rib fractures, a crack along the sternum and lung burn. Considering the probability of surviving the shot, it should be worse."

Though he knew better, it felt like he deserved worse.

"Do you know what Bounty Hunter it was?" Hunter growled out, a hand instinctively covering his bandaged chest. His insides were on fire, even with the bacta-patch.

  "According to Cid, their name is Cad Bane. I've checked my data and found that he was the very bounty hunter who held several senators hostage, kidnapped three force-sensitive children and successfully stole a Holocron. Given that information, I've concluded that you were outmatched. The responsibility isn't on your shoulders."

Tech was trying to make him feel better. It was Hunter's responsibility; it was his fault, regardless of Tech's data.

The specialist didn't know what else to say; emotion wasn't his strength. Tech followed logic, data, information, but emotion didn't follow such consistency. It was illogical, often unreasonable; it was out of Tech's range of capability. Tech's alexithymia made him unsuitable for comforting his Seargent; he couldn't identify his own emotions, let alone Hunter's.

The lack of Omega's presence was noticeable, however. There was pressure inside of his chest, a clawing sensation in his throat. His eyes stung, despite his goggles securely fastened.

From Tech's understanding of biology, his brain was excreting chemicals that equated emotion. As there would eventually be excess, it'll leak through his tear ducts, possibly why his eyes stung. Despite understanding what was physically happening, he couldn't fathom what was going on emotionally; he wasn't connected correctly.

Was it fear, guilt, sorrow? Tech didn't know. He conflicted about it, both envious and grateful for this cross-wiring.

  "It wasn't your fault," Tech shortened, aiming to appease his brother's internal monsoon. His facial expression remained strained, indicating failure. "You'll be no help to anybody if you exacerbate your injuries."

  "The past weeks, I don't feel like I've been much help."

Ah, the illogical side of emotional turmoil. Tech didn't have a way of navigating this obstacle. He had too little data to compare and devise a plan for.

Given his unsuitability, having another take his place was the logical course of action.

  "Echo, Wrecker, I require your presence," Tech called, taking some steps back. When they stepped up to Tech, he was straight with them, like always. "I don't know how to assist emotionally."

  "Ain't like we're any better," Wrecker shrugged honestly.

  "Possibly, but you can empathise far easier. Echo, perhaps you're better suited for this task."

"What we do is stay together and support each other," Echo stated firmly, pointing back to their distracted brother. "We're in this together; we'll get through it together."

Wrecker provided a grunt of agreement. While he wanted to break something, they needed to help each other. He wanted to blow stuff up, but even that wouldn't make him feel better. It was bad enough that Wrecker tried killing Omega, but he couldn't help protect her, either.

He failed just as much as Hunter did. He wasn't a good enough big brother to her; he wasn't strong enough to help. That's all Wrecker can do, though, blow stuff up and be strong. He'd be strong for his brothers; he didn't know what else he could do other than breaking something.

While Echo was preoccupied with Tech, Wrecker entered the small set-up they had for Hunter.

  "I got her bow," Wrecker said, hoping that'd help some. "We don't blame ya."

  "You never were a good liar," Hunter responded, noting the discomfort he'd caused. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

He didn't want to, but on some level, Wrecker did blame Hunter a little. He shouldn't; Wrecker didn't even manage against Fennec, let alone this Bane guy. It wasn't right. Wrecker didn't think that anybody was to blame.

  "Yeah, I know. You're upset; we're all upset. Things get said, fists fly, it's an outlet thing, innit?"

The hulking clone shifted himself onto the makeshift bed, alerting Hunter. He manoeuvred himself behind the Seargent, wrapping his big arms around his brother. Given that Hunter was injured, Wrecker didn't hold as tight as he wanted to. Holding someone made Wrecker feel a little better, though it wouldn't make up for the emptiness.

Without the energy to fight it, Hunter accepted the embrace, shivering from the overwhelming turmoil. His body rose and fell, moved by Wrecker's breathing, something to try and focus on.

As the moments flew by, salty warm wetness tapped onto Hunter's shoulder. The smell burned his sinuses, scratching into his own eyes, demanding to be quenched.

Echo joined them, sitting to Hunter's right and integrating into the bundle. Wrecker moved his arm to add Echo, pulling the trio closer together.

Hunter could see Echo was holding her trooper doll; she'd painted it to look like him.

With Omega gone, she didn't feel like just a friend. She didn't feel like a sister, either; it was more than that. He'd been following Cut's advice; he was an acting father figure to her.

Finally, after weeks of caring for the girl, it dawned on him. She was his daughter, his child. He was her father, guiding her and protecting her, who failed her.

Echo had dealt with loss before; it was a constant being a soldier and in the 501st. He watched his brothers die constantly; he was there was Cutup was eaten, as Droidbait was shot, and as Hevy blew up, and stood by as 99 perished valiantly. He couldn't be there for his twin, Fives, something that pained him daily.

The fact that Rex probably killed Anakin hurt too. Knowing how good the General was to the 501st, he didn't deserve that fate. As Ahsoka wasn't a Jedi, maybe she survived, his dorky togruta sister living her own life. She'd grown up so much since he died.

It was hopeful, as was the thought of seeing Omega again. He didn't know how, but Echo was determined to help get her back. They needed her back; she was one of them. If the stars aligned, they could rescue Crosshair, too.

Hunter had his brothers on all sides. Even with this secure sensation, the loss of his daughter did not waver. It grew like cancer with each second, his parched cheeks begrudgingly satisfied. A leader should not cry, a soldier shouldn't break down like this, but alas, they weren't soldiers anymore.

They were a family, an incomplete family.

He failed her once; Hunter won't let it be a second time. He'll get her back; he'll prove to have earned her trust. He'll kill the emperor if it means seeing those brown eyes bright with wonder and amazement again.

They all will.

[hectabdr]

Dragon Raja IV - Chapters 9 & 10 (Abridged)

Hi everyone, in today's update we start learning a little more about Johann's father and that vision that Luminous experienced.

Previous Chapters

Chapter 9

Luminous woke up in a white room. In front of him there was an old man in a white doctor's coat. He explained that once Luminous left the library, he fell and hit his head on the pavement, so his friends brought him to a hospital to check if he had a concussion. Behind the mirror, however, they were being watched by two psychiatrists, next to them, Nono and Finger observed as well. Luminous had to answer many questions, he answered as logically as he could. According to the lead doctor, this wasn't a good sign, a person who knows that they're suffering from some sort of mental disease will always make an extra effort to demonstrate their sanity and Luminous was definitely going the extra mile.

They actually brought him there after Finger threw a rock at his friend's head and knocked him out. Truth be told, they already suspected the doctor's diagnostic, their friend was schizophrenic. Luminous's tantrum didn't help his case either. The young S-Rank was yelling, then threatened the personnel to let him go and almost flipped the table. Minutes later, he was already constricted by a straitjacket, resting on a small hospital bed.

Trying to ignore the other patients with whom he shared a room, he slowly vanished under the effects of a sedative injection. As soon as his eyes closed, his body felt the cold sensation of heavy rain. He was in the number 0 highway all over again, trapped in that same vision, the one where Nono would die in minutes, yet the shadowy creatures were not trying to eat them alive, but frozen like statues, while a small figure walked among them. Carrying an oversized umbrella, the little devil greeted his brother and made an interesting contribution.

The dream that Luminous experienced was not simply a prediction, but a simulation of it, and as such, it could be experienced all over again. In fact, he could repeat the same scenario as many times as he needed to find the one where Nono would survive. It was like the "save" feature in a video game and there was no need to exchange a quarter of his life for this service.

-Odin, what is he?

-You could understand him as a dead soul, trapped in this Nibelungen. He possesses infinite power, yet for some reason, he couldn't leave this place for many years, until now.

Odin's restriction was about to end, after all, he managed to lock Nono with the Gungir lance and it was a matter of time before he could leave the Nibelungen to reach her. Once you're locked by the lance, you're doomed to die, however, it cannot be locked on the same target twice, since theoretically said target should be dead already. Therefore, the solution was simple, if Luminous managed to prevent the lance from hitting Nono, Odin wouldn't be able to try for a second time. According to Ming·Z, someone in the past already escaped the Gungir lance, he just didn't know how. Luminous would have multiple chances to find a way, with a clear objective in mind, he started the second round.

The scenario resumed and the creatures started moving towards them. The pair once again fought for their lives, with a big difference: Luminous performed exceptionally well. Being able to remember the behavior of the servitors allowed him to know exactly how and where to shoot them, leaving Nono speechless. She was particularly surprised when he blew up her car, since he forgot the part where they agreed to escape in the Maybach. Wasting time to explain his course of action, a servitor took advantage of their distraction and cut through Nono's neck with its hands, killing her in an instant.

He woke up in his hospital bed, extremely frustrated. Ming·Z·Lu left a phone in his bed with a message that invited him to try again. The only problem was that he couldn't fall asleep. Luminous threw tantrum after tantrum until the nurse came in and he requested another sedative injection, which surprised her. According to the doctors, these sedatives weren't addictive, so Luminous had little to no reason to want another one. He had to lie about his condition, saying that there were voices in his head yelling to one another. The nurse injected him again and he fell asleep, ready for his third attempt.

In the middle of the battle, he noticed that one of the servitors had a little number next to it, just like the stats in an RPG, and the creature was a "level 600 enemy". According to Ming·Z, a very strong regular human should have a combat level of 100, so this thing had six times the strength of a tai chi master. Enemies that strong should be avoided in close combat and shot from a distance instead. Odin's power level and other stats were displayed as a bunch of question marks. It was a sign of their abysmal difference in strength. When Luminous tried to analyze Ming·Z·Lu, his stats were hidden by question marks as well.

Chapter 10

Days later, Finger and Nono were drinking in Luminous's old bedroom, trying to figure out what to do next. They believed they understood the situation, their friend was mentally ill. He knew about this boy called Lu Mang, who died in an accident and he created an imaginary version of him. He projected most of his own accomplishments into this made up president of the Lionheart club and got two of his former classmates involved in his delusional quest.

Finger suggested giving Luminous back to the college, despite of the risk that it might represent to his safety. If they apologized for their actions and brought back the number one target of the secret party, they might have been able to get pardoned. Maybe Caesar could ensure his well being. Nono still insisted in analyzing the inconsistencies on everyone else's perspective on Luminous and Finger suggested that she just couldn't accept the truth of her sidekick's mental condition.

Finger's suggestion was tearing her apart on the inside, because she knew that she was supposed to be the one who suggested they give up on Luminous, then Finger would be offended and start defending his old roommate, this didn't make much sense, why was she the one who was hesitating? She expressed her disgust at his proposal and left Luminous's old house.

-Even if he's the disoriented puppy that you say he is, it's still mine! I'm the one who picked him up from the women's bathroom!

Meanwhile, Luminous just lost his 46th attempt at saving his former senior. After all of those attempts, he suffered 22 serious injuries, including 12 fractures, 7 deep wounds and 1 broken finger. His previous attempt was devastating, he managed to get in the car with Nono, but the death servitors lifted the car up in the air and they couldn't accelerate anymore. Nono was visibly terrified, while the creatures destroyed the vehicle, they sat down, waiting for their end to come.

Ming·Z tried to dissuade Luminous from pursuing Nono, or even saving her, but his brother refused. The little devil was confused about his brother's feelings and revealed that he had been writing a small webnovel inspired by the real life relationship between Luminous and Nono. His readers weren't particularly happy with her character and wanted her to be more clear about her intentions.

-I learned more about humans to understand the feelings that you have for your senior sister.

-Did you find your answer?

-Yes, your feelings are in all the wrong places.

-Nonsense!

Perhaps there was something he could do. Ming·Z couldn't stop the Gungir lance, but he would be able to kill Odin if Luminous was willing to trade his last quarter of life. As expected, Luminous refused, so he gave him another gift: he would provide him with any weapon he could ask for on his next attempts. Luminous asked for an apache helicopter but Ming·Z forced him to settle for something smaller, a bazooka.

The next round started and Nono freaked out when she saw Luminous's new rocket launcher, where did he get it from?

Back in the real world, Nono arrived at an abandoned building that belonged to the Media Asia Group. The boss of the Black Prince Group was an old acquaintance of hers, a devoted one at that, the same young man who lend her the red Ferrari: the young master Shao. His business card was enough to allow Nono to request information about an old employee: a man whose last name was Chu.

The middle aged man that guarded the old building was curious about this girl and her credentials. She went straight to the point and asked for the long deceased man, Mr. Chu. The guard recognized the surname immediately, his full name was Chu Tianjiao. Long ago they used to be colleagues and drank together from time to time.

Tianjiao was married to a dancer and had a young son, he wanted to earn more money, so he quit his job working as a driver for members of the taxation bureau and became the personal driver of a wealthy man, who owned the Maybach that Tianjiao drove every day.

Nono kept asking for more information, but there wasn't much to say, he loved spicy chicken wings and braised pork belly, he barely spoke unless it was to brag about simple things. But there was something more, Tianjiao lived in the factory, so she asked the man to take her to Tianjiao's room. In her way, she noticed a reflection in the window, powerful flames, but it only lasted a second.

Tianjiao's bedroom hadn't been opened for many years, but the air inside was surprisingly clean, just a little dusty. The furniture was simple, a double bed, a bedside table, a writing desk, a chair and a mini-refrigerator. Some strings in the corner of the room were used to dry his clothes and a jacket was hanged in them. This was everything that Chu Tianjiao had. Nono stepped in, asking to be left alone and she closed the door to allow her profiling ability to fill the missing details. She analyzed every aspect of the small place and came across a photograph. A family of three, a boy who was five at most, a woman with a bright smile and a man in a white shirt and woolen pants combing his hair, hugging his wife proudly. Was the boy Johann Chu? She couldn't recognize his face.

Nono sat down on the bed, closed her eyes and allowed her ability to put her in that man's shoes. She saw him, a man with no name arriving at the town for the first time, carrying nothing but a suitcase. He sat down at a food stand and ordered braised pork belly, but the vision was interrupted by the pain of heavy mental exhaustion. 

Her skills were demanding and she found herself trapped in that state, feeling like the was sinking in deep water as she desperately tried to escape. The experience sent her back to the Three Gorges Dam, where she almost died, a monster came to her aid and yelled "Don't die! don't die! don't die!"

She wasn't completely sure about how she survived on that mission. Caesar and Luminous put a story together, in which Norton approached the diving bell and attacked her, the dragon then attacked the Monach, where Caesar skillfully slayed the monster. Luminous brought her back to the boat, where she woke up in her boyfriend's arms.

But there was more to it, a monster, one that ordered her not to die and saved her with powers that broke the rules of the world she knew. Was that an illusion?

Nono felt the whole place trembling and got out of the room, outside, the rainfall had flooded the building and the whole structure was sinking in the muddy ground in which it was built. Nono tried to make her way out, she was trained for this, swimming as fast as she could, she got trapped by the tons of stored garbage and slowly passed out from suffocation until someone finally grabbed her wrist.

She woke up in an ambulance, where she discovered the identity of her savior: the boring middle-aged man that guided her to Tianjiao's room was in fact an olympic swimmer who almost joined the national team! He even had an 8-pack and all, Nono wondered, when did that old man become so interesting?

Anyway, while everyone clapped and celebrated the local hero, she contemplated the ruins of the sinking building. Her last connection to Chu Tianjiao was now lost.

In a simulated combat situation, inside of his dreams, Luminous was now on his 62nd attempt to save Nono. His routine was well practiced, not a single bullet was wasted. He pushed Nono back into the Maybach and prepared to fire the Bazooka at the death servitors, but the projectile exploded inside of the cannon, killing them both in the resulting explosion. Ming·Z excused himself for the defective product, after all, Luminous already used dozens of them so at least one could be expected to have some sort of flaw.

77th load, by this point he already managed to make it out oof the servitor battle and they drive deep into the highway. He tried to pass through the toll booths but accidentally hit a concrete isolation block.

He woke up again at the hospital and asked the nurse for another sedative. He had been sleeping for five or six consecutive days with the help of those injections, only waking up to eat and occasionally chat with his fellow patients. The nurse was growing suspicious of him but he faked a mental episode and the nurse ran away to ask for the doctor's instructions.

Finger showed up to visit him and brought some apples, he also reassured him about Nono's trust in him, informing Luminous of Chen's quest to find more clues about Johann's dad. They also found more about Chu's mother, who probably developed her psychological pregnancy after the death of her real son.

To lighten up the mood after the arrival of the nurses, Finger turned the TV on and they watched the news together. Apparently the airport was closed due to the incessant rains, and they were showing the departure of the last plane right before the lockdown, but something startled Luminous.

Odin's flames were reflecting in the water, the god swung his lance and the wind and water were quickly turned into a blade that cut through the airplane like butter. The airport was covered in flames and some of the passengers were injured.

Luminous tried to warn everyone in the hospital and begged them to call the police, but his apparent prediction meant nothing to them, after all, the footage shown in the news was a repetition from days before. They pushed him back into his bed and sedated him immediately.

Odin was indeed too much for regular humans, and he was about to start tormenting the city, just waiting to get out.

[kaediisarchive]

Final thoughts on the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie.

LOTS of spoilers under the cut! Do not look at this post if you don’t want to see spoilers!

And remember, this is all just my opinion. It’s not like an actual in-depth review because I’m not a film student; this is just my perspective on what I saw as a fan of this franchise.

POSITIVE

Sub-Zero and Scorpion were great. Opening fight was great.

“Eddy Tobias” namedrop lmao

I love the snow preceding Sub-Zero’s attack. Very foreboding.

Score is AWESOME. My favorite soundtrack is probably the one that plays when Sub-Zero is attacking them in the city towards the beginning.

Sonya rigging her house with a secret bunker and trap doors is smart and fits her character.

I like that the dragon logo has an integral meaning to the story.

Loved Jax vs Sub-Zero. Not mad about the origin change of Jax’s arms. I like that he had to work through his feelings of inadequacy and failure; people don’t just immediately bounce back after something that traumatic. I also like that his arcana manifests to protect Sonya rather than in the heat of battle. It shows his emotional priorities and what separates him from people like Kano who manifest their arcana in a fit of rage.

Sonya “Throw Hands on Sight” Blade lmfao. They nailed her fighting style too and I am happy.

Kano is the best thing about this movie. No competition.

Kotal reference!

Nightwolf reference!

Shang Tsung’s soul magic being black and wispy and foreshadowing Noob Saibot.

KANO DID THE HEART RIP

CHEKOV’S GNOME I’M SCREAAAAAAMMMMIIIIIINNNNGGGGGG

I love Liu Kang in this. He is 1000000% a Wholesome Boi. I like that he’s younger and unhardened and not the fully realized champion version of his character yet. Let him grow into it so it feels earned later on. I like that he’s the underdog, and I like what they’ve set up for him in the future. Also, the casting for him was perfect and they nailed his fighting style, too.

That little “the FUCK” that the Kano actor improvised(?) in the middle of Liu Kang’s lines made me laugh more than it should have. I don’t know why that moment got to me so much but it did.

I love Kung Lao. And they nailed his fighting style, too! Great to see variation that represents the characters (though there were less shining examples, which I’ll touch on later).

LOW SWEEP! LOW SWEEP! LOW SWEEP!

Egg roll scene is best scene.

Kabal! I love his dry humor. And his voice reminds me of Duke Nukem, which I’m not mad about. It complemented his dialogue well.

Not mad about Kung Lao’s death because it was meaningful. His fatality on Nitara was sick, too.

Liu Kang taking the ribbon from Kung Lao’s hat and wearing it in his honor, giving an origin for his signature headband is FANTASTIC.

THE PIT!

FLYING BICYCLE KICKS!

LIU KANG’S DRAGON FATALITY!

SONYA’S ENERGY RINGS!

Sub-Zero was a GREAT final boss. They really built him up appropriately to make him feel like it.

Scorpion’s fatality! And his skull face!

NEUTRAL

Not sure how I feel about Sub-Zero being wholly evil and there being no involvement from Quan Chi. It’s more straight forward for sure. It makes him an interesting (and badass) character, and I’m really behind this portrayal in that he is one of the most believable characters in the movie, but I’m not sure if I like the implications for later films in how this has simplified the dynamic in the entire Shirai Ryu vs Lin Kuei plotline. Having Quan Chi be the Machiavelli was always one of my favorite MK twists. And how do we eventually end the feud now? If Bi-Han / the Lin Kuei were wholly responsible, why should Hanzo EVER make peace with Kuai Liang down the line? The complexity feels like it’s been stripped down a bit, but I do love this iteration of Sub-Zero. I truly do. That’s why this is in the neutral category and not the negative XD.

Why didn’t Jax tell Cole when he saw the mark? Why wait until his family gets attacked? Maybe he didn’t want to do it in front of his family to keep them out of it, but that ends up endangering them more. Not a gripe, just a curiosity.

Sound editing was a bit too intense at times for my taste. I have tinnitus, so...big boomy bass with very mild voices is a chore for my ears to switch between. My ears were ringing within the first twelve minutes.

Torn between “fuck you Reiko” and “Reiko deserved better”. He deserved just a little bit better, but Skarlet says “get fucked” anyway.

I don’t like the “shaky cam” used in the fight scenes. Not my cup of tea. Very hard to visually process at times.

Whatever cosmic force is picking the champions for Earthrealm is doing a shitty job at it.

Why did they change the location of the Sky Temple to a desert? Again, not a gripe, a curiosity.

“We will not see another full moon before the tournament begins” THEN WHERE IS THE TOURNAMENT BUDDY???

Not sure how I feel about the “arcana” concept. It’s an okay plot device but kinda hammy.

Kitana’s fan! But why? Why is it there? I could understand the Kotal and Nightwolf references because Sonya has been researching, but why is Kitana’s fan randomly in an Earthrealm temple? Purely cheap fanservice.

Nitara was really cool. Shame she had to die, but her death was cool and there have to be some characters that get killed off. Wish she had more screentime though; feels like another instance of fanservice just having her show up basically as a namedrop and a quick kill.

The phrase “Are you okay?” was said WAY too much in this film. So much that I actually notices how often it was said, and I usually don’t pick up on these things.

Pretty sure a camera operator fell at one point in a Sonya scene because the camera jerked around violently all of the sudden then stabilized. Whoops.

How did Sub-Zero know to take Cole’s family to the gym? WHY did he take them there?

NEGATIVE

Opening scene was awesome, but it’s emotional impact felt stunted. I feel like the order of events should have been twisted a bit. Hanzo find his wife and son should have been the big emotional climax of the scene, but it felt like a passing moment and gave him no time to mourn and no time for the impact to truly set in with me. It was an “oh no they died” moment instead of an “ OH MY GOD THEY DIED THIS IS SO FUCKED FUCK YOU SUB-ZERO” moment. I dare say that the Legacy web series did it better in spite of their lower budget and overall quality; the series of events had better pacing and gave more emotional impact because of it. I said what I fucking said don’t @ me.

Wish we got more Scorpion. I love Sanada, I love him as Scorpion, but they didn’t give us the time we needed with his character to truly get a grasp of him.

Cole Young is like white bread in a parade of decorative cakes.

Raiden, a normally passionate and protective character whose fatal flaw is that he involves himself too much in events because he cares about the people in his realm and ends up fucking things up because of it, now seems to not care in the slightest. He feels completely uninvolved save for an occasional pop in to give a nod of disapproval. I don’t like this unemotional take on one of the most emotional characters in Mortal Kombat.

Small complaint from my perspective as a martial artist but uh...”Throw your uppercut!” was a bullshit line in a bullshit scene. If you’re locked up with someone like that and the guy has his arms around your neck, you physically cannot uppercut. You cannot fit your arms between his arms because they are cinched tightly around your shoulders/neck. YOUR HEAD is between your fist + bicep and HIS HEAD. In that situation, the guy has also left his body completely unguarded, so the most logical thing to do since you CANNOT reach his head is to go for BODY BLOWS. Beat him until he lets go to protect himself, catch his floating rib with double strikes, or punch the dude in his fucking liver as hard as you can to DROP HIM. Cole is supposed to be an experienced fighter, yet he makes one of the most rookie mistakes a fighter could ever make. Normally I wouldn’t care to point out mistakes in fight choreography or whatever because it’s MK and I expect ridiculousness, but this is the WRONG kind of ridiculous. It’s just NONSENSE.

I have SO MANY issues with Mileena. I’ll make this as short as I can. I don’t like the design of her mouth. I don’t like her weird stacked voice. She shows NO personality, not in her acting or even her fighting style, just an evil minion that got angry because she almost got her ass kicked. The turned one of the principle characters of the entire franchise and a fan favorite into a GRUNT. There is NO mention of Kitana outside of literal “fan”-service. Not even a reference to one of the most important plotlines in all of Mortal Kombat. And then they KILL HER OFF!!! When they do inevitably bring in Kitana WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY GOING TO DO SINCE THEY KILLED OFF MILEENA???? I’m heated and biased and they did my girl dirty.

Speaking of doing characters dirty, poor Reptile. They turned him into an actual animal. What a waste.

Why are they so mean to Sonya if she doesn’t have a mark? She wouldn’t be as much of a “liability” if they would take the time to prepare her and teach her how to defend against fighters that have unlocked their arcana. Mind-numbingly stupid logic.

This movie relies A LOT on prerequisite knowledge to work. It’s like they want fans to fill in the blanks for them. But not everyone watching is already a fan; this isn’t an obscure release, this is a blockbuster movie released worldwide. These gaps in lore and prior knowledge don’t make sense for such a broad audience.

Cole Young literally could have just been Johnny Cage.

Where was Raiden when his temple was being assaulted?

Cole’s arcana is LITERAL PLOT ARMOR IM FUCKING DONE

No but for real that’s the most boring decision they just ripped off Jax’s MK11 heater effect and Baraka’s blades (I know they’re tonfa and they aren’t attached and I DON’T CARE). Also, now he’s suddenly good at fighting again? After being dog shit this entire movie??? And tanks Goro?????

If Raiden is an Elder God in this continuity, why is he allowed to help Earthrealm AT ALL? It seems like favoritism and bends the rules that the Elder Gods are supposedly bound by way too much. They really just shouldn’t have made him an Elder God; I honestly think they just said it to introduce the concept without a fuck given towards the actual lore of the Elder Gods.

WHY DID RAIDEN TELEPORT KANO TO SONYA’S HOUSE AFTER HE BETRAYED THEM I HAD TO REWATCH THAT SEVERAL TIMES TO MAKE SURE I JUST SAW WHAT I SAW  WHAT THE ACTUAL NONSENSICAL FUCK

Cole REALLY should not have been involved in that last fight. Especially not after Scorpion shows up. It should have been Scorpion vs Sub-Zero ONLY for the final fight. Cole tag-teaming Sub-Zero with Scorpion cheapens Scorpion’s revenge.

Camera work in the final fight was not good, especially in the first portion. At one point Cole gets thrown into a fence, but it cuts to an awkward inverse angle that makes him look like he’s bouncing off of a trampoline. This continues to happen and ruins several shots for me.

Honestly Scorpion should have just possessed Cole. Permanently. No switching back and forth. No more Cole, only Scorpion.

PREDICTIONS

Lots of dead characters come back as revenants and / or with upgrades.

Kano comes back with cyber eye.

Mileena comes back with full teeth.

Liu Kang becomes MK champion, wins tournament, and kills Shang Tsung. As it should be.

Cole Young helps Liu Kang become champion somehow idk maybe he sacrifices himself or something just please don’t make Cole the champion I will start a riot.

Next movie will start IMMEDIATELY at the tournament since there was supposedly less than a month until the tournament starts in this movie.

New characters coming in will be Kitana, Shao Kahn, Jade, Quan Chi, Kuai Liang, Noob Saibot, Ermac, and Johnny Cage.

OVERALL

This movie was good, bloody fun! It’s not an A++ Oscar-winner, but if you expected that going into it, you played yourself. It was Mortal Kombat; it was stupid, it was gory, and I had a blast watching it. Kano and Liu Kang were the best parts of the movie for me, with Scorpion and Sub-Zero tied for third. Also I popped a lot for the cheap nostalgia hits. I’m overall satisfied with what we got in spite of my complaints, and I only complain so in-depth about the things I love lmao so trust me when I say I’m not actually mad, just nitpicky. I’ve watched it twice now, and I would watch it again. It’s like a 6.8/10 for me.

[iit-s-kitty]

"My problems with Rise of Skywalker, because fuck being neutral this movie was a crime"

Written by a disappointed Star Wars fan that happens to ship Reylo, and who will most likely ends up rewriting this mess in her fanfiction

The ridiculous fast pace: seriously, this movie feels like the project you forgot to do on holidays and the due date is tomorrow, so you're just doing the "important plot points": The Palpatine plot? Check. The Rey's parents plot? Check.

The lack of closure for the character's storylines: throughout the sequels it was stablished storyline that allowed for the development of different characters. For example, Finn learning that escaping is NOT the way of opposing the First Order, Poe learning to be the leader the Resistance needs, Han coming back in order to face that what became of Ben's was equally his fault as well as Snoke's, and the most important ones being Rey and Ben's journey. Here? All forgotten. Suddenly we erased whatever happened in the last two movies and give everything for granted, because no one gives a fuck about what happened. Poe is the same as he was, Finn is still hung up on Rey and exhibits no personality of it, Rey has no sequels of what happened in Ach-To at the cave or in the Throne Room with Kylo, and speaking of which...

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED WITH KYLO? We cut the last movie on the biggest cliffhanger for this character: he had killed his master in order to gain more power (ironically surpassing Darth Vader... Only that Kylo did it in order to protect Rey, something he wasn't looking for and ended up wanting her at his side), became the Supreme Leader and witnessed the almost complete wipeout of the Resistance as well as Luke's demise. Yet to him it meant nothing because the only person that managed to connect with him decided to stick to her own path and giving an open door to the redemption arc. The logical step was having him as this ultimate boss they all had to defeat, The Supreme Leader... That would progressively become more and more disenchanted with it. Snoke is gone, his abuser is finally gone but what can he do about it? He still has all this rage, all this pain. Think of Zuko when he finally "regained" his honor by supposedly killing the Avatar, yet he felt it wasn't worth anything because he had betrayed the only person that cared for him, in Kylo's case it would be the "death" of Leia, the lack of closure on his part with Luke, Han's death and of course, Rey turning his back on him. What does RoS do? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Sure, Kylo does redeem himself but the way of doing so...

What the hell with Kylo's redemption? Sure, it happened but the execution was awful. If Kylo was to be redeemed it needed to be EARNED. I'll take again Zuko's example: Zuko not only faced remorse that he was lying to the face of everyone and that Azula could rat him out, it all felt empty because all these people had never cared for him, unlike Iroh did— and now Iroh was imprisoned, starving and humiliated in the deepest cell of the Fire Nation because of him. Sure, he regained his honor, but it comes to a point where he himself said it: "I'M MAD AT MYSELF, because I can't tell the difference between right and wrong anymore". Then, he learns of what his grandfather Sozin did to the Avatar, his best friend, and he knows what to do: the only way to truly regain his honor is to right what his family did wrong and help Aang bring balance. He tells Ozai (which funny enough is voiced by Mark himself) a beautiful "The reason you suck" speech and goes out of the palace to help the Gaang and... They don't want him there. They're ready to kill him on the spot because of all Zuko made him went through and Zuko does NOTHING to stop them. He fully accepts the guilt of what he did and shows with actions that he truly means to redeem himself and train Aang. And even then he faces suspicion and prejudice by the whole Gaang at first. Then, on the Sozin's Comet he helps them by defeating Azula with Katara and helping in the search for Aang, and becomes Fire Lord by the end of the series, intending to start a new Era of peace with Aang's help.

What I'm trying to say here is that, if they were trying to redeem Kylo, fine, do it! I know that the fans of the character (which aren't few) and fans of ships like Reylo were rooting for a redemption of Kylo. But if that route was the one to be taken, then Kylo had to, as we say here in my country, "go through a fuck ton of work to do so". He would first need to doubt whether this was the true path for him (something he was already doing), see the true extent of what the First Order was doing, throw a few punches with him and Leia's relationship as well as his relationship with Rey. They needed to work on his reasons to switch to the Light side of the Force in order to do the redemption and yes, we could say they did it with the Reylo, which I'm a fan of. But it was rushed, sloppy, it wasn't earned ffs.

Leia, Han, Luke, and the whole treatment of the original trio in this shtick: I know, I know that Carrie Fisher is dead and everytime I remember it, I kid you not, I cry because she was a wonderful woman that showed me that despite my mental illness I could still do something worthwile with my life, that I could take the pain to do something beautiful with it. And Leia is a wonderful example of a female character. I know that because of Carrie's death they couldn't do a lot with the character— but that is not an excuse then they put a woman on CGI with her face in order to give "closure" to her character, and I'm sorry but if that was closure for Leia then I'm princess Diana. Leia was Kylo's mother, if someone was rooting for Ben to come back then it was her (as well as Rey, but that's something I'll discuss later) and if someone deserved to have a final moment with him, to see him come back, IT WAS HER. Let me explain, as I said before, even the members of the original trio had a journey of their own here: Han's was trying to reach out for a son he didn't always treat right (if not that he outright feared him) and take responsibility as a father; Luke's was coming to terms with what he did, come out of his depression and acknowledge that Ben can indeed come back as well as to take responsibility for his mistakes. Leia's, given her role as a mother figure throughout this trilogy as well as a leader for the rebellion, was learning to accept the help of a new generation and to guide them, as well as trying to reach for her son in order to make him see the true path. If Kylo is Zuko, then Leia is Iroh here (someone should make a fanart of Kylo apologizing to Leia like Zuko did with Iroh btw). But NOPE, her only purpose is to die so that REY has to have compassion for Ben and then let HAN, OF ALL PEOPLE, reach out for Ben. The whole last movies were building for a moment with Kylo and Leia, to have either a confrontation or a reunion and even if they had the means to do so despite Carrie's death, they gave us nothing. Zero. Nada. Leia died being a prop to Rey and not even her arch with the Resistance was closed. What a rip-off!

Why the hell do we have to bring the Emperor back? No, really, fans of Star Wars— why do we have to bring Sheev Palpatine back and WHY did it have to be the way it was handled? You want to him back? Okay, do so, BUT NOT IN A WAY THAT UNDERMINES ANAKIN'S STORY. By bringing Palpatine in a "he was always alive" fashion, not only do we open the door to a fuck ton of plot-holes, but we shit on the entire Original Trilogy and the journey of Anakin Skywalker. He died for nothing, yes, he saved his son— but the Galaxy was still on the clutches of this monster, HIS FAMILY WAS STILL IN DANGER BECAUSE OF HIM. Heck, as much as I think the EU was a mess with overated or downright badly written characters (cofcofMaraJadecofcof) the whole "The Emperor has a clone as a failsafe and thus come back" was a better way to bring him back. You wanted to make Rey the relative of someone important? Make her the Emperor's clone, the future vessel a le Sasuke and Orochimaru— BUT DON'T GIVE ME THIS SHIT.

Also, if Luke knew so well where the Emperor was hidden that he even made a MAP to him, why didn't he grab Leia (who's now an even better Jedi than he was, apparently), went to Exegol and beated the shit out of his old butt? IT WOULD'VE SURELY BEEN MORE BADASS THAN THIS.

Rey is now a damn Mary Sue: coming back to the theater with my friends, we joked that Rey is the maid of your grandfather that ends up being the one is given everything after your grandpa's death.

The last movie, Rey was given the harsh truth as well as us: not only were her parents pieces of shit that never cared about her, thus not coming back— but us, as viewers, were given the truth that there was no mystical lineage of heroes to explain her powers, that she was just... A nobody. She was the underdog, the Foil to Kylo's ascendancy of heroes and villains and all around famous people. Rey had always dreamed that her blood family would come back, that someone else would come and sweep her away from her personal hell— only to learn, from someone like Kylo, that no one was going to do so except for her. And it was a fucking amazing character arc!

But reddit theorist don't care about any of that. SHE CAN'T BE THAT POWERFULL UNLESS SHE IS SOMEONE'S DAUGHTER! And thus, we shit on the last two movies, her character and her development in order of pleasing people that couldn't stand her being the Jedi of the trilogy in first place.

Not only are her parents now tragic heroes that tried to save her (then why LEAVE HER WITH SOMEONE LIKE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE? 👀), but the worst part is that they try to give us a "the family you make is more important than the one that birthed you" by her taking on the Skywalker name. Despite having her entire relationship with Ben going back to nothing on this movie and only kissing him at the end.

AND EVEN IF SHE TOOK ON HIS NAME, IT WOULD'VE BEEN "REY SOLO". ARE THEY EVEN LOOKING AT WHAT THEY'RE WRITING?

Rey deserved better than to be the fullfilment of dudebro's complaints and reddit theories.

This movie pulls ALL the punches: say whatever you want about The Last Jedi, but that movie had BALLS unlike Rise of Skywalker. C3PO can lose his memories in order to help the Resistance? DON'T WORRY, HE HAS A BACK UP. Chewie might be dead because of Rey, and thus opening the door for interesting character development as well as an emotional moment for us all? FUCK THAT NOISE, HE WAS ON ANOTHER SHIP. And now, Rey is a Palpatine, Ben dies because WHY THE FUCK NOT, and thus we ensure a narrative so paint by the numbers that would leave everyone happy, right?

The whole fucking Sequel Trilogy was about making a new path, taking risks and opening a new age— even if that meant to let go of the past (heck, it is said in TLJ). See it for yourself: TFA has a Stormtrooper deflecting, the death of HAN SOLO, and a woman who is a nobody being more powerful than the grandson of Anakin Skywalker; TLJ almost kills Leia, they tell us that Luke is responsible for Ben going to the Dark Side of the Force because of his paranoia, the Rebellion is left in shambles, Rey learns that her parents were alcoholics and are dead, and Luke sacrifices himself.

"But Leia died—" Leia died because Carrie is dead, Karen. Otherwise I bet you that she would've lived like Lando did.

We're so feminist and woke!... Or are we?: let's see: Rose Tico, because bigoted morons are a big sector of this fandom sadly, almost doesn't appear in this movie. In fact, she doesn't even talk to Finn despite the fact that the last movie build up to them being love interest.

They introduce us to the character of Zorrie, who appears like an old flame of Poe but doesn't stop her to being a person that would put herself above others— even if it means to throw them under the bus. That would make for an interesting character! But nope, she is only there to be an exposition bot for Poe and making him look good.

They introduce us to Jannah, a woc that like Finn, used to be a Stormtrooper and has fled the First Order and went into hiding, alongside people like her because of the sheer fear they have of being found. That would make for a kick ass plot were they regain their fight spi— but no, she's only there to make Finn look special.

This movie (and like many Disney live actions) appears to be "woke" in order to ensure a better box office, but that is— they look the part but don't exactly play the part. They only use this movements in order to further their own sales— they don't care about representation because, with what they did to Rose, they show you that the moment representation stops selling tickets they'll throw it out of the window.

If you agree and have more to say.

[ultravioletsoul]

Can you rank your fave CoD antagonists?

Hello there nonny, sorry for taking so long to reply and thank you for your ask ♥♥

Rank my favorite CoD antagonists? Sure, I can do that! There are several antagonists in the series, but I’ll only rank my top 3. Hope that is okay with you c:

3. Jonathan Irons

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Advanced Warfare may not be a series as popular as BO or MW, but I actually enjoyed the game and I also liked Irons. Honestly, I don’t think we’ve gotten that many antagonists that started out as our allies in CoD (at least I don’t remember any others atm), much any less an American antagonist, so that kinda made him stand out to me.

I’m not familiar with Kevin Spacey’s works, and I barely watched any trailers pre-release. So to see Irons go from someone who I believed genuinely wanted to make the world a better place, where every human being could live in peace and thrive, away from the pointless wars that governments waged, to someone who was willing to use any means necessary to achieve his goals, regardless of how many lives he had to sacrifice... well, that was something that hit me hard.

This man who gave my character a second chance, who treated me (Mitchell) as his son, who cleaned up after the colossal mess that others countries made, helped people from devastated war-zones rebuild their lives and gave them hope for the future, turned out to be someone I was forced to betray because of different viewpoints and philosophies. Despite everything, I think Irons had his heart in the right place, but his methods were ultimately terrible and in his messianic delusions he ended up doing more harm than good, so of course he had to be stopped.

And what I liked about him was that he didn’t start out as a bad man, he didn’t do all those things because of greed, and his characterization wasn’t that of a cartoonish villain. In a way I could find logic in his arguments, he made a few good points about the current state of the world and the inability (or indifference) of many politicians to solve the real problems of the people. But the root of it all lies in the loss of his son, his only child, to a government he no longer trusted nor had any faith in doing what was right. Despite having served in the military in his youth, Irons had grown disillusioned at the way the US handled domestic and international policy, and strongly disagreed with them— opposing the status quo in favor of change. 

One could argue that serving in the military was entirely Will’s choice all along, and as a grown adult he knew what he was getting himself into. Still Irons couldn’t help but think that if that war had never happened, Will would still be alive. So that left him with a bitter taste, and it served as the catalyst behind his actions.

If nobody else would bother to do anything to actually solve the world’s problems, then he would be the savior to do it— whether they liked it or not. And he didn’t care what methods he had to use, how many had to die, or if he had to plunge the world into total chaos before he could ultimately end all wars and bring everlasting “peace” (perhaps one of the greatest ironies) as his dream seemed to be. Even at the cost of such a high price.

I don’t think Irons gets the credit he deserves.

2. Raúl Menéndez

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BO2 is one of my favorite games and Raúl is undoubtedly one of the most memorable antagonists in the series. Much like Irons, his actions were heavily motivated by the loss of a loved one but his life is also one sad story, so it’s no wonder he turned out the way he did. Not to justify him, but it’s not hard to understand what led him to do all those things.

From a very young age, his life was destroyed by the actions of Americans, from the horrors of the dictatorship in Nicaragua (in which the Contras were supported by the US); the crippling and disfigurement of his young sister Josefina, due to the greed of an American owner who burned down a warehouse in order to obtain 11,000$ through insurance fraud. After losing everything during an earthquake, and becoming homeless, Raúl and his father started over by selling drugs, successfully establishing a cartel that was so powerful in Nicaragua that they were equally feared and admired among the people.

But this status and power they had newly acquired concerned the US government, and it wasn't long before they sanctioned an assassination order on Raúl's father and sent the CIA in to kill him. Raúl observed it all, a teenager back then, and managed to escape thanks to his father's training. Though he could do nothing to stop it, nothing to save his father, this event marked him and further embittered him against the US and the West. And the last straw was the unfortunate death of Josefina, at the hands of Woods. He lost his sister, the only living relative he had, and his world fell apart. But if we think about it, Raúl was indirectly responsible for her death too, after the horrible torture he put Woods through in Angola. So the next time Woods saw Raúl he lost his mind and threw the grenade that tragically bounced into Josefina's bedroom and killed her.

So he spent all his life orchestrating a huge plan, a brilliant plan, that would shake the US from the very ground. And he was damn charismatic while executing it, earning the support and approval of billions of people all around the world— even from those who lived in US soil!— to begin a world revolution and end the dominance of capitalist nations that had subjugated other weaker countries, amassing huge riches through market economy and wars for resources, destroying lives and sinking many in poverty. And he also manipulates and pits two superpowers against each other... sending everyone to the brink of another world war, or a second cold war at best.

He wanted revenge on the US for playing with the lives of other people, for taking everything he loved away from him, by making them live in fear and destroying everything they had built. He wanted them to feel the same pain, to suffer the way he did. And he wouldn't rest until he achieved that because he had nothing to lose anymore.

Depending on the outcome, he can get revenge on Woods for Josefina, as well. And though we all like it when the "good" guys prevail and foil the plans of the villain, I think this particular ending had a much deeper and stronger emotional impact. The conversation they have at the end is something I didn't expect. Raúl has come to kill Woods but they're both in a place where the years have beaten them down with the weight of they’ve done and rather than an over the top scene, what we’re given is quite the opposite of that. 

There’s no screaming, no heated argument between them, no dramatic lines. It’s just two old men who had to live with what they’ve done, and who have come to terms with the inevitability of that moment. Raúl slits Woods’s artery with Josefina’s pendant, and then he does something that surprised me: he closes Frank’s eyes, takes him off the wheelchair and lies his body on the bed. Something that is a huge contrast with what he did to Hudson many years ago... the savagery he used when killing him. For Raúl to behave that way with Woods, the man he considered to be his sister’s killer, it raises the question as to whether he still hated Woods after all these years, or maybe deep down he finally acknowledges that his actions (namely torturing Woods and killing his whole team) was the true motive that led to Josefina’s death.

The thing is, Raúl knows that he's to blame for what happened. It's also the reason why he burns himself alive in front of Josefina's grave. It’s because he has to pay for what he's done to her, too, and he chose to do it in probably the most horrible way possible but it didn’t matter to him. Nothing was more painful than living with the knowledge that his sister died because of what he did.

To him Josefina was the true innocent soul, who didn't deserve any of the suffering she went through.

1. Vladimir Makarov

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It’s no secret that Vladimir is my most favorite antagonist (and character) in all of Call of Duty.

Though his background and motives weren’t as well developed and explained as those of other antagonists in the series, his untold story (which you won’t find anywhere in the game, though you can deduce if you have a basic idea of the situation before and after the fall of the Soviet Union) perhaps says a lot more about him than one might expect.

There’s not a lot we know about his past other than the meager information that was provided in some loading cutscenes, but it’s reasonable to think that Vladimir wasn’t always the trashbag that we see in the games. He once was a young man with dreams of patriotism, who wanted the best for his country, who loved Russia with his soul, and who would do anything to protect her, because as a soldier that was what he was taught to do. As a soldier, that was his purpose in life and without that reason to drive him on, he had nothing left.

And however vague his backstory may seem to be, it gives you an idea that Vladimir in a way was a victim of a system that imparted a type of soft indoctrination on him, from a very young age (as many states do all around the world in some form or another, even those who hold democratic values), all the way to his education in the military academy and his brutal training in the special forces, that further cemented this undying love for Russia, maybe in a way that bordered brainwashing.

His true radicalization came after the fall of the Soviet Union with the loss of his homeland and the Soviet culture as he knew it, as well as Russia becoming weak and losing much of her power and influence across the world. Then came his deployment in Chechnya in 1994, where he lived the horrors of a war that most likely left him psychologically scarred after the experiences he had to go through. And when he returned home, he was kicked out of the armed forces under accusations of human rights violations during the First Chechen War. And they may be true, he probably did a lot of bad things there (under the illusion that he was serving his country for a higher cause), and sadly it’s something commonplace in many armed conflicts. I’m going to leave this short post here for some details on that.

When he returned from war, he didn’t receive any professional help or if he did, it didn’t work. He didn’t know how to cope, he ultimately was unable to adapt to a normal life, he became a misfit. He had lost his job, he had a stain in his career, and finding a decent way to get by was very difficult at the time when the country was in the middle of a political, social, and economic crisis.

He was in financial ruin, and it was hunger that pushed him to become a criminal (something that wasn’t uncommon for ex military men in 90s Russia). Not just that but also hatred for those in power as well as society as a whole, and what they represented: total decadence and the reason why Russia was falling apart with these “stupid” western conceptions about freedom that in his eyes did nothing but give leeway for debauchery and corruption, which he ultimately sought to “fix” by returning Russia to what it used to be (a god-fearing empire under the autocratic rule of a tsar that was likened to a father to all his subjects, and where religion was used as a resource to legitimize his power and as a moral regulator that maintained the social order).

He pretty much felt abandoned, betrayed by his government— a leadership that had done nothing but sink Russia deeper and deeper into ruin, destroying the values under which he was raised and turning people like him into cynical masses that had lost faith in everything and were adrift without any real purpose in life, no future to look forward to, completely disillusioned that the dreams they’d bought into, the promises they had been sold by the west, were nothing but lies.

He’s still a piece of garbage, we know that, but I also think that he’s gone through a lot of struggles and bad experiences in his youth that marked him and filled him with resentment. Everyone sees Vladimir as the puppet master of the storyline of MW, and we have to give him credit for that, but deep down he’s just a man who has been a slave to his own obsessions and ambitions, unable to free himself from the hatred that has poisoned his mind for years, which led him to commit so many atrocities and strip himself from any semblance of humanity— all for the sake of a higher cause, as he undoubtedly tried to justify his actions at the end of the day.

In conclusion, all three were marked by losses in one way or another, and saw themselves as men who had to take the hard path and do what had to be done. And it’s also curious that Call of Duty, while not a game with any deep meaning on the surface, almost seems like social commentary on how war ruins lives and how anyone can do horrible things if put through the wringer enough times. It’s like these stories are trying to say that bad circumstances can make bad men out of seemingly good people, who wouldn’t have done any of the evil they did if maybe things had been different.

And I think that’s what makes these characters so interesting.

[natsubeatsrock]

Is Stain’s ideal for heroes being accomplished?

“Hero” should not be a title given to those seeking reward and recompense, but one earned through tireless self-sacrifice. The heroes of this era are pretenders who misrepresent themselves. Only through a relentless purge can society be made aware of this truth.

Stain may be the third most important villain in MHA, behind only Tomura Shigaraki and All for One. He was only around for two arcs, but his influence stretches well beyond the Work Study arc he was captured in. Explanation Point made a great video touching on the challenge to the capitalist society Stain presents.

Though, there is a point about him I’ve seen thrown around him: his core ideas of heroes doing good for the wrong reasons isn’t fully or properly addressed once the arc ends. I don’t think this is as simple an issue as people seem to make it out to be. The issue is kind of tricky and I’ve come up with three different responses to this based on three questions I want to answer: “Is the world where Stain wanted it?”, “Is the world coming closer to Stain’s ideal?”, and “Is Stain’s ideal realized in heroes other than All Might and Deku?”

You’ll notice I’ve left out a discussion of whether or not Stain’s ideals for heroes are good. As I’ll mention later, Stain’s ultimate ideal for heroes isn’t one that is bad and that is recognized in universe. Thankfully, it’s generally agreed that this was a good ideal handled in a terrible way. I don’t want to have to argue otherwise.

Question #1: Is the world where Stain wants it?

Answer: No

When I see people talk about “Stain not doing much to influence much”, this is where I see most people getting at. The world Stain envisioned isn’t where the current world is. As slow as wide-scale social change usually takes, it’s not as if serious events can’t force that kind of change quickly. (muffled cough) If there was a big change on the villains side because of Stain, why didn’t that happen on the heroes side?

I feel that this perspective misses a really obvious problem with Stain: he was trying to achieve his ideal by killing people. I don’t say that in a “he wanted something good but people died in the process” way. He wanted to achieve a world with altruistic heroes by killing... basically every other kind of hero. This is a major pillar in his philosophy.

On the villain side, it makes sense that he’d inspire people. He gives many villains the impression that they’re more justified in being villains than heroes are stopping them. If the biggest pressure for heroes to change comes from someone literally titled “The Hero Killer”, it’s not shocking to see little if any change happen immediately.

Immediately being the key issue. The world may improve in this regard and heroes may come to be more altruistic as a whole. For now, it has a ways to go before it gets there. Though, that’s more about question 2.

Question #2: Is the world coming closer to Stain’s ideal? 

Answer: Slowly...

Before the Provisional Hero License Exam begins, Mera makes the point about Stain’s views permeating through the world and the image of heroes as professionals is being put in lower regard. He uses this ultimately to discuss whether it’s good for heroes to be paid for their work. However, there is an obvious sense in which there is a widespread recognition that the way things are in the hero world can’t stay the same.

Though this was an idea brought forth by Stain, the thing I believe caused a response from higher-ups is the retirement of All Might. Now that the Symbol of Peace is gone, the government recognizes the ways it’s lacking and that it needs to change. They even mention this as they discuss the philosophy behind the activities for the exam. The world of heroes has to adapt to a world without All Might, whether they want to or not.

For many, part of this involves looking back and seeing some logic to Stain’s ideal. Obviously, Stain was wrong to kill heroes and no one who isn’t a villain questions that. However, the greatest hero is gone, and he was the only (pro) hero Stain respected. Is there a reason to trust the heroes left?

Especially considering the guy who took his place wasn’t considered a true hero by Stain? Remember, Endeavor was at the scene where the video footage was taken and Stain wasn’t a fan of him. (To be fair, neither were most people at that point in the series.)

It seems that the obsession for glory and money is only a more recent trend in heroism. All Might came from a time where heroes had those altruistic views Stain admires in him and those values seemed to fade as time passed on. It’s why he starts Deku out by cleaning Takoba Beach. Even before Stain, there was a recognition of the world being overrun by heroes with the wrong drives and a need to return to more virtuous motives for being a hero.

As early as chapter two.

What’s happening now is that idea is spreading to more people. Shishikura has a similar desire of not wanting heroes to be terrible. Of course, it’s wrong to say that he’s on the mark about his goal either. His teacher says it’s not wrong for him to be influenced by Stain and tries to prevent him from going on a bad route.

As I said, these kinds of changes usually take a lot of time. It makes sense that we’re only seeing seeds planted for a better society. The world will hopefully see more heroes who are altruistic and aren’t seeking more fame and fortune.

Question #3: Is Stain’s ideal realized in heroes other than All Might and Deku?” 

Answer: Yes.

Were it not for my exceptions this would be a simple discussion about how All Might and Deku are already the type of hero Stain would have wanted. Stain has acknowledged both as worthy heroes in their own right. Instead, I want to focus on a few heroes whose motivations have changed over the course of the series.

You might be shocked by my first example for this. However, I think we got an interesting example of this in Ochako Uraraka. While ultimately altruistic, her initial motivation is to make money. I doubt Stain would treat Uravity’s reasons as little else than a sob story. (”Make money doing something else!”)

Though, her ultimate goal has been to work as a rescue hero like No. 13. Since the Overhaul arc, the money aspect seems to have taken a back seat to rescuing people. After seeing Nighteye die, she’s redoubled her commitment to save people. And, in the Joint Training arc, we see that this includes saving heroes like Nighteye and Deku.

One of the first pro heroes we’re introduced to is Mt. Lady. We learn very early on that her motivation in being a hero is exactly the kind of thing that Stain hated: money, fame, and glory. She’s motivated by the perks of being a pro hero as opposed to doing the good work involved with it. In the anime, Mineta’s work study with her involves maid work. Compare that with Jiro’s work study with her partner Death Arms which involves on-field experience.

However, we start to see a change in her starting with the mission to rescue Bakugo. Originally, she wishes to be part of the flashier job of stopping the League members, as opposed to arguably the more important job of destroying the Nomus, which Best Jeanist calls her out on. Later, as Midoriya’s plan goes off, Mt. Lady steps up to stop the League from recapturing Bakugo. Here she says they ought to prioritize the mission.

Later on in the manga, she helps teach a special class in handling the media. Of course, it’s easy to see that and question how much she’s grown. However, her instruction is about how interviews can help other people, whether they’re heroes, villains, or civilians. The change in demeanor isn’t lost in Mineta.

Here’s where it’s worth mentioning that both my examples so far don’t have direct connections to Stain. Neither were involved in the Hosu incident, pre-occupied with work-study stuff around the same time. As far as we can tell, their changes were more influenced by other events than anything Stain did directly.

Not so with Endeavor.

I think people discount or ignore the impact Stain has had on him. Imagine how Endeavor would feel after meeting with him. After the fact, people will credit you for taking him down. Not only isn’t that true and credit ought to be given to a bunch of high school students. He’s told you to your face that the guy you’ve been spending years trying to beat is the only real hero.

It’s important that Endeavor was present to see the fall of Stain. This is an important moment in his arc towards betterment. It’s not just that doing things the way he is makes him a hero who isn’t considered on the same level as All Might. He’s not considered by some to be a legitimate hero.

That’s why it’s such a big deal that he goes to All Might to figure out what the Symbol of Peace really means when he becomes the de facto top hero. It’s not just a matter of what it means to be the top hero. It’s a matter of becoming a hero worthy of the title itself. 

However, in all of these cases, these are works in progress. And only three at that. This isn’t the world of heroes Stain seems to idealize. The hope is that with good schooling and important events, current and future pro heroes will create a society where fame and fortune aren’t the reasons people become heroes.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Costras del Corazón

Fandom: One Piece Rating: Teen Genre: Angst/Family Character: Law

What do you do when you find out something about a man who died thirteen years ago - something that might change everything you thought you knew about him - while trying to sort out what to do next with your life because you hadn't planned past the point you expected to die?

Law was happy to be back on the Polar Tang. While he was admittedly not free from his bizarre allies with approximately half of them now travelling as his guests, there were certain perks to the situation.

First off, he was in charge. The more sensible Straw Hats had looked to him for leadership when without their captain in Dressrosa (by which he means Nico Robin at least had the grace not to abandon him to the whims of Cavendish until he gave her the okay), but there was something satisfying about knowing that when he issued an order, it would be followed. There was no more fear of being overridden in his planning by something as simple as his fellow captain's hunger; while his crew were not afraid to voice their own opinions (he still remembered the dispute over their delay in entering the Grand Line, and let's not even start on convincing them to leave him alone on Punk Hazard with no back up), they at least still did whatever he ordered.

Secondly, and right now most importantly, he had his own room. It was a blissful paradise he had never quite managed to fully appreciate before his weeks travelling first on the Thousand Sunny and then, although not as torturous, on the Luffy-Senpai-Go (that was still a ridiculous name and he couldn't even begin to fathom how Mugiwara-ya had been able to stand that level of fanaticism aimed at him).

His own room. His own bed.

As much as he had planned to stick to the deck to keep watch on Caesar, the Straw Hats had had other ideas. Even if you excluded the obvious – their captain literally catapulting him into the men's quarters and onto a bunk – several other members of the crew had their own creative methods. It wasn't worth paying the extortionate fee that Nami-ya imposed for refusal and Nico-ya… well, he had been later informed by a tearfully sympathetic Robo-ya that he was not the first male to be on the receiving end of her inventive uses of her devil fruit when she wasn't immediately obeyed. At least Tony-ya's ridiculously cute kicked-reindeer face was only with the intention of persuading him to rest in the infirmary bed, away from the cacophony the sleeping male Straw Hats caused in their sleep.

Those were the only ones he could actively name, but Bone-ya had more than once played a lullaby that sent him to sleep without his consent. He could never prove it was intentional (even though it clearly was). That would not have been disastrous, except for the fact he always fell asleep on deck, and woke in some bunk or other in the men's cabin. This was where the act of conspiracies between the Straw Hats became clear, as if it hadn't already. For all that he was a walking medical miracle (and Law felt he was justified in his expertise on that particular subject), Bone-ya had no muscular mass to give him the strength to carry the tall individual that Law was. His bones were unsupported, and expectedly fragile, so it was clear that while a vital part of the plan, it was not him carrying the sleeping Law away from his guard post. That left Zoro-ya, Kuroashi-ya and Robo-ya as viable candidates. He dismissed Nose-ya for the terror the sniper clearly held for him. Tony-ya and Mugiwara-ya were not impossible, but he believed that Tony-ya would take him to the infirmary, and he liked to believe he would not be able to sleep through Mugiwara-ya's usual mode of transportation across the ship.

The point was, he was back on his own submarine, in his own room, in blissful silence. Three facts he swore never to take for granted again.

Especially with a guaranteed reunion with Mugiwara-ya on the horizon. He wasn't idealistic, but the fact was that somehow the insane teenage captain always seemed to beat the odds, especially as he had half his crew to return to (how could he possibly forget Marineford and the latent fallout from that?). Mugiwara-ya would return eventually, whatever Big Mom thought.

Still, for now he was going to take advantage of this blessed silence. His crew had orders not to disturb him unless in an emergency (by which he meant, and expressed, Kaido or any of his senior crew. Anything less could be dealt with by either Shachi, Penguin, Bepo or Jean Bart, depending on the situation).

Making sure his door was well and truly locked, he gently set Kikoku down on her stand before flopping with none of his usual elegance backwards onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. It was dark blue, matching the feathered jumper he owned. While the external panels of the Polar Tang were bright yellow, as well as some of the interior metal panelling, everything with insulation was either white (the infirmary and the infirmary only – Law had had enough of that particular colour) or some shade of blue. Blue worked nicely with the yellow, and more importantly had no immediately negative connotations. He didn't need his own ship triggering the residual PTSD he was more than aware he possessed.

He supposed it was a good a time as any to think about what had happened on Dressrosa. If nothing else, he needed to get a handle on his own mental state now that Doflamingo was out of the way, hopefully for good. At the time he'd been gunning for the bastard's death, but in retrospect, he was glad Mugiwara-ya hadn't dealt a fatal blow. His unexpected conversation with Sengoku had forcibly thrown new light on his situation.

Which was one of the things he needed to sort out.

Don't try and find a reason for someone's love. In retrospect, it was obvious. Love was instinctive – while he had to forcibly pull back his mental armour to admit it, he had never needed a reason to love his parents, or Lami. If he was brutally honest with himself, 'he's actually trying to save my life' was no reason to love Cora-san like he did, either.

If he had no reasons for his own love (and while he was at it, this seemed like a good time to remind himself that he loved his crew too, even if he wasn't as obvious about it as, say, Mugiwara-ya), then he should be able to accept that Cora-san had had no reason either. It wasn't exactly as if Law had given him many. He'd tried to kill him, then blackmailed him, and then spent the next six months of travelling being the most ungrateful brat it was possible to be. No, Cora-san had no reason to love him. But according to his memories, and Sengoku, he had.

It sounded so easy, when he laid it out in his head like that. Logical. If only his heart could accept what his brain was telling him. That Cora-san really could have loved the broken boy he was for no reason (while he was at it, this extended to his crew – what, exactly, had he done to earn their unshakable loyalty to the extent that not one of them had left while at Zou, despite the opportunity and everything he'd done).

He rolled over onto his front with a groan, burying his face in his pillow, and taking a moment to appreciate that it was his pillow, after so long. Law had not been one to feel pathetic notions like home-sickness since the first, and only, sleepover his classmates had organised and dragged him to when he was eight (he attributed that particular blip to the fact that Lami had come down with a cold that very day and his big brother instincts were screaming that he should be there with her, not awkwardly bundled in a sleeping bag in the corner of some classmate's bedroom watching the rest play games as he flicked through a medical journal two levels above what he was supposed to be reading at the time), but there was no denying that Kikoku, while an amazing weapon, was not such a brilliant pillow, and aside from the Straw Hat interventions she had been his only pillow since he'd disembarked on Punk Hazard all those months ago.

He almost hadn't come back to his pillow, his bed, his room. Let alone his ship or his crew, and there was more than a little guilt that came with that revelation. He didn't regret his actions on both Punk Hazard and Dressrosa, but the idea that his crew would have waited for him forever, if they had to, was sobering, and another revelation to add to the growing list.

Another revelation he should have realised years ago, but his obsession with defeating Doflamingo had overridden that sort of common sense.

And Doflamingo had nearly won. Had outsmarted Law at his own game because of the one ridiculous fact that no-one could have predicted, but Law still kicked himself for not anticipating it, if only because it fit so well.

Donquixote Doflamingo was a tenryubito. A fallen one, admittedly, but still one with enough sway he could get the newspapers to lie just to take down Law. He still didn't know how many members of the Family had known that particular tidbit. At the very least, it had not been openly discussed during the years he had been with them, and Baby 5 and Buffalo hadn't known then. They could never keep secrets from him (for him was a different matter entirely; he'd learnt the art of manipulation young).

Trebol had known. Vergo, too – hell, Vergo had even warned him, in his own twisted way. To that end, it was safe to assume Pica and Diamante were also aware, as his top executives. Law wondered if Cora-san had known. As the original Corazón, it was likel-

Law's blood ran cold.

Of course Cora-san had known. It would have been impossible for him not to have known that about his brother. Mainly because they were brothers and if Doflamingo was a former tenryubito, then that meant Cora-san was too.

He hadn't made the connection immediately. He should have done, fixated as he had been on the fact that Doflamingo had killed his own younger brother in cold blood. He'd told Mugiwara-ya, and probably several other people besides. His pitiful condition through much of Dressrosa had dulled his awareness more than he'd admitted, so who knew who else had overheard.

And yet, despite that, and despite being plainly told by Doflamingo what he was, he hadn't made the link.

He wasn't sure he was glad to have made it at all.

The tenryubito were cruel. He'd seen it on Saboady, at the auction house and even walking the streets. Never mind the fact that one of his own crew mates was a former tenryubito slave, although like the Sun Pirates in the past, he'd since had the brand covered by a creative and otherwise-unnecessarily extravagant tattoo of the Heart Pirates jolly roger. It had had to be as extravagant as it was to hide the hoof completely. Law's flag was not made for covering things up, unlike the Sun Pirates'.

Doflamingo had been a perfect example of a tenryubito. Cold, uncaring, and unbearably superior. He treated everyone outside of his Family as scum not even fit to dirty his unnecessarily pointy shoes, and even his own crew he was willing to cast aside if it came to it. If Law had to make a comparison, he'd say that they were the manservants. Of more use than trash, especially once trained, but inferior none the less. It was the attitude that made Law kick himself for not considering the possibility at all, despite its impossibility – he had sailed the Grand Line for three years now, he should know the impossible was simply par for the course on this sea.

Was Cora-san once like that? Law's stomach rolled uncomfortably, and he had to physically still himself while he regained enough control over his bodily functions not to vomit at the idea. The idea that Cora-san could be anything other than kind and loving to a fault was foreign and extremely unwelcome.

He pushed away his early memories of Cora-san with a scowl. Just because the klutz had acted cruel towards him, and the other children, didn't mean there was anything genuine behind the frown. He'd probably learnt those faces, that attitude, from his life in Marejois, but there was no way he'd ever done that for real.

Law decided it was best for his sanity if he stopped that train of thought right there before he started thinking the worst of Cora-san. The past didn't matter. Cora-san had saved his life, had taken him from hospital to hospital despite it being an exercise in futility-

Had spoken to the doctors in a manner that demanded obedience regardless of their personal feelings, and burnt down hospitals when he'd been disobeyed.

Law had found that touching, once. A sign of how far Cora-san was willing to go for him. A show of how much love the kind-hearted man held.

With his new revelation, it drew uncomfortable parallels to what he knew of tenryubito behaviour. An order, and excessive punishment if denied, just because they could.

You didn't need love to reach that level of indignity. Besides, he was certain the ability to love had been bred out of the tenryubito generations ago.

No. He refused to follow that line of thinking. If there was one thing he must not – could not – doubt, it was that Cora-san loved him. If he lost that conviction, then his crew would stand for nothing. Heart Pirates. His grinning jolly roger. Doflamingo had not been incorrect about the influence.

He shifted slightly, and froze as the movement brought his attention to the fact that his pillow – his beloved, never to be taken for granted again pillow – was damp.

It had not been damp when he had initially faceplanted it.

Plausible deniability could only get Law so far, so a single tattooed finger ran along the prominent bags below his eyes. The salty tear it picked up was unsurprising, but unwelcome.

He hadn't cried since Minion Island (tears of raw frustration and pain in Dressrosa did not count). Not since Cora-san had died (before that had been Cora-san saying all those things when he thought he was asleep, and then it was getting back to Flevance territory and that was still too raw so Law cut off his mental recollection then and there).

That now, thirteen years later, Cora-san was once again responsible for his tears did not escape him. It was always the ones you loved that hurt you the most, one way or another. Law was particularly aware of this (it was why he'd sent his crew away, to the elusive Zou and far far away from Doflamingo and his influences. If he lost the ones he loved a third time, he didn't think there'd be enough of him to even attempt to reassemble).

He had to trust in Cora-san. He had his memories, and while he could now see some aspects that had potentially stemmed from his social beginnings, Cora-san was too open, too klutzy, for it all to be an act.

He ruthlessly silenced the part of his brain – part that sounded a little too much like Doflamingo for comfort – that pointed out he'd been a successful Marine spy for at least as long as he'd known him.

He couldn't doubt Cora-san's motives. Not now.

Not ever.

It wasn't a watertight fix to his psyche. There were gaping holes that he'd only badly patched with worn tarpaulin and fraying ropes, but it would do for now. Cora-san had been a tenryubito. Cora-san had been an exception – kind and caring while his peers, his own brother, had continued their legacy of tyranny.

It didn't matter in the end. Cora-san was Cora-san and one day Law would have to truly analyse what that meant, what his saviour must have gone through and why it hadn't affected him in the same way as Doflamingo despite the fact that they probably went through it together.

One day was not now. He had other things to sort out.

Like the scabs Doflamingo had torn off with something as simple as lead bullets. Like the revelation that his revenge was over and he was still alive.

At least, his revenge should be over. Doflamingo was gone, defeated, and Cora-san was avenged (but not in a way that should unduly upset him, thanks to them not dealing a final, fatal blow). Law had focused on this revenge for so long – thirteen years, half his life and the entirety of the lifespan he'd never dared believe he'd have – that he felt he should still be at a loss.

Perhaps he would be, if he hadn't had his little revelation. If he hadn't let himself dwell on the edge of painful memories that had been supressed by his rage against Doflamingo.

But the rage was gone and the scabs had been torn off. Law had lived his life fuelled by revenge far too long to stop now. There was still the matter – the main matter – that he had involved himself with Doflamingo to achieve in the first place.

Flevance, the nobles that had fled, and the World Government that had used his home town for their own gain, and obliterated it once they could no longer profit.

The One Piece was a tempting target, sure. If he was honest, without his alliance with the Straw Hats – with Mugiwara-ya – he might have truly set his sights on it. The sole survivor of Flevance, becoming the Pirate King in a massive middle finger aimed at the World Government. There was definitely some appeal there, and there was no way he was letting that idiot Eustass-ya get his hands on it.

He might still head for it, just to make sure the red-headed menace didn't get it. But Law was no fool. There was only room for one Pirate King per generation, and it wouldn't be him. Somewhere along the line – he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment, but he was willing to bet the first time he truly felt the full force of Mugiwara-ya's haki that time on Dressrosa, when a single sandaled foot was the only thing between his face and Doflamingo was probably at least part of the lynchpin – he had fallen into Mugiwara-ya's pace.

He believed in Mugiwara-ya. Believed in him in a way he'd never been able to believe in anyone since Flevance burnt to the ground. Cora-san had come close, but there had always been the unspoken elephants in the room – a spy, a Marine, worked for the organisation that threw Law's life into chaos that first time, lies about health – that a young hurting Law couldn't quite push past.

There was nothing like that with Mugiwara-ya. He was straightforward and honest. Laughably so, for a pirate. He had no interest in planning, to the point that he would ignore anything that wasn't 'punch the problem repeatedly until it goes away' but in all his unpredictableness, he was predictable.

At least, there seemed to be a trick to it. Law hadn't worked out all the nuances yet ��� the other pirate had no right being so complex when he seemed so simple – but he was confident he had the main points identified. Loyalty. Trust. Empathy. Protectiveness.

He rubbed his right arm, over the stitches that held it in place while it finished healing (perhaps he should put it in a sling for a while, to reduce the stress, although that would worry his crew). Feigning death didn't mean he had been oblivious to Mugiwara-ya's reaction to its absence, let alone his presumed death.

It had taken more effort that he'd anticipated to stay limp and immobile while his observational haki picked up so many broiling emotions from his ally. At some point, perhaps as early as Punk Hazard itself, Mugiwara-ya had adopted him into his group of nakama. Nose-ya had confided in him, quietly after they'd set sail for Wano, that to be Mugiwara-ya's nakama did not mean you were part of his crew. Apparently they had other nakama, situated on many islands in both East Blue and the Grand Line, who Mugiwara-ya would do anything for.

It was said in the exact same tone Nose-ya had used when informing him of Mugiwara-ya's unusual definition of 'alliance', and Law found he didn't doubt him at all. Somehow, it was easier to accept his unwilling induction into Mugiwara-ya's nakama with this knowledge. Perhaps because he no longer had to fear he'd be dragged from his own crew by a rubbery limb and a too-large grin.

In retrospect, it had been irrational. Freedom was the most important thing in the world to Mugiwara-ya. He would never strip anyone of it, much less his own nakama.

On the topic of Mugiwara-ya, as well as his original topic of what he would do now, with the memories of Flevance surfacing in a way he hadn't allowed for years, a small recollection made itself known.

Mugiwara-ya had declared war on the World Government.

It wasn't as though he'd forgotten that little fact – that was not something one casually forgot, after all – but his attention had been aimed solely on the takedown of Doflamingo for the last two years, and much of the preceding ones.

Memories of a burning city had surfaced back when he'd first read that news, but he had ruthlessly quashed them, not needing the distraction when he was busy dealing with his other revenge.

But now that was over, and Flevance would no longer be compartmentalised into a neat locked chest in the corner of his mind. Lami, his parents, his classmates and the rest had gone unavenged for far too long.

Perhaps Mugiwara-ya's insistence that they were allies for far longer than just defeating Kaido wasn't such a bad thing after all. Together, they could bring the World Government to its knees.

Law's pillow had dried, and he smoothed out the wrinkles the moisture had left with the grin of a satisfied predator on his face.

Yes, that sounded like a plan.

[bronzeflower]

When’s the Wedding?

Also on ao3

-----

Way Too Soon

Shouta and Hizashi had been dating for one day.

It was the day of graduation when Shouta finally managed to work up the courage to ask Hizashi to date him, think that if Hizashi rejected him, they didn’t have to see each other ever again, regardless of how much that particular thought pained him.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry because the moment he confessed, Hizashi was enthusiastic in responding with his own confessions and professions of love.

Although, it occurred to Shouta that there may have been one thing that he hadn’t even though to be worried about that he probably should have been.

And it only occurred to Shouta to worry about it the day after he and Hizashi started dating when Hizashi pulled out a ring and proposed.

“We started dating yesterday,” Shouta deadpanned, glancing back and forth between Hizashi’s hopeful expression and the ring inside the box. Shouta was at least thankful that Hizashi had managed to propose in private.

“And?” Hizashi questioned, prompting Shouta to extrapolate.

“And people don’t usually get married until at least a few years into a relationship,” Shouta explained. “Why propose so soon anyway?”

“Well,” Hizashi rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just that we’re both pro-heroes, and being a pro-hero is a super dangerous job, so it’s likely that one or both of us die on the job. So, it just kind of made sense to propose and get married as soon as possible because I was afraid we’d never get a chance to.”

“Oh,” Shouta said numbly. It wasn’t that Shouta didn’t want to marry Hizashi. He very, very much wanted to, but it seemed he had indirectly been affected by society in vaguely caring about the appropriate length of time to propose. Then again, waiting to propose actually made sense because you wanted to get to know your partner before you married them

Then again, Shouta had already known and has been crushing on Hizashi for three years, and that’s certainly enough time to get to know someone, and Hizashi had appealed to his sense of logic and reason.

“Shouta?” Hizashi interrupted his train of thought. “Is that a no? Because we don’t have to get married if you don’t want to.”

“No!” Shouta protested. “No, I want to get married. Put that ring on my finger now or, I swear to God, I’ll beat you up the next time we spar.”

“You already do that,” Hizashi commented with a grin while following Shouta’s orders. “And now, we’re fiancés!”

“And now we’ve got a wedding to plan,” Shouta smiled at Hizashi, locking his fingers with Hizashi’s. “But you’re going to be the one to break the news to our friends.”

“Oh god.”

---

“When I asked you when the wedding was, that wasn’t an invitation to get married immediately,” Nemuri responded once Hizashi broke the news.

“So do you want to be the maid of honor or…?”

“Yes, of course, I want to be the maid of honor, I’ve been waiting for this for three years.”

The In-Between

Shouta and Hizashi had been dating for six years.

Hizashi had been acting a little strange for about a month. At first, Shouta didn’t really think too much of it, thinking that his boyfriend had perhaps been taking on a bit more work lately, so he advised Hizashi to take care of himself, which earned him a lovely laugh from the blond.

But after a month, Shouta began to get suspicious that Hizashi wasn’t telling him something.

Today was particularly suspicious, given how shifty Hizashi looked throughout the day, going so far as to make Shouta’s favorite food for dinner.

It was about halfway through the dinner of Hizashi very clearly anxiously rambling that Shouta knew he had to find out what his boyfriend had been so worked up about.

“What’s wrong?” Shouta asked bluntly, cutting into the middle of a story that Hizashi had already told him many times before.

“Ah-what do you mean?” Hizashi responded, pointedly not looking towards Shouta. Shouta frowned.

“You’ve been acting strange the past month,” Shouta said. “And you’ve been acting even weirder all day, so spill.”

“All right, all right,” Hizashi sighed and actually looked towards Shouta. “You know I love you right? With all my heart and soul and being?”

“Yeah, I love you, too,” Shouta almost reflexively stated.

“It’s just, you’re, you’re amazing, Sho. I look at you all the time and think ‘Ah, how did I get so lucky?’ You’re so brave and hardworking and thoughtful and you listen to things I say, even if they get kind of redundant sometimes, and you have a strong sense of justice, and you’re handsome, and-”

“Stop,” Shouta flushed at the string of compliments. “Just...Just get to the point.”

“Right! Okay, so the point is that I really, really love you, and I wanted to know…” Hizashi paused as he took a box out of his pocket, got out of his chair, and got down on one knee while revealing the ring inside the box. “Will you marry me?”

Shouta was not going to cry. He was not. He refused. But if his eyes moistened somewhat as he enthusiastically accepted, then he supposed that wasn’t too big of a deal. He was just proposed to, after all.

---

Their wedding rings were engraved-”Sunshine” for Shouta, and “Starlight” for Hizashi. Just so they could always be reminded of the other whenever they looked at their rings.

A Little Late

Shouta and Hizashi had been dating for twelve years, and Shouta had almost died.

Hizashi was sitting beside his hospital bed, having stayed there for as long as he was allowed until he was kicked out, but then he would just arrive the next day during visiting hours.

Hizashi was mostly feeling sadness, anger, pride, and relief.

He was sad because Shouta had almost died.

He was angry because Shouta had almost died as a consequence of his own actions.

He was proud because Shouta had saved his students.

But, most of all, he was relieved at the fact that Shouta was still alive.

Hearing Shouta talk after that near-death experience was like music or songbirds or every other lovely sound to Hizashi, no matter how gravelly and terrible it was.

Hizashi rambled updates to Shouta, making sure he was up-to-date on everything he might need to know when Shouta had stopped him.

“Hizashi,” Shouta stated, his voice rough.

“Yeah, Sho?” Hizashi prompted, his voice becoming a little softer around the edges.

“Let’s get married,” Shouta said, and Hizashi’s eyes widened.

“R-Really!?”

“Yeah, really. Let’s get married,” Shouta repeated. “I lived. Let’s celebrate.”

Hizashi broke down at the hidden meaning behind Shouta’s words, whether he meant them to be there or not. Shouta had almost died, and the event made the possibility of death all the more realistic in both of their minds, so they were going to make certain they didn’t die with any regrets.

“Yeah, let’s get married,” Hizashi responded through a mouthful of tears. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

[phosphorescent-naidheachd]

I saw TROS earlier today and, well, it was definitely a Star Wars sequel movie, for better and for worse. I can see why some people on my dash hated this movie and why some of them loved it. I can also see why some of them threw their hands into the air over it and shrugged. (FYI, I’m in the third category.) More scattered and spoiler-laden thoughts below the cut:

--“Never underestimate a droid.” This line would have been so much more meaningful if the spy had turned out to be a First Order droid rather than Hux. A droid that had broken free of its programming, just like Finn (and later Jannah and the other unnamed former stormtroopers). But as always, the Droid Revolution that we deserve is probably never going to be a thing, at least not onscreen where it counts.

--Just like TFA, the copy-and-pasting from the Original Trilogy was painfully obvious, but what was forgivable in the first film of a new trilogy is less so in said trilogy’s concluding film. 

--Trần Loan/Rose deserved more screentime and prominence. And did we really have to turn Poe into a former spice runner? Really? *sighs heavily*

--Zorii Bliss felt sort of shoehorned in? I didn’t hate her, but it felt like TPTB only introduced her to give Poe another person to flirt with. And I say this as someone who was not expecting PoeFinn or any other LGBTQIAP+ relationship between named characters to be made canon in this movie at all. Hopefully fans will give her more depth in fic!

--Jannah was really interesting and I would have loved to see more of her. Once again, hopefully fans will take her character and deepen/explore it in fic.

--LANDO! 

--Finn was all but explicitly confirmed as Force sensitive, and it’s What He Deserves. 

--I mean, Finn also deserved his own storyline and a stronger conclusion to his character arc in this film, especially considering he was promoted as one of the leads of the sequel trilogy. But while I’m irked that he was relegated to a side character, I can’t say I didn’t see this coming, especially after TLJ. 

--Likewise, I knew Reyl0 was going to be a thing after TLJ. I found their relationship less grating than Anida1a in the prequels, but it still didn’t do much of anything for me in this film. Do I understand from an objective POV why some people enjoy it so much? Yep. It’s the grand, tortured, Byronic Romance™, where it isn’t really about whether the characters have anything in common or even like each other, it’s about their near-mystical connection and their inability (and lack of true desire) to be rid of it; it’s about the lengths to which they will go for each other/themselves; it’s about the powerful man who is emotionally vulnerable and eager to serve his True Love at the expense of all else. It’s also the whole enemies-to-lovers trope, and so on. I understand the appeal of this mashup intellectually, it’s just not my cup of tea here. YMMV and all that, and that’s as it should be.

--Palpatine back from death is as ridiculous here as it was in the old EU, but I can roll with it. I think the movie made the right decision not to explain all the nitty-gritty details of how he cheated death or manipulated the whole Snoke deal... ultimately, it doesn’t really matter, y’know? Ditto to Rey Palpatine lol.

--Leia’s death felt pretty narratively cheap to me, but I understand that there was only so much TPTB could do with the footage they already had of Carrie Fisher in costume. Still, poor Leia. She drew a deeply shitty hand in life, didn’t she?

--That said, it was nice to see Leia training as a Jedi in flashbacks, however briefly. (Is it just me, or did her saber hilt vaguely resemble Obi-Wan’s?) Does it make a lot less sense that she would then send Ben away to Luke if she’s had Jedi training? Yes. Can I created headcanons to explain this? Also yes. And do I really care about this particular inconsistency when there are far worse ones out there and this one makes dudebro sections of the fandom spitting mad? NOPE.

--I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not inherently against the redemption of Kylo/Ben. But, as I had suspected/feared, they “redeemed” him at the narrative expense of other characters I personally find more interesting... and they still didn’t manage to make said redemption feel narratively earned to me. Is there undoubtedly ancillary material in SW books and comics that give more background behind Kylo/Ben’s turn to the Dark Side and eventual turn back to the Light? Yes. Do I want to read it? Not really, no. Also, unless something happens onscreen in the SW universe, it doesn’t really count as true canon. So it’s disappointing that the movie shoved other characters and plots to the side to make room for Kylo/Ben’s redemption arc and then didn’t even do a good job with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

--Also, of course TPTB had Kylo/Ben die saving someone rather than narratively deal with what it means to work towards redemption after having done lots of terrible things, and having to recover from having been manipulated/groomed by Sidious. Not surprised in the slightest.

--I would have preferred a Stormtrooper Rebellion storyline, but I’m not going to blast TROS or the sequel trilogy for being what it is rather than what I wanted it to be. I will, however, blast it for its sloppy execution of its existing storylines. Which leads to my next point...

--Even though TROS was long, it still felt rushed and, like the first two movies in this trilogy, it felt largely disconnected from the other sequel trilogy films. The Star Wars Story Group really should have planned this trilogy out better. If TPTB were going to go with two different directors/writers, they should have made sure said directors/writers were on the same page rather than seemingly fighting each other’s visions of what the overarching story should be at every step.  

--I’m willing to handwave a lot of stuff that happens in TROS, mainly because I’m long past expecting coherence from this franchise... or pretty much any major franchise, tbh. (For instance: Thousands of people show up to aid the Resistance when Lando calls them but not when Leia did in TLJ? OK. Force Ghost Luke shows up to catch Rey’s lightsaber but not to help her against Palpatine? Sure.) These issues don’t really make or break the series for me, so I can work with them with a minimum of grumbling. Which isn’t quite the same thing as letting TPTB off the hook for their laziness and inconsistencies.

--Honestly, I hate to say it, but it would have made for a stronger story if Chewie had died aboard the ship when Rey and Kylo/Ben were fighting over it; that would have driven home the consequences of Rey’s lack of control and lessened the artificiality of the stakes in this movie. But I get that this is ultimately a family film, so it’s more of a minor quibble than anything else.

--It’s kind of weird that Rey’s hair is back in the three buns again for the entirety of TROS after she wore her hair differently for almost all of TLJ. But that’s a fairly minor quibble too, and one of the sort I can easily create a headcanon to explain. Actually, come to think of it, I wonder if they didn’t do this at least partially to be able to recycle some of the unused TFA clips with Leia and Rey?

--Frankly, I’m not sure why Rey suddenly cared so much about what Luke thought, considering A. he was a huge jerk to her for most of TLJ, and B. she seemed to have broken with following his advice towards the end of TLJ. And since she didn’t have a great relationship with Luke, it seems weird that she’d take his last name. Shouldn’t she have gone with Organa or even Solo, if she’s naming herself after a mentor? But whatever, I get that it’s about the symbolism more than the character or logic. And I can create headcanons to explain all of this.

--It’s a little weird that there wasn’t any more resolution to Kylo/Ben’s storyline and Rey’s feelings about it after his death. But with Leia dead, I guess there isn’t anyone left who’d especially care if Kylo/Ben turned back to the Light aside from Rey herself. Still, there should have been something more. Especially since Ben didn’t show up as a Force Ghost alongside Luke and Leia on Tatooine.

--While I’m at it, I wish we could have had a minute’s conversation with Rey telling Finn about her heritage, if only because I think he would have understood. But I wish we could have learned more about Finn’s heritage (which didn’t need to be a known SW lineage, btw) too, so... 

--For that matter, I wish we could have had Finn get a chance to tell Rey about his being Force Sensitive, which might have made her feel slightly less alone. I wish we could have seen Finn figure out what being Force Sensitive meant to him. And so on.

--Not sure where people are getting the idea that Lando & Jannah were flirting, because I didn’t read their interaction that way at all.

--General Poe and General Finn were great, but also sort of felt unearned after the events of TLJ.

--The abilities that come from being part of a Dyad are overpowered and a little silly, but hey, they’re also following a long-established SW tradition of overpowered silliness, so... *shrugs*

--Confused as to why Rey suddenly killed Kylo/Ben when she did?? I mean, if it was because she was angry Leia had just died, wouldn’t that be acting from the Dark Side and shouldn’t that have, idk, narrative consequences for her?

--I don’t see why some people loved or hated Rey’s ending so much. It’s pretty open, IMO, just like the endings for all of the surviving characters. Who says Rey is going to stay on Tatooine or be alone there, after all? For all we know, she just stopped there for a few days to bury the lightsabers, grieve for Kylo/Ben, and meditate. For all we know, Finn or one of her other friends from the Resistance is going to drop in any moment now. Heck, for all we know, one of her friends is hanging out inside the Falcon where we can’t see them, giving her a little space. (Was her friendship with Finn and Poe depicted pretty shallowly in this movie? Yeah. But so was her relationship with Kylo/Ben tbh, even with the Dyad Force bond thingamajig.) Rey has a whole world of choices available to her. Does it suck that we didn’t get to see that onscreen? Yeah. Does it mean she’s doomed to be eternally lonely as a hermit on a desert planet? Not in the slightest.

--Someone really needs to tell the writers of these big franchises that using ring structure is pointless if there isn’t meaning behind it. There’s nothing inherently significant about repeating events or revisiting locations. 

--Overall, I felt pretty meh about TROS. I didn’t love it or hate it. As with any movie in a series, there’s good stuff to be mined from it, and bad stuff to be handwaved away or given headcanon explanations. But mostly, I just can’t dredge up the energy to care very much. And I’m not in the mood for TROS fix-it fanfiction so much as I am TROS crack fics. 

--I haven’t talked about everything that worked or didn’t work for me in TROS here, but if you have any questions, I’m always happy to answer them to the best of my abilities!

[mexcine]

The Soul of a Monster (1944) review -- Columbia Pictures was not one of Hollywood’s primary purveyors of fantasy film in the 1940s. Not averse to B pictures, the studio concentrated its efforts in this tier of production on crime series (The Lone Wolf, Ellery Queen, The Whistler, The Crime Doctor, Boston Blackie), comedies (Blondie), and Westerns (Charles Starrett’s Durango Kid), as well as numerous one-offs.  Occasionally a horror film would sneak in, notably The Return of the Vampire (1943), featuring not only a vampire (Bela Lugosi), but also a werewolf!  

           Curiously, in the summer of 1944 Columbia released two fantasy films on the same day, Cry of the Werewolf and The Soul of a Monster.  Produced by different units (Wallace MacDonald and Ted Richmond, respectively) with virtually no overlap in cast or crew, the movies are similar in their low-key approach to horror, closer to the Val Lewton pictures for RKO than the more florid Universal horror movies of the era.  Cry of the Werewolf disappoints because its “werewolf” is an actual wolf (not a hairy human, as in The Wolfman or The Return of the Vampire), while The Soul of a Monster features only a sort-of, occasionally, maybe zombie-like character.

           Screenwriter Edward Dein worked for Val Lewton at RKO (earning an additional dialogue credit for The Leopard Man), and The Soul of a Monster has a (very) slight Lewton-esque feel, both in its script and direction.  This was Will Jason’s first feature as a director (he’d been making shorts since the late Thirties, and was involved in films as a songwriter even earlier than that), and he tosses in a few “fancy” sequences, although these are stuck in the middle of a fair amount of pedestrian work.

           Saintly Dr. George Winson (George Macready) is on his deathbed, suffering from a virulent infection incurred while treating a patient.  His wife Ann (Jeanne Bates), getting no help from God, asks the Devil for assistance.  That’s never a good idea.  But, suddenly, Lilyan (Rose Hobart) appears, some distance from the Winson house. She strides purposely through the streets, is struck by a car (but strolls away unharmed), passes under a sparking live wire, provokes (somehow) a burst of flame near two welders, and finally arrives at the Winson home.  

This is a nice, if obvious sequence, with some dutch tilt camera angles and nice lighting.  One could quibble about a few things—if Lilyan, as we are led to believe, is Satan’s emissary, why did she show up on Earth so far from the Winsons? Seems like she could have manifested in a cloud of smoke on their doorstep and saved herself the long walk.

Lilyan saves George’s life (behind closed doors). However, he’s…changed.  At least, that’s what everyone says.  The film opens with various people remarking about Dr. Winson’s altruism, but we never see it, so his rather stiff attitude doesn’t seem that “evil” to us. However, George does (off-screen) kill his dog, which had formerly doted on him (sitting forlornly at his bedside in the opening sequence).  

Ann’s concern about her husband is echoed by her friend Fred Stevens (Erik Rolf) and George’s assistant, Dr. Roger Vance (Jim Bannon).  Fred is apparently a minister of some sort.  It’s never openly stated, but he talks a lot about souls, and goodness, and evil; he also leads a boy’s choir singing “Ave Maria,” and so forth, but we never see him in a church (the only time we see the interior of a church is when Ann goes to pray—she prays to a statue of the Virgin Mary, which suggests a Catholic church) or wearing robes, and no overt reference is made to his occupation.  The religious content of The Soul of a Monster is at the same time overt and oblique: I’m not sure either “God” or the Devil is specifically mentioned, but there is a considerable amount of philosophical/religious discussion.

George eventually leaves Ann and (I think) moves in with Lilyan (at least he spends a lot of time with her).  Before this, however, there’s a long and fairly effective sequence in which George, Ann, and Fred visit another man’s house and listen to his guest play the piano.  George stands by the French doors and stares outside into the night as a storm approaches. The pianist plays “The Mephisto Waltz” for an encore (irony!).  

Fred continually berates George for his bad attitude; Lilyan telepathically orders George to follow Fred and stab him to death with a scalpel.  We get yet another long sequence as Fred walks home through the city at night, followed by George in a sort of trance, the scalpel clutched in his hand.  Each time George prepares to stab Fred, something intervenes, but he finally sees his chance…only to recoil when Fred bends over and picks up a small cross someone fortuitously dropped on the street.

George does (at Lilyan’s bidding) eliminate Dr. Vance: Lilyan hits him with her car, and George delays treating him until it’s too late.  He’s subsequently charged with murder, which seems rather unfair. He only hesitates for a few seconds! A very strange montage follows: newspaper headlines are interspersed with shots of his grand jury testimony and (when he’s granted) bail, his statement to some reporters--all of these shots (except the newspaper inserts) are extreme dutch tilts.

Fed up with it all, George confronts Lilyan. She shoots him, point-blank, multiple times but he (apparently) crashes through a window with her, and she is killed.  [At least, the screen fades to black, we hear her scream, glass breaking, and the squeal of brakes.  Then we see her dead on the street, and George isn’t around, but Fred is there, looking at her, along with some cops and bystanders. Was she hit by a truck? It’s not the car that hit her at the beginning of the movie.]  Suddenly, we’re back to the beginning of the film, with George on his death bed. Dr. Vance is still alive, and George dies as he was foreordained to do.  The film concludes with an epigram (it also opens with a printed statement, Lewton-like touches) :

“For the man who walks with evil walks alone; he who walks with evil has no soul, no hope; he lives but a life without faith, and without faith there is no life.”

One of the biggest problems with The Soul of a Monster (an inappropriate title if you think about it, since the the point of the film is that George has no soul) is the character of George.  As noted above, we never see “good George” before his fatal illness, and afterwards he has very little personality at all, let alone becoming a “monster.”  Lilyan’s orders, telepathic or otherwise, inspire him to a few less-than-nice actions (attempting to murder Fred, allowing Dr. Vance to die), but otherwise he’s more or less passive, not even that unpleasant (alright, he does kill a dog). There are two vague attempts to characterise George as “undead”--he has no pulse and when Dr. Vance accidentally stabs him with a pair of scissors, there is no blood.  However, nothing is made of this, and Lilyan apparently thinks shooting George six times at point-blank range will “kill” him (she’s wrong), which doesn’t seem to make any sense: if Lilyan is the Devil’s emissary and she resurrected George (or at least prevented him from dying), then wouldn’t it seem logical that she’d be able to kill him in some supernatural manner rather than resorting to a mundane method like shooting him?

The Soul of a Monster is inconsistent in other ways, both in content and structure.  George’s wife Ann and Dr. Vance pop in and out of the plot more or less randomly--the real antagonists are Fred and George/Lilyan.  Lilyan is clearly supposed to be a supernatural creature, summoned by Ann’s petition to the Dark Forces, but later she seems to be a regular person (albeit one with telepathic power) who uses George to avenge herself on Fred and Dr. Vance, who were mean to her.  Then, at the climax, she abandons her magic and picks up a pistol, and is killed herself in a (more or less, it’s vague) normal fashion.

The Soul of a Monster was sold as a horror film, but the film itself is a mix of Lewton-esque speculative maybe-fantasy, metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, and one or two “horror” elements which don’t seem to fit.  Will Jason’s direction is only fitfully inspired, with the “arty” sequences standing out because everything else is so routine and style-less.  

note: as of 4 March 2020, this film is available in its entirety on YouTube.

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 14 - Candy Page 27

==>

Alright, back from a brief excursion.  I really, REALLY wanna fucking finish this.  I want to see ROXY UNZOMBIFIED goddamnit, or at least get a REASON for her zombification, even if it’s just some Dirk-like villain who just cliffhangers himself away like a fucking asshole.

Also, comment on John’s whole rant... I guess John DID kind of want to be important.  Or... well, not “important” per se, but rather at least impactful in his friends’ lives.  It feels like they’re all walking dead through their own unsolved problems, trying to put on a pretty face, and nothing he tries to do matters, even attempted kidnapping.  He feels as useless as Dirk THINKS he is, but he never really was.  Gosh, I wish he’d pulled off that absurd kidnapping.  Freeing people from this sort of thing is supposed to kind of be his jam?

Okay, reading the new page.

FUCK.  TEN YEARS???????

Pff, John’s kid and sorta!Vriska.  Yeah I can buy that.

Also I love how they type out “Harry Anderson” every single time as his full first goddamn name.

--God damnit, how is Gamzee still fucking things up ten years later?  Hasn’t someone considered killing him?

Karkat and Meenah, also unsurprising.  Too bad Dave has to die unsatisfied.  >:(

Hm... this sorta!Vriska also has a weird Capitalization Quirk for Important Words, huh?  --Oh right, Kanaya raised her.  That might do it.

Hm, eyepatch?

Alright, the world’s falling into chaos.  Did the world HAVE to fucking fall into chaos in BOTH TIMELINES where these supposedly-went-through-a-successful-journey heroes managed to eek out victory despite opposing reality’s greatest tyrant?  Pfuh.

--and right.  Alt!Callie reinforces the idea that even though this possibility “wasn’t canon” -- which... means Meat is?? D: -- that the lives within still matter when looked at within their own bubble.

JADE: while abstracted heavily, and fully freed from all forces of narrative gravity, these events still represent possibilities that slept within the hearts of all who reside here.

Mhmm, part of an extension of themselves, their uniqueness, their hopes and dreams and... whatever WHOEVER did to fuck Roxy over.  Jesus DICK what’s happened to her I need to know you’d better fix this.

And somewhere within that mess, John Egbert is the best man at Jade and Dave’s wedding. He lasts nearly two hours before he gets a ruinous case of the sniffles.

Maybe they worked it out into ALMOST full mutual love?  Even if Dave’s 70% gayness goes totally unsatisfied?  I mean, I can hope, right?  :(

Dammit, Jade, couldn’t you have done this properly?  :C

and everyone knows that John has lost his family to Jane Crocker.

What the shit?!???

What drove Roxy away was him being depressed and just an all-around huge wet blanket who was impossible to live with. John is totally ready to own the fact that he was a bad husband, but maybe not the fact that he was a bad enough husband to drive his wife to passively support a brewing genocidal dictatorship. She looks happier, though, whenever he’s caught sight of her behind Jane—Calliope faithfully at her side—in any of the propaganda broadcasts that Jane passes off as business press conferences. By the time Roxy finally cut things off between them, he hadn’t personally seen her smile in years.

WHAT.  THE.  SHIT.

WHY DID ROXY DO ALL THIS THEN.  WHY DID SHE OF ALL PEOPLE, ONE OF THE MOST FORCEFUL AND SMART AND COOL--- GUHHH SHE JUST VOIDED HER WILL JUST OUT OF OBLIGATION TO JOHN OR SOMETHING?????????? WHAT THE FUCK WHYYYYYYY

Characters choke.  Characters make bad decisions.  That’s fair.  Andrew’s said that before.  But John was VISIBLY RECOGNIZING HOW OUT OF CHARACTER ROXY WAS ACTING.  WHYYYYYYYYY DID IT HAPPEN, WHY SUDDENLY DECADES OF MISHANDLED RELATIONSHIP WITH ABSOLUTELY NOBODY POINTING OUT THE OBVIOUS WHAT THE FUCK.  AND ROXY WAS THE ONE WHO STARTED IT AND PUSHED INTO JOHN UNTIL HE ACCEPTED.  WHY.

WHY.

Read.  Calm down.  Read.  There had better be.  A FUCKING.  ANSWER.

Hi military rebellion leader Karkat.

KARKAT: OH MY GOD JOHN, STOP BEING SO FUCKING PATHETIC FOR JUST A MINUTE. COULD YOU DO THAT FOR ME? JOHN: i don’t know. that’s a pretty big favor you’re asking me there, karkat.

heheh

JOHN: i dunno. it doesn’t seem responsible, really... to dedicate my life to something so important when i’m in a place where i can’t even find the energy to think that getting out of bed in the morning is “important.”

Depression stuff, yeah.

John really needs a psychologist who isn’t just Rose.

pff, yifftrain.

That’s how the years pass. Faster and faster the longer it goes. 

What.  The.  Fuck.

We’re not going to get any answers are we.  Roxy just acted out of character for no reason, didn’t she.  This is-- no, Andrew’s too GOOD at this for that to-- I mean--  is there a big answer he’s just not telling us-- FUCK!!!!  D:

AAAAAAAA

This sucks.  This sucks this sucks this SUCKS.  But I’ll keep reading.  I have to know.  If I’m ever going to be able to stand, like, i dunno... homestuck rp i guess? i should probably keep reading.  and hope i recover.  eventually.

But that’s only part of it. Above this Earth, the dead cherub is still meditating, waiting for the day when she can have her own heroic apotheosis. Waiting for the day when she can confront the one she calls the Prince. And on this Earth, John is just waiting for the day that feeling finally stops. That feeling that he’s still waiting for something, and the even worse feeling that years ago, he missed his only chance to put an end to it. If you stand on a very high hill at dawn, you can watch your shadow move in an arc around you.

Yeah, reinforcing that John would be happier in the timeline where he did something and -- at least temporarily, since there’s hope of future revival -- “died” because of it, even if he wasn’t clear on why what he was trying to do even really mattered in the whole scheme of things.

...which is pretty weird when you consider the ending of Homestuck didn’t try to express that messa-- no, wait.  I guess it did?

Yes, everyone went to the post-victory planet to live out indefinite lives, but there WAS still the stage play.  Proving that John, at least, WOULD eventually step outside the happy ending to instead risk his life doing something important.  They earned both possibilities, really, to choose from at their will.

...Aren’t there another dozen pages or so left in this Candy segment, though??  Are we gonna follow their kids or something?

==>

...Okay so stuff still needs to happen here, plotways.  Good.  I think.

A flash above the clouds catches John’s attention: another ghost, falling down from wherever it is they come from. John follows after the light with an exhausted sigh. The novelty of dead trolls falling from the sky has really worn off over the years. But he might as well go warn the new arrival that they’ve landed in the middle of an imminent warzone. He sets down at the edge of the crater and peers through the smoke.

He recognizes the ghost immediately, because he sees a younger version of her almost every day.

JOHN: vriska?

Vriska’s face snaps up, eyes blazing. Eyes. Actual eyes, with expression, color, pupils, and everything.

JOHN: wait. you’re... JOHN: alive??

PFFFFFFhahahahah!

That’s pretty hilarious.  Vriska fell into the singularity and popped out here.

...Yeah, you can’t stand having missed the most “important” bit, can you.  Too bad.  You didn’t have the spotlight in the end.

==>

JADE: it is the one i have been waiting for all these years. JADE: we have run along parallel lines for what may as well be eternity, but my gravitational well has finally ensnared him. JADE: and now he is due to fall into this world.

Uhh, who?  Davebot or something, from the postscript?  Couldn’t be Gamzee, unless it’s, like... a different Gamzee.

“Chaos war”?  That’s a dramatic title.

==>

Hmm, reading reading...

Will Dad’s passing knock any sense into you?  Probably not.

...yeah, it wasn’t going to be that easy, was it?

Of course.  Of course Dad died saving the President.

Although, she’s going to assign fault to Karkat and then want to start a full bloody war over it, so, the opposite of having sense knocked into her then.

JANE: UGH! JANE: That... that fool!! JANE: I can’t believe that he would do this! JANE: How could he do this to me!?! JAKE: Janey... JANE: The human president could be anyone! JANE: My dad can’t be anyone but him!

Jane, you’ve become a real asshole.  :(

...Fuck you Gamzee.

GAMZEE: hEy. GAMZEE: Do YoU tHiNk ThAt MiGhT bE a BiT mOtHeRfUcKinG xEnOpHoBiC?

PFFFFHAHAHAHAHAAHAHhhh oh my GOD :’D

JANE: What? You think appealing to me with your disgusting little addiction is going to sway me?

Oh Jesus Christ that’s horrifying.  THAT’s what’s been going on.  I don’t want to visualize it, dear lord.

==>

Hahahah, catching Vriska up.  She’s practically curling up in a ball like Squidward in future shock.

PFFF PUTTING PARENS AROUND HER NAME SHE CAN’T STAND BEING IRRELEVANTIZED LIKE THAT

JOHN: i was supposed to go fight lord english, but i didn’t. so now we’ve gone beyond, like, the event horizon of canon. (VRISKA): What the fuck does that even MEAN????????

Wait, shouldn’t YOU know exactly what that means, Vriska?  Like, better than most people at least?

JOHN: all i know is that all of this is my fault.

:(

JOHN: it’s been turning around in my head like this for a while. i thought... JOHN: why does everything here fucking SUCK so much? JOHN: how the hell did we even make it from point A to point festering clusterfuck? JOHN: it doesn’t follow any kind of logic i understand, or any sort of basic sense i have about who we are as people... JOHN: and why? why have we all ended up so unhappy and... twisted up?

Yeah, a BUNCH of people have acted really goddamn out of character and it’s unclear why.

JOHN: i got everything i wanted. everyone got what they— JOHN: what i thought they wanted. JOHN: and that’s just it, isn’t it? JOHN: the more i think about it, i’m the only factor that matters to anything.

--What?!?  No!!!  You could SEE that this wasn’t what you thought they wanted right from the get-go.  It couldn’t have been YOUR imagination that this realm of alternative possibility was drawn from, could it?  D:

JOHN: whatever i did, or didn’t do, just... destroyed reality’s ability to, like, substantiate itself, or whatever. JOHN: like there’s a bug in the operating system of whatever force in this world that regulates cause and effect. JOHN: everything’s been unraveling. nothing that happens makes sense anymore. JOHN: and now i’m the only person out here who’s even real at all! JOHN: hahahaha.

That’s certainly an idea at least, that people started acting out of character as we went further from “canon”.  In fact, it’s kind of a slam at fanfics, maybe?  Acknowledging that they distort the characters by understanding them in different ways, sometimes, and.. hm.

(VRISKA): Hahahahahahahaha... Wow, I’ve never seen a guy get his 8ulge all the way down his own swallow chute 8efore! JOHN: wait, what? (VRISKA): Good fuck. Do you actually think reality gives that much of a shit a8out you? (VRISKA): Get real, Eg8ert. (VRISKA): It’s not like you’re me. JOHN: ok, well. JOHN: that’s fair i guess.

Heheheh.  ...Yeah, Vriska might pep talk him out of this self-deprecating theory of his.  Besides, I mean... is that the ONLY cause for this whole fucking situation?  That Roxy’s will got eroded to nothing arbitrarily either at random in a glitching non-canon timeline or because John kind of maybe thought something was going to happen and reality decided to run with it??

...heheh, “batterpanzers”.

I’m pretty sure caring what “c8non” is supposed to be is EXACTLY the thing you’re freaking out about, Vriska, whether you realize it or not.

Oooh, Gamzee.  Do we get to see Vriska kill him?

Yeaaah... redemption ain’t for THIS sp8der.  The ghost version of Vriska got the closest thing to redemption she’ll ever get; THIS version never learned any damn lessons and is not going to accept that she ever NEEDS to.  Also, you said her name in relevance-reducing parentheses.  Bad move.

==>

Yaaaay here’s the bunch of indigo blood we were promised!! :D

Where’s the nudity though? Maybe that’s coming.

He yowls as if he had actual testicles to be mauled, and for all anyone knows, maybe he really does.

It’s reassuring to see that while Andrew is more than willing to give us WAY too much genital detail in some cases throughout this epilogue, he still knows how to deftly exploit the parts of anatomy that still AREN’T explicitly characterized and remain intentionally vague for their impactful resulting humor.  :)

She lunges at Gamzee’s catastrophic face lips-first, and practically dives into his mouth, ramming her tongue into his

NOOO FUCK HE WAS ABOUT TO DIE AAAAAA D’:

FUCK  :(

Okay, back on to anything but this.

==>

Oh shit, double Vriska.  This might be bad.

...Phew.  Nice save, John.

JOHN: ha ha. yeah, right. because this is real life, right? JOHN: i guess reading narrative relevance into a bunch of dumb and totally random events is kind of lame and childish. ROSE: No, that isn’t what I meant at all. ROSE: By all means, apply a narrative to our lives. Up until a certain point, it would have been perfectly accurate to do so. ROSE: But not anymore. JOHN: because... it’s not canon, right? ROSE: Do you remember what I told you years ago? About the three pillars of canon?

Wuh-oh.

ROSE: As I explained to you on that morning sixteen years ago, there are three critical features of canon: essentiality, relevance, and truth. JOHN: yeah. ROSE: We have been untethered from the mooring of “truth” for some time now. ROSE: So while we, in our subjective experiences of conscious perception, feel in this moment that we have known each other for a very long time, technically it’s not true at all.

...Okay.  Okay.

So.  Were, like.

Roxy and Calliope affected by the, like... “untruth wave” of his choice not to go the hardest, because he made it in their vicinity?  And that turned Roxy into a hypnozombie with minimal apparent free will? :C

...Oh wow.  She’s thanking John that she got a chance to be happy in this side timeline, even if so many other people suffered.  Because of the fucking hell Dirk was about to unleash on her in the Meat timeline.  Fuck.

ROSE: In the silly wizard story I wrote when I was a child, ROSE: The realm most comparable to heaven existed in a state of subliminal conditionality, dependent on the inscience of the individual experiencing it. ROSE: Which is to say that it would cease to exist the moment you realized what it was. ROSE: And so, those with knowledge could never truly be happy.

Oh wow, huh.  Yeah, knowing you’re just in a fanfic kind of screws your appreciation for life around you, huh.  So John got fucked over a bit by his metatextual awareness.  :(

And... Rose was, like, cut off by his choice from her own metatextual awakening, maybe?  Hence her ability to appreciate a life somewhere disconnected from anything “canon”?

ROSE: But that isn’t me anymore. ROSE: I am blind against the veil of this world. ROSE: It’s all ambrosia to me. ROSE: I don’t care if it’s not true. I care even less if it’s not canon. ROSE: I have a beautiful wife who I love more than I thought possible, and a daughter who I am immeasurably proud of. ROSE: It can all be senseless, ephemeral noise that dissolves in the void. A whisper swept up by the wind before it’s uttered. ROSE: I’m still grateful to have felt this way.

:’)

Alright, this might be a pretty good way of accepting their potential happiness in different timelines as a potential substitute for Dirk’s mess.  I’m not sure HOW well I’ll be able to internalize it to stop the stomach cramps, but we’ll see.

We still have a little bit more left, though.  Next post.

[nokomiss]

So I've had a few days to process the Magicians season finale and basically I've come to the conclusion that:

a.) They actually killed off Quentin Like That, did their cast and crew dirty Like That, treated their fans Like That, and thought that the plotting of that story was actually decent, which, loooool.

b.) They are clumsily attempting to pull a Jon Snow, where they want everyone to believe Quentin is dead, but will bring him back at some point in the future.

If it's option A, it's supremely gross. Everyone has listed the reasons already -- the killing the 'white male protagonist' to show how edgy and subversive your show is? Gross. If you've written a show where you have a generic white male protagonist, that's the failure of the writing. And if you've written a show where the protagonist is canonically linked romantically to both women and men (even if you don't put a label on it) and is ALSO explicitly shown to mentally ill and suicidal, and you think the best solution to that is to have them heroically commit suicide, after a season of buildup to a romantic climax with a male character, and have no resolution to that?  Gross. The self-congratulatory attitude of the showrunners is really what made this such a betrayal.

AND then there's option B.

Option B was something I kept thinking about shortly after hearing about the 'oh it's permanent' thing, and then one of the actor's tweets mentioned GoT, which isn't evidence at all but does open the door for the comparison.  I'm going to speak here as a longtime ASOIAF fan/GoT viewer. (I have my own issues with Game of Thrones as a TV show that I won't get into here, but suffice to say I love it but don't view it with rose-colored glasses.)  The reason the Jon Snow thing worked and no one revolted? Was that it was earned. Jon Snow was a central character, but not the central character; GoT has a huge cast, multiple storylines, and if one character dies, even a beloved one, there's plenty of story remaining and, vitally, plenty of bonds to hold the remaining characters together. And, possibly most importantly, it was consistent with the show’s own internal rulebook.

Quentin is the emotional heart of the Magicians -- even the show itself explicitly brings his love of magic and his love of Fillory as the beating heart of the story.  Ripping that away, to use a metaphor from the show itself, will be like when Julia was severed from her soul -- still present, but missing a vital piece.  And the show has a long history of characters fighting against death, and finding ways to cheat it. It’s not a tragedy. It’s a very different kind of tale.

I have a lot - a LOT - of feelings about this, so I’m going to put them under a read more. Some spoilers for GoT ahead, and a lot of feelings about earned narratives, storytelling, characters, hope and betrayal.

Jon Snow's death didn't come out of the blue, either. The tensions and discontent in the Night's Watch were building until there was only one real possible outcome to the situation, and it made sense within context that his brothers would turn on him.  Quentin's death, as part of a really ham-handed finale, was not earned? It didn't have any build-up or gravitas. You had a character who had been depressed, put in to an awful situation with the possessed body of his ex-love, found the fire within him to fight against the Monster, and then... instead of any logical emotional arc, they had him hook up with an ex and go on the most deux ex machina quest I can remember on the show, and then kill himself over a forgettable villain. All the campfire sing-alongs in the world can't make up for the emotional momentum they lost when they took away Quentin's spine.

 When they took away his heart.

And -- here's the thing -- both of these series are based on books. And you know what? In ASOIAF, in canon right now, the last thing to happen to Jon Snow was to die bleeding out in the snow. And yet, when he died on screen, and Kit Harrington spent a year telling everyone he was done with the show, everyone still knew that Jon Snow would return. It made narrative sense.  I've honestly only read the first Magicians book, but I did read the summaries of the later two, and Quentin doesn't die. Quentin is given an ending filled with hope.

And the reason I keep coming back to the 'maybe they're doing a Jon Snow' is that his death? in that manner? Just does not make any sort of narrative sense.  Probably (undoubtedly) it's just me trying to see meaning where there is none, trying to optimistically think that the showrunners had more care for their own story than they do. But Quentin dying with no emotional fulfillment with Eliot, after a full season of fighting to save him, of being dragged through hell by the Monster, makes no sense. If they'd had the two speak at all, conclude their plotline, I would have accepted the death much more calmly. At least there would be emotional catharsis, even if plot wise I was left frustrated.

Because, here's the thing. When I read that the show had been renewed for Season 5 before Season 4 even aired, I immediately figured that it was a two-season story arc. When Season 4 was so slow to solve the Monster plot, it seemed obvious to me that they were planning on dealing with the repercussions with Season 5.  Probably -- again -- that was me putting way, way too much faith in the writers of the show.  But there are just so many dangling plotlines, and things that were dealt with so  clumsily that they might well have never been addressed at all -- the library, the hedge witches, the magic rations, the old gods, Fillory's issues, really almost EVERYTHING from the season except for getting the Monster out of Eliot's body, and even that failed to address why his growing humanity was even a THING -- that they apparently decided no one would notice because of the Shock and Subversiveness of killing Quentin.  I went into the finale with the absolute lowest of bars, because I could see there was no possible way of wrapping up everything, and I totally expected a To Be Continued at the end. Somehow they still managed to disappoint.

And that doesn’t even begin to address how they treated the other characters.  Kady, reducing herself to just Penny’s girlfriend. Alice’s own character growth stunted to shove her back into what had already been shown as a failed relationship.  Margo, beautiful fierce Margo, abandoning her own plan to save her own best friend because… she liked a dude? And had already solved the fish-issue with her fairy eye?  Penny23, reduced to just a puppy trailing after Julia, even though he had telepathy and was a traveler?  Julia, with her choices concerning her body and entire existence stolen from her again. (because a telepath couldn’t talk to her????)  Fen, totally ignored for the finale? Eliot, never getting his chance to be brave?

That doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of faith for them to make a shift to a show that focuses on diverse characters, when this is how they treat them.

Where does that leave me? With a bad taste in my mouth either way, basically.  I told a friend before the finale that "It's a universe where magic exists! They can fix things!" and it's so simple to canonically bring someone back.  All the writer's talk about realism is ridiculous, this is a show that thrives on the ridiculous and the absurd.  Even if Jason Ralph chose to not return, that doesn't mean Quentin can't. It's very in-the-box thinking if so -- I could think offhand of a half-dozen ways for him to return in a different body, hell, make it a POC one if they're actually that worried about having a White Male Protagonist -- but ultimately I felt most betrayed because this death was not emotionally EARNED by the writers.  It is lazy. It is banal.

And it's ultimately incredibly tone-deaf.  Sci-fi and fantasy stories offer escapism, and when the real world looks like it does now, literally no one wants their dumb show about magic grad school to be about death and despair. The message the fans look for is one of hope. Quentin as a character offered hope -- you could struggle with depression and still find the  beauty of all life, you could find yourself in a magical land, you could find love and friendship and bravery within you that you never realized. That you didn't have to be the hero to be important. So if his death is permanent, like the writers claim -- and at  this point I have literally no faith in them whatsoever -- then it's an incredible waste of what could have been a beautiful and groundbreaking story.  

And if they're toying with the fans... it's misguided, and just frankly has not been earned in the way they think it has, and frankly means they're blind to their own storytelling faults. It's downright mean, and I'm not sure that I would be willing to support their show even if they brought Quentin back, knowing how little they thought of their fans.

[aliterarywitch]

Can someone genuinely explain to me Varys and Tyrion’s point of view on the whole ‘Dany is the mad queen she’s like her father’ thing? Because as far as I have seen, ever since she set foot in Westeros she has taken their council every single time and shown restrain instead of directly going to burn down KL and Cersei. Right up to the end of episode 4, where she goes to parley with a small number of soldiers at her back. While I love Daenerys as a character and think she’s the most iconic character in the ASOIAF/ GOT world, one of the main reasons I love her is because she’s not a clear cut hero/ villain and more ambiguous. She has the most amount of sheer power in a female character I have ever read about or watched on screen, and that has more to do with Why I like her, not because I think she’s an unscrupulous ‘good guy’, really no one in GOT is.

But Daenerys had several chances to be more ruthless or ‘evil’ in the last two seasons and each and every single time, she wasn’t. She could have attacked Kings Landing immediately upon arrival. Instead she listened to Tyrion’s plans, which failed every single time. Yet she still listened to him. After losing the Iron fleet and Dorne, she did nothing. After losing Highgarden she still didn’t attack innocents. She attacked soldiers who had attacked, robbed and betrayed her and her allies in the reach. She met them on the battlefield with only one of her dragons. It was War, was she supposed to just sit back and do nothing yet again cuz tyrion has strangely complicated feelings about Cersei?

The next time she even gets on a dragon is to go save Jon & co. Beyond the wall, again against Tyrion’s advice, because she has feelings for Jon but also because it’s the right thing to do. She loses a dragon, her child, to save several other characters.

And then she goes to Winterfell with the entire force of her armies to help with the WWs. She trusts Tyrion’s word that Cersei will also make the same decision she did. She doesn’t openly say a word when Sansa and the Northmen are distrustful of her. Instead she speaks to Sansa and Jon in private about the throne and Cersei.

She finds out that the man she loves is not only related to her, but also has a better claim to the throne she’s dedicated her life to and has no time to process this. Then the battle of Winterfell happens and again, if it wasn’t for Dany’s dragons and her armies they wouldn’t have survived five seconds. She burned thousands of wights, saved Jon even though a real ‘mad queen’ would have probably let him die, and when cornered even picked up a sword to defend herself with no training. She lost Jorah, her friend and most trusted advisor, someone she has known and loved for almost a decade.

And then when it’s time to turn her attention to Cersei, Rhaegal is attacked and killed and Missandei, her best friend captured by a real mad woman, and Tyrion and Varys yet again advise against burning down kings landing and she LISTENS.

But now they know she has a more pliable and respectful male relative with the claim to the throne, they begin to conspire against her. As far as I can see Daenerys’ biggest mistake the entire time was trusting Tyrion. She listens to him every time and lost.

Obviously burning down half a million innocents in kings landing is a bad thing to do. But this is war. Innocents die. Its like everyone has forgotten the state of the Riverlands when Robb was at war against the lannisters. Or that Stannis attacked kings landing during the battle of Blackwater to take the throne that was his by right and would have likely killed thousands of people too. And that during Roberts rebellion that is exactly what the Lannister army did on behalf of Robert to overthrow the Targaryens, and everyone hailed Robert king and the good guy/ liberator anyway. Maybe it’s just the dragons, but if you HAVE dragons obviously you’re going to use them. The dragons are still largely seen as ‘good’ in GOT even though dragons have traditionally been villains and obstacles in the fantasy genre.

I just don’t understand the logic. The writing is so bad and this need to judge Daenerys on her words instead of her actions really doesn’t come across right. She’s listened to council every single time she’s wanted to do something impulsive. If you judged every person for the terrible things they said behind closed doors than they’d all be mad kings and queens. From Varys and Tyrion’s perspective, is it really just about having a monarch they can control? Do they realize they’d have died in the crypts if Daenerys wasn’t powerful and ruthless? Possibly before that since Cersei was sending people to assassinate Tyrion after he ran away from KL? Tyrion and Varys have both been absolutely useless to her and she’s still given them respect and listened to their council.

The writers have really committed themselves to destroying Daenerys’ entire arc because this last episode just made no sense. If they had bothered to show a more gradual descent into insanity I might have accepted it but this is just a really horrible way to handle a character. They made her lose everything she ever loved or earned in the span of 5-6 episode just for the sake of drama, and I frankly think it’s an insult to the audience and any person especially any woman who has ever admired or identified with Daenerys and her story.