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gb-patch · 4 years ago

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Ask Answers: January 28th, 2021 (Part 2)

Here we’ve got asks that aren’t to ask a question but are just really nice messages. Thank you all for sending us such kind comments ;v;. It’s seriously heartwarming to see so many people having good experiences with the game. I don’t even know what to say to such sweet responses.

We’ll keep doing our best and thank you again to each and every one of you for giving Our Life a chance ❤!

Hello! I've been following this account and have been following the development of 'Our Life' for a few months now, and I just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work and dedication you have put into the game. It astonishes me how much choice you have during the sequence of Our Life and am excited to play the full version now, I am downloading it as I write this message. I've had a great time seeing the demo transition into to the full game and just wanted to write two words. Thank you.

Anhhhhffbgdfbhujk!!! Congratulations on the release, I’m playing the game right now! Thank you all for your hard work and I can’t wait for the Step 3 DLC to come out, I’ll probably wait for the Step 3 DLC to come out to experience everything, but until then, I still have a lot to play. Thank you once again!

finished my first playthrough just now. it just felt so wholesome ??? 100/10 would do it again. i laughed. i cried. i got angry. i felt second-hand embrassment— i got so into it i was left in literal tears after getting my first ending. the art, the storyline, the music, and COVE HOLDEN– UGH IT WAS LITERAL PERFECTION ❤ THE WAIT WAS WORTH IT. THANK YOU FOR MAKING SUCH AN AMAZING GAME 🥺😭 this made my 2020 better, i can't wait for step 4 in 2021 ❤❤

So I was following you guys on itchio for years and uhh did I stay up til 6 am on a school night to finish the game? Yes. Did I sob my eyes out during step 3 as a 20 year old having doubts about life and adulthood? Absolutely. I can't form proper sentences right now due to lack of sleep but just wanted to say thank you for making it. I honestly feel lighter and I feel like it changed my views on future to be more optimistic... I can't wait to replay it! Thanks again!

I love how Our Life turned out!! I keep replaying it and can't stop squeaking and giggling!! Thank You for creating it ♥

okay i have actually fallen in love with cove and cannot WAIT to marry him 😭

Hi! I played through 'Our Life' yesterday and I just wanna say how refreshing it was to be able to have Cove be 'high initiative' and also have so many opportunities to initiate affection from the player character! As a pretty flirtatious/affectionate person myself, I notice that a lot of VNs don't give players that agency, and affection can be kinda 'carrot on a stick' if that makes sense. You guys did an awesome job! I look forward to seeing if there are more of those moments in Step 3 & 4 :)

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the option to choose Cove's level of initiative in step 3! As much I love the option to choose I personally enjoy have the romanced character take the lead without my input so when I got to step 3 and had to option to make it so that Cove initiated affection without as much input from me I was really happy! You guys seriously added so much freedom in terms of choices, it's almost baffling that the only thing you have to pay for is optional DLC!

I absolutely loved everything about the game and I really want congratulate the team for making the game such a satisfying experience.

I look forward to step 4

❤️❤️❤️❤️

* and sorry for my bad English

Just finished my first play through and I loved it! I've been looking forward to the game and it definitely was worth the wait. Thank you all for your hard work and can't wait for the extra dlc!

Till then, hope you guys gets some well deserved rest🤗

Love you guys, thank you so much for your hard work. :)

Ok, so I just finished Our Life and, wow. I have never cried at a video game before, ever. Thank you so, so much! Its one of my favorites.

this isn't a question, but i just wanted to say how much i enjoyed our life 🥺 i've been patiently looking forward to the full game for a few months now, and i couldn't be happier with it! i've only played through it once so far but the outcomes of the choices i made were all so soft and wholesome 💗 i can tell that everyone who was involved really worked hard and you all did an incredible job! i can't wait to see what else is in store 👍

i’d just like to say how addictive our life is!!! i constantly played it during quarantine and now playing the full release is so amazing to me!! i love that i’m still discovering dialogue bits with different personalities and actions!!! i have to admit that i’ve been wishing the day to pass faster all day during school so i could go home and play again. mentally i’m not the healthiest and our life being released has boosted it up so much, thank you for creating such an amazing game!!!!!

Hey, I just wanna say I played our life two times and it still give me the same feelings. I was really looking forward to this game before it came out and I kept on replaying the demo. This game is such an amazing experience and I feel so happy playing it. I am not really a person good with words unfortunately but I do honestly love this more than anything in the world. Thank you for making it and I hope that you will continue to make more games like our life. This game really makes me happy and I can't thank you enough

Just wanted to say that Our Life really made me feel seen as an 18 year old trans man who's been struggling with change as of late and I can't thank you guys enough for it. I just finished the main story and currently released DLC's and gosh, I can really only say... woah. Just, woah. The messages are somehow exactly what I needed to hear right now, and they brought me a lot of comfort in this really weird and confusing time in my life. Can't wait to see what comes next in this lovely story <3

I am honestly in love with Our Life. The graphics, the soundtrack its just *chef's kiss* It was so worth the wait for it. I can't wait for step 4. Keep up the good work GB Patch!

good people i have just finished Our Life and let me say, it was beautiful. rarely have such non-fantastical moments (and even some fantastical moments) brought me to tears like this game has, and i don't even have the dlc (yet). i don't know how you did it but it felt like i was playing a slice of life anime. i had waited with baited breath to play this since i played the demo and my expectations were not just met but surpassed. from the bottom of my heart thank you for this game

I found the game by chance and I am so so glad I did. It’s so inclusive and made me feel so incredibly seen. Seeing that my gender identity and sexuality were possible just meant the absolute world to me. I’ve never seen something like this and it just made me so incredibly happy. Thank you for the absolutely amazing game and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Hello! I downloaded Our life earlier this week and I'm only now getting the chance to play it (Very busy and stressful week) I'm so excited to play and I wanna say thank you for making this adorable game!

I just finished my first playthrough of Our Life and I can't even express how much I love it. Cove is absolutely precious and has killed me several times, and the art and soundtrack is beautiful. I love all the small different choices. I'm very interested in the Derek and Baxter DLCs and the rest, can't wait!!!!!!

thank you for "Our Life Beginnings & Always" it has to be one of the best visual novels i ever have played and i just dont want it to end (i know it will, but damn it! i want to have a wedding night, have children and die of old age with cole! XD) when i play it it always makes me tear up (in a good way) and i am most definetly going to buy all the dlc that you make! thank you for this lovely game and all the work that went into it! (ps: i also loved "lake of voices" )

You guys are incredibly talented and im very proud of you all! You've really outdone yourselves w/ OL and i cant wait to see whats next to come for you all :)

i really love that you can be trans in Our Life! not a lot of games do that so i just wanted to say thank you!

Guuyyss!! I just wanna say! Thank you sm for the headscarf option in the MC creator! I especially loved that little detail where MC quickly slips the headscarf on before greeting Cove, I've never felt so immersed :'D Not that the rest of the game wasn't immersive btw, but since I wear my hijab most of the time that little addition really felt like something I would do! So thank you for that <3

I've been watching "Our Life: Beginnings & Always" development for quite some time, and I gotta say its wild to see it finally release. Its so unique in the way relationships work- even character creation. I've cried multiple times over this game while playing. I can't thank y'all enough for a game with these kind of mechanics, and representation. its rare I get to feel im really playing as myself in games like these. Everyones outdone themselves. this'll certainly be one I keep coming back to.

I've been following the development of Our Life from way back when the first demo dropped and it still blows my mind how many choices and customizations there are (love that update for the MC's bedroom btw!) and the fact that the game remembers them - it really feels like your very own coming of age story! I was so immersed I cried at the end :') Can't believe I experienced this game for free lol. I can't wait for future DLCs and Step 4! Good luck with all your upcoming projects dev team!!

Just wanted to say I love Our Life and I'm thankful it exists. Thank you so much! I love the little world you created and all the people in it. Especially Cove! This game makes me so happy!

Just poping in to say hi and that ilu guys ^^, remember to take care of yourselves!

Hi!! I just wanna thank you for creating such an amazing game. Our Life is one of the few dating sims I’ve found that let’s me be a male mc, it’s really hard to find dating sims that let me be gay. Our Life is my new favorite dating sim to just sit down and playthrough whenever I’m having a bad day so I just wanted to let y’all know how much I appreciate all you’ve done. 🤍

Fan from australia here

Just wanted to reach out and let you know how important this game has been to me. I came across it at a really rough time ( that I’m still going through ) and it’s been one of the things that’s driven me to get up and out of bed sometimes.

This game and cove both hold a very special place in my heart and I can’t wait to see more of him in the DLC and Step 4

Much love ♥️

I know this isnt exactly the main focus of the game, but i really love how we can customise the mc personality wise! This is the first time i've played a game like this where the mc actually does and says exactly what I would do and say in certain situations and its such a breath of fresh air!! It's also so cool how the other characters can pick up on it!!

Cove Holden saved 2020 (my 2020 anyways) I would die for him

Sorry for this being out of the blue, but after playing through Our Life I wanted to thank you for the experience. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game that has made me cry happy tears TWICE lol. It’s beautiful, scenic, inclusive, and absolutely amazing..have a great rest of 2020 and I honestly cannot wait for the rest of it :,) (ps. The ending song is stuck in my head)

I think you guys might've ruined visual novels for me forever. I'm not sure I'll be able to play another without comparing it to Our Life and I know if I do that I'll be disappointed every time because of how amazing it is. I bought the DLCs before playing the base game it's one of the best impulsive purchases I've ever made

Thank you so much for making our life! It's my favorite visual novel ever and I just can't articulate how much being able to just be honest with my responses instead of going for whatever would make the love interest happy means to me? I reccomended it to evry friend I have that plays visual novels because this is the best one I've ever played!

Just wanted to say that I absolutely adore this game! The childhood friends tropes is my favorite thing and this game delivers! Cove is the sweetest thing, infact all the boys are good boys. Super excited for all upcoming dlcs!

Hi, I just want to thank you for making such an amazing game like Our Life. Tbh, I was following the game’s development for a while, but me and my family moved away from my childhood town just a few days before release, so I really connected to this game. You all did amazing!

hey just wanted to know that i completely loved ol: b&a and it was so good and love cove more than i’ve liked any fictional character, it’s now my comfort media. thank you so much

hi i just wanna say i really enjoyed all of the representation in our life b&a! there were characters with a lot of different body shapes, pic characters, lgbtq+ characters, and you get to choose your own pronouns and sexuality!!! so tysm!!

This isn't a question, I just wanted to say that Our Life is incredible. Ever since I finished it, I've been looking for other visual novels to play so I don't play OL so often that I start memorizing the lines before all the DLC comes out, but I keep coming back to it. It's really one of a kind, I think you all ruined other visual novels for me because I haven't enjoyed another VN like I have this one since I read it ❤.

i think our life b&a is the first game where i felt like cove loved me, not the character i play as which is really nice for someone with kinda low self esteem so THANK YOU

I’ve been playing Our Life practically nonstop since yesterday. I just want everyone who worked on it to know how much the LGBTQ inclusivity means to me. As a closeted trans ace guy in an unsupportive household, I can’t emphasize how much of a comfort this game has been to me. Everything about it is so wholesome and heartfelt. I’m excited to see what other games you make in the future 💙

- A demibiromantic ace transgender man who may or may not have cried over the option to be myself in a game for the first time ever

Csn i just say i really appreciate how you handled MC deciding to use they/them at different stages. Mainly because alot of games don't pay much attention to the body the mc was assigned at birth if they player chooses nonbinary like it does with male/female. And it was just nice to be able to play an mc who just thought gender was kinda 'meh' for them but still felt good about the body they were born with (like myself). I guesd it boils down I'm really appreciative of the hard work it must've taken for you to make all those options possible & still have them matter.

I just wanted to thank you all for Our Life. My mental health hasn't been in a good place recently and it has become my favorite form of escapism/way to cheer up. It's idyllic setting and fantastic characters are such a good way to wind down, I love it. Also, I've been dreading 2021 due to classes starting and general stress, but the DLC and your next project have given me something to actually look forward to :). I'm so excited for them and now I actually have a reason to be happy that it's 2021. Sorry if this message is a bit weird, I just wanted to thank the team for their hard work and for creating something so incredible <3

I've gotta say this is one of the most repayable games I've ever played, if not the most. Usually after i do a playthrough or two of a game i have to wait awhile before playing again otherwise it feels stale. But i haven't had that problem with our life because of the sheer ammount of player agency. Everyone who works on tbe game should feel incredibly proud of themselves because you've created something amazing.

I just wanted to say thank you for Our Life. I'm sure you get this a lot, but it really pulled me out of a mentally tough spot in my life. So thank you.

who needs therapy when you have our life: beginnings and always? haha no but seriously this game is my comfort game, and even though i can’t join your patreon at the moment please know i am always supporting you and i am so excited to see everything you have in store! everyone who works on the games is so so talented

All DLCs have nice content. 😡😡

And I love them all!!💗💗💗💖💖💖💕💕💕

#our life #Our Life Beginnings & Always #ourlifeba #ask #gb patch #gb patch games

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thejonzone · 4 years ago

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Riverdale is the Best Show You’ve Written Off

About once a month, a tweet will go around, reading something like “I can’t believe Netflix cancelled [SHOW X], but Riverdale is still on?!? *eye roll emoji, angry cussing emoji*.” It can be difficult to read tweets like these, because I like Riverdale. But I understand why it has struggled to keep an audience-- there is a perception that the show has gone completely off the rails, a chaos of hot actors in their mid-20s playing glamorous high school sociopaths, with the show choosing excess over narrative cohesion. That perception is pretty accurate. It’s an easy show to write off and easy to make fun of, especially because, as a CW show, it’s ostensibly geared to teens. So it brings me no pleasure to say that Riverdale, currently in its 5th season, has reached a renaissance, and its episodes so far this season represent its high-water mark.

To appreciate how stunning and exciting Riverdale’s new direction is, it’s important to understand how we got here.

In the first season, a murder in the titular town revealed an underbelly of thugs, power brokers, and shady backroom rulers, all vying for control with gothic morbidity. What followed after that season though, was something else entirely.

Riverdale, ramping up during Seasons 2 through 4, became a beautiful mess. I think it’s important to state that no other show on television is even attempting to do what Riverdale did/is doing. The show is, at any one point, 5-7 wholly different shows. There is a season’s worth of plot per episode. It’s storytelling mania and in-real-time dementia. I don’t remember what happened at the end of last episode because SO much happened. And besides, coherence is overrated! Give me hot actors, give me drug-addicted mobsters, give me creepy principals! On Riverdale, the parents are both former teen heartthrobs and serial killers, children operate underground speakeasies, and for some reason not one therapist has realized they could make a fortune helping our cast work through the intense psychological terror and emotional abuse they receive every episode.

This show is beyond pastiche, hyper-loaded with reference. My roommate and I had a joke that the show’s third season could be mapped to a quadrant of influences: Twin Peaks, True Detective, The Sopranos, and Gossip Girl. At any point Riverdale was acknowledging and playing into the influence of one of these shows. Season Four doubled down on the show’s horror anthology tendency. No one wants you to miss the references being made. You know that menacing boarding school Jughead attends in Season Four? You’d be right If it reminded you of Donna Tartt’s A Secret History. After all, consider Jughead’s classmate, whose name is Donna Sweet. Maybe you picked up on the violence simmering underneath the surface of Jughead’s other classmate, Bret Easton-Elli-- I mean, Bret Weston-Wallis.

Every week, the show seems primed for failure, attempting to juggle more storylines than possible or even necessary. The show is like a house of cards that has already fallen, and yet the writers are somehow still haphazardly adding more cards to the top. “Be reasonable!” I would plead. To no avail. And that’s the thrill of it. The plotlines are secondary to the spectacle. The show is a celebration and parody of violent legacy dramas, camp, teen horror, canonical literature, and anything else it can stuff under the hood, as much an ode to other pieces of media as it is an original work itself.

But now, something completely different is happening. The beginning of Season Five brought an end to the seasons-long saga the show felt trapped in. Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead graduated high school, and the show flashed forward seven years. What might be considered a hokey technique was one of the best decisions the writers ever did. Because now we have a blank slate for our main cast. The writers effectively cut the fat from three seasons of violent, ridiculous maximalism. And it’s psychically refreshing.

At the heart of any good sitcom, we just want to see our main characters hanging out together. Change is part of life, but it shouldn’t be in television. Which is why this new season is so exciting-- Riverdale is now in the process of bringing its four main characters back from their adult lives and re-engaging them in the deadly politics of their hometown. Pop Tate, the owner-manager of Pop’s, Riverdale’s diner, is retiring, and Archie gets the gang back in town to celebrate the man who helped make the diner such a great hang-out spot. In the words of Jughead, “You gave us a home, Pop.” Like so mant other sitcoms before it, Riverdale used Pop’s to establish its characters and their relationships to each other.

I grew up on Seinfeld so I’ve always been attracted to the idea of the diner. The pandemic has made me yearn even harder for the sitcom diner, that idealistic place where all my friends are, where people enter with problems to be solved, drama to be explained, good news to be celebrated. Riverdale’s acknowledgment of Pop and his diner as the show’s connective tissue is a grounding and human choice. It works fantastically to set up this upcoming season, where our gang must confront the newest nefarious plot for control over the soul of Riverdale.

No doubt the show will continue its pattern of naming and spoofing genre. Veronica, in her adult life, had an Uncut Gems-style few scenes where she works as a charismatic (of course) diamond merchant. She married a possessive, boring guy who’s only characteristic seems to be that his voice is *exactly* like Veronica’s megalomaniac dad, Hiram. Something something Freud, something something daddy sexy. And credit where credit is due, Mark Consuelos is really hot.

Jughead is a writer now, in the most white guy college freshman fantasy of being a writer possible. He attended the Iowa Writers Workshop as an undergrad, something that is definitely not possible. He’s written a hit book but now suffers from *gasp* writer’s block?? He’s a cool guy writer who, in his opening montage, gets recognized by, hit on, and then has sex with a college-aged fan. Back in Riverdale, Jug writes a speech for Pop’s retirement and sends it to his agent. His agent is smitten with the work, calling it “tragic americana” and proclaiming that Jughead’s next book will be titled “Elegy for a Small Town”. This is almost certainly a reference to J.D. Vance’s bad book, and I’m sure the show will be bringing in more elements of “tragic” “americana” as the season unfolds.

Betty is FBI in training, because as the show has loved to tell us, Betty has “the serial killer gene”, but is using it for good. For the record, her dad was a serial killer, and her brother was a serial killer. And it’s not like her mom or sister can cast the first stone. Betty’s endured enough trauma to fill 100 lives with unending pain and I’m sure the show will have no trouble heaping more on top. Already in the new season we’ve seen flashbacks to some point during the time jump when Betty was taken hostage, in what’s clearly a homage to The Silence of the Lambs.

And then there’s Archie. I don’t know if anyone knows what to do with the guy. Played by K.J. Apa, who is both really good-looking with his shirt off and a god-awful actor, Archie has been in the army. The show is using him to shill for the military-industrial complex.

I’ve long joked that the Riverdale writers have no idea what they’re doing. But through a global pandemic affecting TV production and *the* major narrative complication in any high school-set show (graduation), the Riverdale writers have seamlessly transitioned the show to a new stasis. Past seasons are informing this one, but we aren’t bogged down by the details in this new season. The bigger joke, of course, is that the writers have known exactly what they’ve been doing this whole time, and I’m just an idiot. Well I mean, of course I’m an idiot. I use television to regulate my emotions and simulate a static friend group that doesn’t leave or change. And Riverdale is perfect for that. If a renaissance is a rebirth, well then my friends, cut the umbilical cord and save the placenta to put in pills, because Riverdale is cranking out episodes that are better than ever.

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years ago

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I will respond to this. But in future I’m asking you and others not to send me things like this please.

“This month, Marvel Comics relaunched Amazing Spider-Man with a Nick Spencer as head writer, marking the end of Dan Slott's long run with the title and an end of the "Brand New Day" era of Spider-History.”

The problems start here. BND ended before Slott’s solo run began.

“ Spencer's run begins with a bit of a bang.

Well, about as much of a bang as you get from kissing the same person you've known for 50 years.”

This is a reductive and childish mentality towards romance and sex. It prioritizes the novelty and excitement of ‘new love’ (which is scientifically guaranteed to last like 2 years tops) over the deeper and ultimately more potent emotions attached to proper love, which in truth is kind of like friendship on steroids.

In this specific case it’s especially stupid as, putting aside fan reactions, the fact that Peter and Mj were back together after 10+ years was OBVIOUSLY going to be a shocking moment. A ‘bang’ if you will. This is like saying it wasn’t a moment of audience interest whenever Ross and Rachel seemingly got back together or when Monica and Chandler initially got together. They too had known one another for a long time, a roughly equivalent time for their character and Peter and MJ in-universe.

“This has come after Peter and Mary Jane have been apart for about a decade. This recent "surprise" get-back-to-gether is the same sort of "exciting development" that happens eventually after Marvel breaks a couple up, or kills someone in one of their books (See the Hulk, Jean Grey, Peter Parker during Superior Spider-Man, etc. etc. etc.) Peter and Mary Jane getting back together (apparently) is sort of a big deal.”

Yes. Because fans WANTED them to be back together.

Fans aren’t in this for the roller coaster of novelty. They don’t want Spidey or Superman to be with anyone OTHER than MJ or Lois. By the same token the majority do not want anyone other than Luthor or Joker to be Superman or Batman’s archenemies.

“See, in 2007 Marvel Comics made the bold decision to end the marriage between Spider-Man and his longtime wife, Mary Jane Watson.”

Watson Parker

It wasn’t bold it was asinine

How bold is it when it was the third such attempt to do that? “At the time, fans lost their shit.” And they are STILL angry about it. “You can't really blame them because the deed was done in the most asinine way. For some reason, divorce was out of the question. The alternative was somehow more awful. After Peter's Aunt May got shot in the bo-bo at the end of Civil War, Spider-Man literally made a deal with the devil to save her life.” WTF is a bo-bo? “What did this change exactly? Well, the events of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 didn't end in a marriage. So everything that happened after was still the same except Peter amd MJ were a common-law couple. Or something.” And MJ was never pregnant, and all the shit specifically related to their wedding rings, dress, photos, anniversary couldn’t have happened and given how to them marriage wasn’t a piece of paper then this would have massive ramifications for their relationship quite a part from the fact there would now be a massive sore spot in their relationship. “Anyway, like I said, a lot of longtime fans hated it.” No. MOST longtime fans hated it. And most SHORT time fans also hated it. And even many newer fans who jumped on-board after it hated it too. “You know, the audience they weren't trying to appeal to anymore.” Which was idiotic. You don’t try to gain a new audience by throwing away your old one. You try to retain the old audience and bring new people into the fold at the same time. Noticeably this happened in the 1990s. This failed to happen after OMD and it failed to happen with the Nu52 which was the OMD for the whole DC universe. The latter failed so badly they reverse rebooted many characters, Superman chief among them. Superman’s financial and critical reception increased when they brought back the OLD Superman who was married (and now a father to boot) and used him to replace the younger, single and hip Superman most people disliked. The OLD fans returned. Shockingly appealing to the old AND new fans is possible. “Still, they came up with a storyline that would be relatable to younger readers, and still be relevant to longtime readers as well”

It wasn’t a storyline it was an era

No. It absolutely wasn’t relatable or relevant to younger readers. I was 16-19 when BND was running. I was directly the demographic they were trying to appeal to. Let me tell you straight. Those stories were not relatable. At all. They weren’t relevant. At all. The PS4 game’s take? Now that shit was reltable but noticeably that version only takes plot concept from BND. The characterization of Peter is far more in line with his pre-OMD self and didn’t represent a regression of the character

Thousands of people became Spider-Man fans reading the marriage era Spidey comics. If it was so unrelatable how is that possible?

The stories were not relevant to the older audience at all because the whole purpose of BND was to basically ignore 90% of Spider-Man history between 1987-2007. And more importantly even the characteriation before then that they were trying to invoke was done incorrectly. The Spidey of BND was a systemically mischaracterizion of Spider-Man even if yu ignored OMD “The fiscal reasoning made sense, there were Spider-Man films that were out roping in a new generation kids who wouldn't relate to a married Spider-Man.”

There was a 5 season long TV show before those movies aimed directly at children. Kids got into Spidey through that and we didn’t care he was married. In fact he was married on the show

To 90s/2000s teens and tweens the struggles of Spidey in the 1994 cartoon and Raimi movies were not all that relatable. The male members of the cartoon audience were too young to be interested in romance and all the demographics were unlikely to relate to Peter’s financial struggles as they were too young to work. Even if they weren’t too young to work they wouldn’t have been the breadwinner of the household the way they might’ve been in the 1960s. By the 1990s and 2000s times had changed

Peter had become a MAN like halfway through the first Raimi movie and that wasn’t even the most popular or successful one. Spider-man 2, where Peter was distinctly an adult and grappling with adult problems, was

Kids have been unlikely to relate to Batman. In fact as times have changed it’s evident they infinitely prefer Batman to Robin, the character actually created specifically for them to relate to. Batman is at least as popular as Spider-Man, if not moreso

The MCU has made Iron Man and Black Panther (who kids could never truly relate to) and Captain America (whom few people regardless of age could ever relate to as he is almost a moral paragon) fan favourite characters. CLEARLY relatability is at best highly subjective and at worst not essential to making a character appealing

BND occurred after Spider-Man 3 where Peter wanted to marry Mary Jane. If anything the JMS era of Spidey where he was married to the main love interest from the movies and where Aunt May knew who he was would’ve been MORE synergetic with the movies of the time than what BND was “Also, times have changed. Fans freaked out that Spider-Man was no longer married and back to living at Aunt May's home? At the time Peter Parker was in his late 20s (Marvel Time).” No, at the time he was 30 years old. “If this is basically you in 2018, you had no reason to bitch about Brand New Day.” Get fucked. Fans had EVERY reason to bitch about BND back then AND now too. Putting aside how we got there (which would be reason enough) the stories themselves were objectively deplorable! “Looking back at the storyline 10 years after the fact,” It’s not a storyline. It was an era. “it's hard to understand what the big deal was.” It’s hard to understand mischaracterization, illogic, continuity contradictions, sexism, racism, juvenile writing, character deconstruction, borderline gaslighting of the fans, talking down to the audience, price gouging, inconsistent writing and art and just generally bad storytelling? “Because I secretly hate myself, I decided to read every Spider-Man comic published.” I somehow doubt that. Even if it’s true there is a massive difference between reading a story and understanding it. Dan Slott READ a lot of Spider-Man. He knew a lot of Spider-Facts. But he clearly never understood the character. He might KNOW MJ shut that door in ASM #122. But he absolutely doesn’t grasp it’s deeper meaning. “I started about a year ago, and I'm just hitting stories published in 2007. In retrospect, there are a lot of shitty Spider-Man stories. Some of them weren't as bad as they were made out to be (The Clone Saga, being one of them, surprisingly) One thing about the Peter/MJ marriage (which ran from 1987 to 2007) is you quickly realize their marriage was horrible.” Sure. If you are a bad literary analyst, sexist, crap at contextualization and apply a blunt criteria instead of nuance. If you don’t you get that there were ups and downs with the writing as would be expected of almost anything written across 20 years by multiple writers. “Especially for Mary Jane.” Oh cool, sexist it is then. “It wasn't good, it was a burden to telling good stories.” Kraven’s Last Hunt Sensational Spider-Man Annual 2007 Spider-Man Unlimited v3 #2 Story 2 Parallel Lives Anything by JMS involving MJ Revelations Spec #200 Spec #241-245 Sensational v2 #32 Marvel Knights: Spider-man #1-12 And many other stories I could name say otherwise genius. “This is because the writers involved at the time didn't seem to understand how a marriage works.”

JMS clearly did

DeMatteis clearly did

DeFalco clearly did

Sacasa clearly did

Peter David clearly did

Mark Millar clearly did

Even Bendis clearly did

Maybe it’s not how YOUR marriage works. But everyon’es marriage is a different “The marriage was, at best, an excuse for an instant damsel in distress situation,” Remember how the marriage was used as an instant damsel-in-distress situation in KLH? Remember how that was ALL it amounted to in the Eisner nominated Sensational Spider-Man Annual 2007? Remember how badly MJ was in need of rescuing in the Jonathan Caesar storyline? “or at worse a reason for Peter Parker to go on about how "lucky" he was to be married to a model/actress. Like Mary Jane was nothing more than a trophy to pride himself because he was such a fucking loser in high school.” Yes. Peter never argued with MJ. Peter never confided his concerns with MJ. MJ never alleviated his guilt. MJ never grew as a person from her horrible childhood issues through being married with Peter. MJ didn’t become more self-sacrificing due to Peter. Peter was never pushed to become more powerful by thoughts of his believed wife. They never helped one another through traumatic situations. “What I really want to stress here is, Peter and Mary Jane's marrage was awful.” Nah fam. YOUR analytical skills are awful. “Worst. Idea. Ever.” Nah fam. You writing this was the worst idea ever. Scratch that, me subjecting myself to this shit was the worst idea ever. “Can't take my word for it? Here are some reasons why: Mary Jane Had to Swat Away So Many Dicks” An attractive woman with a very public profile draws unwanted attention? How unrealistic! It’s terrible that such a thing would never happen in real life, real life being the baked into the core concept of Spider-Man. Why if it did it’d be a organic way to give MJ subplots and conflicts of her own to deal with that could impact upon Peter’s life by extension or something. “Almost from the start, Mary Jane had to fend off other men who were obsessed with her and didn't give a shit that she was married. That's not necessarily Peter's fault, but it really says a lot of the opinion towards female characters in comics at the time.” …how…? This happens in real life…A LOT! And what has ‘Peter’s fault’ got to do with this? It’s not even a statement that warrants a ‘necessarily’. What? If Peter was more ‘Alpha’ other men would know not to try it on with ‘his woman’ or something? Also, let’s properly contextualize things okay. Between 1987-2007 MJ was stalked by like 5 people. That’s once every 4 years if you average it out but 3/5 of them occurred in Michelinie’s run alone which is not the be all or end all of the marriage. Another one was for a single issue and the final one was actually obsessed with Peter and used MJ to get to him. I ain’t saying it didn’t get old but this guy is making it out to be something that was an annual event. “Sure, the idea of someone stalking an actress/model isn't outlandish, and a sad fact of the celebrity-driven reality we live in.” YOU DON’T SAY! And it doesn’t just apply to actresses or models btw. “However, the number of times this was used as a plot got a bit out of hand.” I agree. But 5 times across 20 years, when there was a 5 year gap between the third and fourth instances and a 5 year gap between the fourth and final instance (lasting for 1 issue and wasn’t even the main plot) is not reflective of anything. “That said because it's a Spider-Man comic book they couldn't just settle on a dumpy guy wearing sticky jogging pants. They had to kick it up a notch. With horrific implications for poor Mary Jane.” …yeeeeeeeeeeah? And? Stalkers are horrible. You want there to be tension and conflict so the threat of violence is absolutely justifiable. FFS, kraven the Hunter buried Spider-Man alive and Venom threatened to eat parts of him. And VENOM was Spidey’s stalker! “Jonathon Caesar An obsession so cliche, I'm surprised that nobody made a joke about his knife compensating for having a small dick.” Except circa 1989 it wasn’t cliché. At least not as far as a Spidey comic was concerned. If we are opening this up to ALL media then sure but then by that logic Gwen’s death and countless other stories would also be cliché wouldn’t they. “The first scum bag to enter Mary Jane's married life was Jonathon Caesar. He was a wealthy man with a lot of connections.” …Almost like Harvey Weinstein or something… “He helped Mary Jane get into the Bedford Towers condominium (which Caesar owned). His motivation? To kidnap a married woman and force her to live in a specially made trap room until she agreed to marry him. Spider-Man didn't even save the day! Mary Jane broke free on her own and the wall-crawler showed up in time to do the cleanup.” Holy shit. If anyone ever needed proof this doofus’s analytical skills weren’t there this is it. The Jonathan Caesar storyline was designed to be a subversion of the damsel-in-distress trope. The whole fucking POINT was that MJ saved herself instead of Spidey saving her! Jesus Christ how do you miss that. Not to mention how do you complain Caesar as a villain is cliché but then ALSO complain that the damsel-in-distress cliché wasn’t adhered to. “Caesar went to jail but he used his influence to ruin her modeling career and get her evicted from their home.” *coughWeinsteincough* “Not only that, but MJ's money got tied up in a lengthy legal battle, with no apparent end in sight. In fact the money mentioned here is never talked about again.” Er…yes it is. MJ ultimately settles in ASM #333 wiping out her savings. I’d have thought someone who read every Spider-Man comic book would have known that. “Caesar eventually got out of jail and continued to stalk Mary Jane.” Again, clearly hasn’t read every Spider-Man comic book and/or is a shitty analyst. Yes Caesar did this but he did this BEFORE MJ engaged him in a legal battle. “Her husband didn't do squat to stop it.” What was he supposed to do? Caesar was out legally and Peter couldn’t just kill or assault the guy. Threatening him would likely have helped Caesar’s legal case further, especially due to the public knowing about the association between Peter and Spidey. Touching Caesar would be like trying to get the Kingpin locked up. It’s extremely difficult for someone that rich and powerful. “He was too busy playing Spider-Man to help his own wife.” No. He was busy saving the lives of innocent people. He wasn’t doing this for fun, he is Spidey for the greater good. MJ knows that. MJ knew that she could ask Peter for help if she needed it and he’d come running. She made it clear she could handle it and like a good husband he respected her decision. It wasn’t like she was trying to reach him for help and he was distracted or actively ignored her. But you know, those disingenuous pieces of misinformation aren’t going to write themselves. Also the stories are a little ambiguous about this but there is a possible implication that MJ was keeping Peter somewhat in the dark about Caesar’s activities. “The only person who was interested in Mary Jane's safety was Officer Hal Goldman, who ended up shooting Caesar dead. Was Hal a super-cop detective that ate serial stalkers for lunch? Note really, see the thing about Hal.... Hal Goldman Let's follow up this sexist scene with the woman regretting her career choices. Very progressive.”

This bozo shouldn’t be lecturing people on what is and isn’t sexist

FFS OF COURSE someone in MJ’s position would be questioning her career choices. She’s just been stalked by 2 lunatics. But noticeably she doesn’t stop being an actress/model after this. The moment was a dash of comedy given the situation and nothing more. But you wouldn’t know that given how this guy is not bothering to use context or anything

How the Hell is MJ macing a stalker and then knocking him out sexist? “Hal Goldman wasn't actually a police officer. He was just a fat NYPD civilian desk clerk with a terrible bowl cut who had an unhealthy obsession with Mary Jane when she starred in a soap opera called "Secret Hospital". Although he was "investigating" Jonathan Ceasar's attempts to ruin Mary Jane's life again, he was also obsessed with protecting her from everyone who slighted her. He ran over an old woman who slapped MJ in the face, dropped a stage light on her director's head and tried to clobber Peter with a piece of concrete. However, this is an accurate depiction of how fan-boys react to things.” Remember how over 50% of fanboys threatened or actually inflicted violence upon people because of OMD? Neither do I. “When he guns down Caesar he professes his undying love to Mary Jane and admits to committing all the above crimes. Again, Peter is nowhere around,” Of course he’s nowhere around. Peter doesn’t constantly monitor MJ all day every day. You know…like a stalker. Fuck real life husbands don’t do this. Moreover if we bother to check the issue in question (ASM #339) some interesting details are presented to us. For starters MJ was only endangered due to trickery and bad luck. Caesar forced a co-star of MJ’s to handwrite a note and sign it asking for her to meet him at the set of Secret Hospital. Between the set being a relatively safe environment and the note checking out as legitimate due to the handwriting and signature, MJ had no reason to be suspicious. Peter absolutely intended to go with MJ but earlier that day had been doused with a chemical by the Sinister Six, the effects of which he was uncertain about. He got a call regarding the Six’s activities and the chemical so logically that would take priority over Mj merely meeting a co-star. MJ chose not to delay the meeting until Peter was available and go herself. Again neither she nor Peter had any reason to suspect foul play. So Peter’s absence was never due to neglect. It wasn’t even due to putting the duties of Spider-man before the needs of his wife. As far as either of them knew there was no danger. So again, distorting the facts. Classy. “so when she rejects him Officer Bowl Cut decides to do the old "if I can't have you, nobody will!" Routine. However, she sprayed him in the eyes with hairspray and clobbered him with a purse. You know just as you'd expect a strong female character to do.” Yes. That is exactly what I expect a female, or indeed any character, to do in that situation. Mary Jane had no real weapons. The story even specified that MJ tried to get a handgun but was still waiting on it. So she improvised and used whatever resources she had to hand. This is routine for Mary Jane both during and before the marriage. Using hairspray and a handbag, which are not obvious weapons but can nevertheless be repurposed for offence, was a perfectly legitimate technique for both the character and writer to employ. It’s almost like it makes her look smart, tough and resourceful for being able to think on her feet like that or something. Oh, and again. MJ is bad because she conforms to a cliché but is also bad because didn’t conform to the cliché of Spidey rescuing her which would’ve also been bad because the marriage is used to easily generate damsel-in-distress situations. This isn’t even a double standard it’s a TRIPLE standard. This jackoff has constructed his argument in such a way that Mary Jane/the marriage can NEVER win. “Jason Jerome This happened in 1990, consent hadn't been invented yet.”

Jason wasn’t a stalker strictly speaking

This storyline, bad as it was, was nevertheless handled very differently from the Jonathan Caesar arc because MJ at least was tempted to reciprocate feelings for Jason whilst she was repulsed by Caesar

YES. the concept of consent WASN’T very well taught back in the 1990s! What the hell is he point here? “Jason Jerome was an actor who thought he could seduce Mary Jane into having an affair with him. This came at a time when there were three monthly Spider-Man titles. This made for one busy wall-crawler. On top of fighting villains, he was also promoting a book and traveling the globe as a reporter. Needless to say, MJ was feeling more than a little neglected. This made Mary Jane susceptible to Jerome's advances. However, despite his best efforts, Mary Jane ended things before they had gone too far. To do so, she invited Jason to her apartment under the pretence of sex. Instead of getting balls deep, Jason Jerome found himself in a room plastered with photos of Peter and Mary Jane together, like inviting an obsessed man into your home without telling anyone is a smart idea.” Jason was not obsessed. He viewed MJ as a ‘conquest’ and from her POV was not dangerous like Caesar or Hal. Also IIRC this occurred after the incident with Hal, which meant MJ would likely have owned a handgun by this point. Even if she didn’t, she defeated Hal and Caesar and his guards when she was unprepared and improvising on the fly. Here she has had hours to prep and it’s literally in her home. If she suspected Jason to be dangerous (which he was not and had given her no reason to believe so) she was in a great position to handle him. “All the lamps and hairspray in the world cannot possibly stop this potentially becoming a bad situation.” A rich and powerful lunatic with a knife and armed guards outside got their ass beaten by MJ whilst she was improvising…on their home turf. A less rich, less powerful, unarmed man with no displays of mental instability or violence comes to MJ’s home turf on his own. So yes, if she was so inclined MJ could 100% rig up a trap with hairspray and a lamp or a fucking gun if she had one. “If this backfires, let's just hope he's into this sort of thing.” A necrophilia joke? How tasteful. “The Stalker "I said, I'm bored with sort of scenario. Can you try and change this up a bit?"”

Jason Jerome wasn’t stalking MJ

Yes the stalker was lame. Also this occurred around 9-10 years later

You know there is more to this relationship than the occasions when MJ was stalked FFS “The most unoriginal character created by Howard Mackie during his run.” His run when he was possibly dealing with serious health issues. Classy. “The Stalker follows a long tradition of Marvel characters whose names are obvious: The Prowler prowls,” Except he doesn’t do much prowling. He flits between retirement and active costumed work. And he’s not exactly a stalker of the night like Batman when he’s out of retirement. “the Watcher watches, and the Shocker finger blasts people.” Does this guy know what ‘shocking’ means? Blasting people isn’t shocking them. Electrocuting people = shocking people. Vibrating them doesn’t = shocking them. “So obviously, the Stalker was a stalker. Specifically, he stalked Mary Jane. The guy went to some insane lengths. He set off bombs and killed people. The whole time this was happening Peter was busy going out as Spider-Man.” YES. THAT’S HIS FUCKING JOB! Also, for the majority of the time Mj was being stalked she had kept Peter in the dark about the guy. Shortly after he finally did learn the truth he seemingly died. For sure he was kept away from her whilst she was being made a target, but

The 1970s Clone Saga

Spec Annual 1988

Smoke and Mirrors

Web #125

Maximum Clonage

Clone Conspiracy

“Each time he seems to forget the fact that a lunatic had cloned his dead girlfriend every time.”

Horseshit.

He KNEW the truth in every encounter following the first one. He didn’t fall for it on the third-sixth occasions but shockingly seeing your dead loved one (who died right in front of you) walking around alive is going to emotionally hurt you and dreadge up old wounds and old feelings.

Gerry Conway in Spec Annual 1988 directly addresses this by having Peter acknowledge that intellectually he knows Gwen to merely be a clone but emotionally he still feels towards her the same way as though she were the real Gwen.

It’s almost like Conway was a good writer not a HACK like the OP and so knows that in matters of the heart a realistic human being might let their sense of logic fly out the window.

If ONLY there had been a global sensation of a movie released months prior to ASM v5 #1 which demonstrated this aptly.

“Every time it made Peter confused and dug up old feelings. Which, naturally, made Mary Jane doubt the strength of their relationship.”

That literally happened twice. And she briefly doubted before thinking otherwise or been shown otherwise.

“With this many clones of the dead girlfriend, you'd figure he would have gotten used to it.”

Yes if he was an emotionless automaton. Or written by someone who knows jack about human emotions...like the OP…

“Instead of going to a shrink to process these feelings,”

Thus risking the anonymity that protects himself and his loved ones.

“Peter usually fell for the various manipulations that typically came from these convoluted cloning schemes and hit whoever was responsible.”

OBVIOUSLY he hit whoever was responsible. They were super villains, he was going to bring them to justice no matter what

Again, he fell for it the first time. But ONLY the first time. He was aware Gwen was a clone in every other encounter and never played along. Many of those instances weren’t even villains pulling a scheme but a situation Peter happened to mix himself up in. Spec Annual #8 had nothing to do with him as the High Evolutionary wanted to apprehend Gwen for his own purposes. Web #125 involved him discovering Gwen’s clone in the suburbs but no villain had planned on him doing that

“That Time Illegitimate Kids Showed Up

Gwen Stacy was always portrayed as a saintly woman cut down in the prime of her life.”

Except for all those times she absolutely wasn’t prior to her death; that’s not even counting AUs.

Saint Gwendolyn I, Holy Virgin Martyr Princess was a revisionist invention fabricated after her death to make her death more tragic in hindsight. It’s a pack of lies that doesn’t deserve to be paid attention to.

“That was until JMS wrote a Gwen Stacy story that was entirely fucked up.”

No. It was only partially fucked up because

Gwen was obviously not pregnant

MJ and Gwen didn’t care about Gwen’s kids

“In it, Peter learns that Gwen had an affair with Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin, AKA the guy who later murdered her) and got knocked up.”

They didn’t have an affair.

People seem to be misinformed on the definition of what the word ‘affair’ means. They use it as though it means ‘being unfaithful to your partner’. That is not the meaning of the term. An EXTRAMARITAL affair can mean that but a regular romantic/sexual affair doesn’t inherently mean there is any unfaithfulness occurring.

But it DOES have to be ongoing to some extent.

Gwen and Norman weren’t in any kind of on-going relationship. They had sex exactly once.

And during that time no unfaithfulness was occurring as Gwen was not with Peter at the time.

“Everyone apparently knew and kept it a secret.”

…er….no…I don’t know how you could even misread Sins Past to come to that conclusion.

The story is extremely explicit that Gwen and Norman kept their encounter and Gwen’s pregnancy a secret. MJ knew about it and told Peter years later. But there is nothing in the story even hinting that anyone else knew besides the three of them.

“During a point where Gwen and Peter were on the outs, she found out she was pregnant, left the country, and gave birth to the kids. These kids were then secreted away by Norman for years.

When Peter found about these kids (but not their origins) he assumed they were his kids, even though he later remembers that he and Gwen never had sex!!”

He never presumes they are his children. Again, great analytical skills there.

“What's worse, is after all was said and done, Peter later went to France to help out Gwen's daughter, who was her spitting image and the same biological age that Gwen was when Peter dated her (they aged fast, look it up) This was all an attempt to seduce Peter and he had to constantly remind himself that his feelings for her were wrong.”

It was absolutely not an attempt to seduce Peter. Sarah’s agenda only later evolved to entail that too but that wasn’t her original motive

In one of the all time best episodes of the Simpsons Homer was tempted by his co-worker Mindy. This occurred in spite of countless episodes demonstrating how much he loved Marge. Ultimately nothing more than a kiss was shared between them and he didn’t succumb to his temptations. In this scenario Peter is being confronted by someone who looks and to an extent acts identically to someone he loved and cruelly lost, someone who for a time he believed he might have a future with. This occurs not very long after he learns that his relationship with that person was at least partially a big lie as she was pregnant for most of their relationship and slept with his ultimate enemy. So he’s going to be incredibly emotionally vulnerable at this point. Sarah kissed him and he didn’t reciprocate at all. Peter if anything can be more forgiven his temptations than Homer was. And Homer was still forgivable as your actions are what ultimately matter. Peter not only acknowledged his feelings were wrong and coming from an emotionally confusing place but he never acted upon them either and reaffirmed his love for MJ when all was said and done. Much like Homer did to Marge after rejecting Mindy.

“Mary Jane had such a bad feeling about it, she travelled to France to check in on her hubby, and walked in on him while Gwen Jr. Was kissing Peter.”

Yeah. Because OOC writing exists dipshit. You don’t just take ANY given story as gospel FFS. What kind of pre-schooler level literary analysis is this?

“The fact that Peter was attracted to a 7 year old girl who only looked like she was in her early 20s because of a genetic disorder is super creepy.”

It is because see above about OOC writing. But by this logic the clones of Gwen were even younger. Sarah was mentally 7 but she looked just like an adult Gwen Stacy so obviously Peter’s emotions and attractions being confused is forgivable under the circumstances.

“So you can totally understand when Mary Jane was upset about that one.”

I’m genuinely shocked this clown was able to be so sympathetic towards MJ here.

“Somewhere, a divorce lawyer just got a huge erection.”

I’m sure he would have if only the story hadn’t ended by reaffirming Peter and MJ’s love for one another.

“It Wasn't Just the Dead Girlfriend, but her Extended Family

Before we get into more of the Stacy family, let's talk about the Watson family for a minute. Mary Jane came from a broken home. An alcoholic and abusive father led to her mother taking the kids and leaving. Although he mom died her sister had two kids and was abandoned by the father. Also, she has a cousin who has an eating disorder. In a lot of these cases, Peter Parker left his wife to deal with the family drama on her own.”

No.

Peter actively helped MJ when she asked him to in ASM #291-292.

He actively helped MJ’s friend who had a drug problem when MJ asked him to.

In the recent one shot Going Big Peter seeks out Kristy when she disappears…because MJ asked him to.

Peter respected MJ and her family and would’ve helped in any way he was able if MJ aske him to.

But between supporting their family, Aunt May and protecting the city because he’s a fucking super hero his time and abilities to help were limited. Oh and MJ didn’t ask him to.

She felt, not unjustifiably, that she could handle it. Often MJ wishes to leave Peter as unburdened as possible if she can handle a situation because his life is dangerous and stressful enough as is. But she knows he’s there to help if she needs it. And he would be there if she needed him.

It’ almost like they were MARRIED or something and divided up their duties appropriately or something.

This clown seems to treat ‘being Spider-Man’ as code for ‘have fun goofing off lulz’. It’s not. It’s a massive duty and higher purpose Peter takes incredibly seriously.

“Which is quite the slap in the face when he spent more time helping the Stacy family. Namely Gwen's cousins Paul and Jill and their dad.”

Because they were his friends, MJ’s friends and at times MJ asked him to help them. Peter didn’t even like spending time with them initially because they opened up old wounds for him. He had to put the work in to hang around them.

“When they appeared in Spider-Man stories in the late 90s, Mary Jane took a back seat to whatever problems the Stacy's were having.”

No she didn’t.

SOMETIMES the problems regarding the Stacy’s happened to be the A plot. Other times they happened to be the B plot. This happened more often than not in peter Parker: Spider-Man by Mackie. But there were FOUR Spider-titles at the time so that’s more than acceptable.

But Peter never helped the Stacy’s at the expense of Mary Jane, not unless there was a clear physical danger posed to their lives.

In Mackie/Byrne’s run MJ and Jill were endangered by the same incident and Peter prioritized saving MJ over Jill.

“You're still dealing with your miscarriage Mary Jane? Sorry, I got to talk Paul Stacy out of a hate group right now.”

Get fucked.

I’ve read PPSM #82-83 as well. In fact they were among my earliest ever comic books I re-read them several years ago.

This is yet another MASSIVE distortion of events.

Peter didn’t talk Paul out of a hate group (specifically the anti-mutant hate group the Friends of Humanity) at the expense of helping MJ deal with their miscarriage.

Peter and MJ were due to meet for a counselling session to talk about the miscarriage. However, Paul was being targeted by a mutant who literally told Peter she was going to murder him. Peter went to prevent that from happening but a bad bout of vertigo (brought on presumably by an encounter with Morbius the Living Vampire) caused Peter to cling to a wall, his life hanging in the balance.

That’s why he missed the therapy session that one time.

He wasn’t goofing off. He wasn’t lecturing Paul about why racism is bad m’kay. He was trying to save his life and then save his own life.

So a quintessential example of distorting the facts and removing things from context.

“Peter Shut Her Out of Every Existential Crisis”

No he didn’t. There were multiple times he questioned if he was doing the right thing, if he was making a difference, etc and talked to her about it

Even if he did shut her out that would be conflict which is what you fucking want in your dramatic story

WOW! Moments of intense mental/emotional strife involve people not acting in a healthy manner, including in regards to their romantic relationships?????? Who’d have THOUGHT!

“Not only were Mary Jane's problems put on a back burner, whenever Peter had a problem, he shut MJ out.”

MJ herself understood some of her problems had to be put on a back burner for the greater good that Spider-Man performed for the world at large.

And the times he shut her out amounted to…I don’t even know…maybe once just prior to the Clone Saga when he was grappling with intense grief and pain and was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Then just went ahead and had the mental breakdown.

“During their marriage, Peter had huge life-changing moments. The first was when his parents came back from the dead only to be revealed as impostors then his Aunt May suffered a life-threatening stroke.”

Yes. These were definitely the first life-changing moments that occurred after he married Mary Jane.

Being buried alive, encountering Venom, going back to school, his best friend turning to villainy and becoming a reserve Avenger certainly wouldn’t have been life changing at all.

“Spider-Man's answer? Give up on being Peter Parker and embracing the spider.”

I’ll take ‘What if grief and emotional trauma’ for 500 Alex!!!!!!!

Honest to Christ. The story makes everything clear as crystal. This is an entirely believable response to trauma, it’s just literalized because the person experiencing it lives a double life already and has super powers.

“The writers were probably going for dark and moody, but looking back at it, it was a lot of whining.”

He lived his whole life in the wake of losing his parents, then had those wounds reopened when he learned they were not dead, then gradually grew to love and trust them, was stabbed in the back by them, found out they were imposters and his parents had been dead after all, then saw them violently die right in front of him, then learned this was perpetuated by his best friend, then the woman who raised him had a stroke and fell into a coma.

That’s not WHINING, that’s an insane amount of grief and pain you fucking idiot.

No human being could cope with that amount of trauma and NOT express their pain in some form. This isn’t him complaining he missed a date or can’t get his studies done. This is his heart being ripped out and stomped on in front of him repeatedly!

“Also, he totally abandoned his wife. Which is a dick move. Hey Pete, she might be someone to support you through your recent loss.”

HE WAS HAVING A MENTAL BREAKDOWN YOU DUMBASS!

NO ONE thinks clearly or logically when they are in that kind of emotional/mental distress. He was grieving the loss of THREE parents for fuck’s sake!

“Somewhere, a grief councilor just got a huge erection.”

This shithead clearly doesn’t know the meaning of the word grief.

“Then came the Clone Saga where Peter was convinced he was actually a clone of the real Spider-Man. He was too wrapped up on the fact that his past was potentially a lie that he couldn't see the good things in his life. He was married. Had a child on the way. None of this registered with him because of all the clones around putting his past into question.”

Peter Parker’s belief system was that a clone is NOT a real human being, it is a creature that is less than human and that in being a clone you have no real identity or right to life, you are just a freak. MJ echoes these sentiments in ASM #400.

Ben Reilly, who had all of Peter’s memories became distraught upon learning he was a clone. That occurred circa 1975 when Peter was approximately 22 years old and hadn’t finished college yet. Ben literally grieved for himself and that the memories in his head were a pretense, a life that was not his. He contemplated killing Peter and taking his life. He became borderline suicidal and anti-social. This went on for years during which he pushed himself to the very edge self-destructively.

Putting aside how the original intent was for Ben to be the REAL Peter Parker, Ben’s behaviours display what a dark and dangerous place Peter could’ve gone to had he been in Ben’s position.

The intent of the Jackal and Norman Osborn in orchestrating the Clone Saga was to shatter Peter’s sense of identity. The Jackal wanted to do that in 1975 with a 22 year old Peter. Norman however knew the blow would hurt Peter much more when he had more to lose and so delayed it until 1995 when Peter would’ve been about 27 years old, had more of a career, longer and deeper connections to his loved ones, a wife and a baby on the way.

When he finally pulled the trigger Peter had also only recently recovered from a terrible mental breakdown, lost Aunt May, been falsely accused of murder, had his sense of identity further damaged by yet more clones of himself appearing and learned that he and MJ’s baby might have serious health problems if he was a clone.

In fact MJ’s first reaction upon learning Peter was a clone was to grip her tummy and express concern for her baby. And remember she directly told him a clone isn’t a real person.

When put in context this caused Peter to have a SECOND mental breakdown. Entirely UNDERSTANDABLY!

This wasn’t a case of appreciating all he had because from his point of view being a clone meant he’d LOST all that. That he COULDN’T have that because he was less than human and not the real person that life belonged to.

If BEN reacted that way when he believed he was a clone then logically OF COURSE Peter was going to take it much, much, much worse.

“It should also be pointed out that during this period, Mary Jane's life was at risk and she was being stalked, again. This time by a clone. However, Peter was once again nowhere to be seen.”

Oh my fucking…HE HAD BEEN ARRESTED!

He wasn’t around because he was literally incarcerated in prison. Breaking out risked exposing his identity and thus endangering MJ and the baby. He also didn’t KNOW she was being stalked. When he found out in ASM #401 he broke out of jail and sought to find her. Later when Ben offered to take his place in jail Peter went on the hunt for MJ’s stalker, his clone Kaine whom he ALSO suspected as the guy who framed him.

Gee, proactively seeking out the guy threatening your wife and who might’ve framed you?

What a shitty husband, it’s not like that’s an entirely practical consideration to take or anything.

“In Heindsight...”

Oh this outta be good

“I could go over every other moment where Peter treated his wife like crap,”

Except he rarely did and the examples you’ve brought up do not hold up to scrutiny in the slightest because you are a clown show of an analyst.

“but those are the huge ones.”

No they aren’t, see above.

“Looking back at the upset of 2007, it's clear that anyone who got mad didn't actually read any of the stories written while Peter and Mary Jane were married.”

That’s so very rich coming from this dipshit, see above.

“Even then, over the past decade there has been a plethora of great Spider-Man stories.”

That’s true.

Agent Venom by Rick Remender

Carnage Family Feud

Carnage USA

Half of Scarlet Spider by Chris Yost

Bits of Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider by Peter David

AXIS Hobgoblin

AXIS Carnage

Carnage by Gerry Conway

Silk by Robbie Thompson

Superior Foes of Spider-Man

ASM: Renew Your Vows

The issue where Flash Thompson lost his legs

The story regarding the Rhino and his girlfriend

Spider-Man 2099 by Peter David

Notice how none of that stuff focuses upon 616 Peter Parker.

Because between 2008-2018 there were no good stories focussing upon 616 Peter Parker.

At best there were mediocre stories focussing upon the pathetic man-child that was Spider-Man in name only.

“In fact, I'd even argue that Dan Slott's run on Spider-Man has contained some of the best Spider-Man stories of the past two decades.”

And you’d just further confirm yourself to be a moron who doesn’t have the first warm shit of a clue about how to analyse stories if you did.

“I can't think or a stellar Spider-Man run past 198 until Slott's run.”

ASM by JMS+Romita Junior

Sensational by Sacasa

Spec by DeMatteis+Buscema

Spec by DeMatteis+Ross

Marvel Knights by Mark Millar

Bits of Peter Parker: Spider-Man by Paul Jenkins

Hypothetically though let’s say they weren’t stellar.

They would still be OBJECTIVELY better than Dan Slott. Like who’s mothers did Michelinie, DeFalco or any of the above guys murder for you to claim Slott was better than them.

None of those guys:

Had Peter become a paparazzi photographer

Had Aunt May claim she was disappointed in Peter for not supporting her the night Uncle Ben died

Had Doc Ock try to rape Mary Jane

Created a clear cut Mary Sue to upstage Spidey in his own book

Turned Spider-Man into Diet Iron Man

Killed off a Ditko-era character for no other reason beyond a shock death. Except Mark Millar but the character was extremely minor

“Next to JMS' run, Slott has been the best Spider-Man writer in decades.”

Again, notice how he CONVENIENTLY neglected to bring up stuff from the JMS run when MJ and the marriage was written the best.

His criteria for judging MJ literally JUST included:

ASM by Michelinie run from 1989-1994

ASM by DeMatteis in 1994

Conway’s Spec/Web runs from 1988-1989

Spec #226 by DeFalco in 1995

Mackie’s PPSM run from 1997

The Mackie/Byrne run from 1999-2001

That was it.

He stated the marriage lasted between 1987-2007 but his analysis halted at 2001. He’s leaving out 6 goddam years worth of material in addition to ALL the other material he conveniently ignored before then.

“Where to Go From Here?

That raises some interesting questions. Will Peter and Mary Jane tie the knot again? It seems like Marvel is marrying characters off again (Colossus and Kitty Pryde as well as Gambit and Rogue) so that's promising.

Another is the promising thing is that the alternate reality series Renew Your Vows has been doing very well.

The last point is the main reason why they nixed the marriage to begin with: Needing a Spider-Man younger readers can relate with.”

The main reason they nixed it was because Quesada was butthurt Gwen died in 1973 and that MJ got to marry him instead.

“For the past number of years they have been promoting the hell out of Miles Morales, the "Ultimate" Spider-Man. They have been grooming him to be the young Spidey that they want for younger fans.”

Maybe don’t use the term ‘grooming’ in the context of a teenage character there buddy.

“While that doesn't mean Peter and MJ are destined to get married again, hopefully they will allow Peter to at least grow up a little.”

I see.

Marriage = bad because it makes him unrelatable to the kids. But also this dipshit wants Peter to ‘grow up a little’…which is what he had done by marrying MJ in the first place.

“However, let me say this: Doing what's expected doesn't necessarily make for a good story, it's the unexpected.”

Why don’t you ask Star Wars and Game of Thrones fans what they think about that buddy?

“That's what made Slott's run on Spider-Man so great.”

That’s true. Nobody expected Slott would have Doc Ock masturbate in Peter’s body. Nobody expected him to drag out our suffering for as long as he did. Nobody expected he’d invoke such a juvenile idea as Norman Osborn becoming carnage.

“Let's hope Nick Spencer continues that tradition.’

Fuck the unexpected. Just give me competency.

#Spider-Man #mjwatsonedit #Mary Jane Watson #mj watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Peter Parker #ben Reilly #Brand New Day #Dan Slott #Clone Saga #submission

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fortunatelylori · 6 years ago

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GOT: The exhausting march towards the dramatic TWIST

I think I’m going to shock people with this statement but ... out of all the season 8 episodes we’ve seen so far, episode 4 is by far my favorite.

Now don’t get too excited by the seemingly warm tone ... what I mean by favorite is that I hated it less than episode 1 through 3, which is about as high a praise as I’m likely going to have for this debacle that is season 8.

General impressions:

There are two reasons why I felt this episode was better than the last 3:

1. It was more focused, with 3 clear storylines: D*ny’s war for the crown (story A), Jon’s and his family continuing to be dead inside (story B), Jaime’s return to his sister-lover (story C). This kind of focus and definite structure should be a given. However GOT decided to go all yolo on our asses this season and as we’ve already covered in my other reviews, it’s gotten to the point where I’m genuinely shocked to see an episode that doesn’t jump from plot point to plot point like an enraged orangutan on ecstasy.

2. It was centered around this woman:

Look at that face... Holy Shit! She’s going to give me nightmares!

Now, normally an episodes focused on D*ny would be bad news for me because I don’t particularly care for her, as half of my list of metas can conclusively prove.

However, since she’s the only character whose POV isn’t hidden and her scenes aren’t cut short or drained of any and all possibility of actual human emotion, she’s become the only character that I can watch without feeling frustrated, confused or on the verge of an anxiety attack. I actually like to know what the hell is happening on screen and what the character wants in any given scene. Call it a pet peeve of mine.

Although even D*ny, as well rounded a character as she is, suffers from the Ds oscillating trend this season. Last episode, D*ny stood her ground against the NK, committed herself and her armies to the defense of the realm and saved Jon’s life. This episode, she’s back in full Mad King’s daughter mode, with a pinch of Viserys on the side.

But that’s a quibble, honestly and you can always argue that Jorah’s death really pushed D*ny into a dark place in which the crown of Westeros and her war against Cersei becomes more important than her own humanity.

However, what isn’t a quibble is that death seems to have become a shorthand device the Ds employ to signal D*ny’s eventual rise as Queen of the Ashes. She loses Jorah in episode 3 and by the end of episode 4, she loses both Rhaegal and Missandei as well, leaving her in a seeming cliffhanger over whether or not to put the Red Keep to the torch as revenge.

The problem is that D*ny had been chopping at the bit to burn down King’s Landing since season 7 when she had to be talked out of doing just that TWICE. This episode Tyrion once again has to put the breaks on D*ny’s fiery fantasies.

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This scene right here is a treasure trove of Mad D*ny clues. But let’s focus on two of them. Firstly, the impetuous to burn KL is stil there:

D*ny: We will hit her hard. We will rip her out root and stem.

Tyrion: The objective here is to remove Cersei without destroying King’s Landing.

That is not a happy face ...

As D*ny put’s it, they need the capital because otherwise Cersei can continue calling herself the queen of the 7 kingdoms.

That’s D*ny’s priority, folks: the acquiring of that stupid title.

And if she has to march her weakened army, her sick dragon/child for thousands of miles and burn thousands of innocent people to get that title, she’ll do it.

Considering this set-up, why exactly did we need Missandei and Rahegal to die? One day into Tyrion’s proposed blockade and D*ny would be roasting giant marshmallows in the Red Keep gardens.

In my opinion, the reasons for killing Rhaegal and Missandei are not tied to the dark!dany arc at all. Instead, Rhaegal gets killed because they want to make the D*ny/Cersei conflict as even as possible so they’re eliminating one of D*ny’s weapons of mass destruction.

And Missandei ... poor Missandei gets killed in order to shock the audience. There is absolutely no reason to kill her in this way ... If she was to die, the time for that would have been in episode 3. They have to actually push the suspension of disbelief in order to convince the audience that somehow Euron got a hold of this girl from an armada of wrecked ships, instantly knew how important she was, dragged her back to the Red Keep and then brought her up on that wall expecting .... what??!

Euron and Cersei are far too smart to believe D*ny will give up her war for Missandei so why kill her so publicly? To intimidate D*ny? They didn’t need Missandei for that. They could have just as well beheaded all of the hostages they took from the ships.

They kill Missandei because that’s the easiest way for the Ds to surprise the audience and for them to garner some sort of sympathy for D*ny when she eventually does end up going all Pablo Escobar on a city filled with a million people.

The other glaring Mad D*ny moment in the scene and one that plays straight into political Jon, is this:

Sansa: The men we have left are exhausted. Many of them are wounded. They will fight better if they have time to rest and recuperate.

D*ny: How long do you suggest?

Sansa: Can’t say for certain. Not without talking to the officers.

D*ny: I came North to fight alongside you. At great cost to my armies and myself. And now that the time has come to reciprocate, you want to postpone?

Jon: The Northern forces will honor their promises and their allegiance to the queen of the 7 kingdoms. What you command, we will obey.

I’ve seen a lot of people being angry at Jon for “taking D*ny’s side” in this conflict but in order to understand how this plays into political Jon, there are 2 things you need to keep in mind:

The first is exactly when Sansa intervenes in the conversation. She steps in directly after both Tyrion and Jon manage to convince D*ny not to burn down King’s Landing. D*ny reluctantly agrees to the blockade because that would mean having to wait to take the crown and as she puts it:

D*ny: The longer I leave my enemies alone, the stronger they become.

Now Sansa wants to delay her even further. This is not acceptable to D*ny.

In addition to that, I don’t think Sansa appreciates just how dangerous and volatile D*ny is. She doesn’t know about the men being fed to dragons, or the 163 crucified masters or how close she was to jumping on a dragon and burning down KL in the past.

Jon, however, does understand D*ny quite well by this point. I don’t buy his speech as him agreeing with D*ny at all in this scene and considering this is the face he puts on to silence Sansa:

I’d say this is a guy desperately trying to keep a bomb from exploding directly in the face of someone he cares very deeply about.

Narratively, I believe this is supported by the Sansa/Tyrion scene later on when Sansa is surprised to realize that Tyrion is actually afraid of D*ny. She simply hadn’t considered that people are scared of what D*ny might do.

As interesting as D*ny’s descent into madness is (despite Missandei’s useless death), it’s counterbalanced by the shit show that continues to be Jon Snow.

Watching Jon’s arc this season, and by extension all the Starks, is like banging your head against a concrete wall over and over again, without making a dent. It’s pointless, exhausting and painful.

At this point I don’t care if he’s in love with D*ny or Sansa, if he’s pol!Jon or idiot!Jon, if he wants to be king or fuck off beyond the wall. I genuinely don’t care anymore. What I do care about is being given access to Jon’s story enough to figure out what the hell he wants and what he’s doing.

It’s one thing to keep a character’s POV hidden for an episode but we’re going on almost 2 seasons now. And Jon isn’t a secondary character like Littlefinger where you can get away with hiding the POV because he’s not as big a part of the plot as a main character is.

But Jon is a main character and this effort to keep him enigmatic and mysterious isn’t only wreaking havoc on his arc but it’s also affecting the rest of the Stark family. Case and point:

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In case anyone is keeping score, this is actually the first and only scene all the Starks have together in 4 episodes, amounting to 5 hours of footage.

And just look where they decide to end this scene! Right when we’re going to see Arya and Sansa react to the parentage reveal and see what they and Jon discuss next. They gave us the mere bones of this scene and left us without the meat.

The important part of the scene, the emotional underbelly, the opportunity to see these people come together and support and embrace Jon as the Stark they still think he is, is taken away from us. Because that would chip away at the mystery surrounding Jon’s arc this season.

I’d argue depriving Jon and the Starks of the emotional bond they share is way too steep a price to pay for what is essentially a cheap thirll that becomes cheaper and cheaper by the minute considering they’re delaying whatever reveal they’re planning on making past the point of me giving a shit!

This episode did, however, give me the perfect visual way of describing Jon’s storyline right now. Jon is basically stuck between:

and

and he chooses neither.

He sends Ghost away (without patting him because having KH and the wolf in the same frame would be too costly for the overly expensive GOT) and refuses to ride Rhaegal because ... reasons.

So instead of seeing him choose between being a direwolf and a dragon, we’re seeing him do nothing, while looking overly enigmatically blank for 5 hours straight. I just .... I’m sooooo tired of this. Can this be over now?

PS: I’d discuss Jaime’s storyline this episode but I don’t want to say: I told you so ... Well ... ok, if you insist:

a little sour milk dribble on Tormund’s beard and a silly giant story isn’t going to make me forget that Jaime has arrived in Winterfell on the coat tails of a 20+ year toxic relationship with a woman who is not only his twin sister but is also currently pregnant with his baby.

Also:

Jaime: She (Cersei) has always been good at using the truth to tell lies. Don’t be too hard on yourself. She’s fooled me more than anybody.

Tyrion: She never fooled you. You always knew exactly what she was. And you loved her anyway.

Yeah … Imagine entering a relationship with a guy exiting THAT. Dealing with sour milk beard is mild by comparison.

(source)

Favorite scenes

The “If you love me, you’ll erase yourself” scene:

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There is something so deeply disturbing about this scene that I can’t help but be fascinated by it. The J0nereys relationship has always been toxic and this scene right here encapsulates just why:

In order to be with D*ny, Jon needs to give up everything that makes him who he is. In season 7, he was forced to bend the knee and suffer the ire of the entire North for it. Now D*ny is asking him not only to give up his claim but also lie about who he is and separate himself from his family in order to make sure that D*ny gets to be queen.

No one, not one person in this world, no matter how beautiful, rich, good in bed or seemingly in love with you, is worth you giving up who you are and removing yourself from your family (provided said family is not toxic, of course). And anyone that would ask you to do that, should be dumped on their asses pronto.

Jon can’t do that, unfortunately. Because he’s brought D*ny here to fight “his war” and pretended to be in love with her. And also because D*ny simply isn’t rational anymore. So he’s stuck apologizing for people liking him (just think about that!) and having to put up with her saying things like:

D*ny: It doesn’t matter what you want! You didn’t want to be king in the North! What happens when they demand you press your claim and TAKE WHAT IS MINE?

Except the crown isn’t D*ny’s. It never was. Logistically speaking, the crown belongs to Cersei right now. Legitimately, the crown is Jon’s. It’s D*ny that is actually taking what is his, not the other way around. Imagine making someone apologize for you doing that to them. That’s all kinds of messed up.

Speaking of which:

Jon: You are my queen! I don’t know what else I can say!

D*ny: You can say nothing! To anyone! Ever! Never tell them who you really are. Swear your brother and Samwell Tarly to secrecy and tell no one else!

You know what she sounds like? Like Tangled’s Mother Gothel convincing Rapunzel that she’s better off being her prisoner.

Yikes! She’s genuinely terrifying!

Also:

D*ny: Sansa will want to see me gone and you on the Iron Throne.

Jon: She won’t.

D*ny: She’s not the girl you grew up with. Not after what she’s seen. Not after what they’ve done to her.

2 things:

1. I hope every D*ny stan in the universe either denounces D*ny for victim blaming or closes their mouths about feminism, misogyny and pitting women against women for the rest of time. If you support this woman and consider her a positive role model, you are not allowed to discuss these subjects in public ever again.

2. Can you really blame Jon for taking D*ny’s side against Sansa in the council meeting? He already knows just what D*ny thinks of Sansa and what she’d like to do to her if she is given the opportunity. Hurting Sansa’s feelings is preferable to her losing her life.

The “This better not be unrequited love, Ds!” scene:

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This face right here ... this face:

It’s heartbreaking. And what really angers me about this scene is that it could have been all the more meaningful had the parentage reveal been played in full. Actually seeing Sansa reacting, hearing Jon’s fears or his anguish, would make her fighting for his crown when he refuses to do so even more powerful and romantically charged.

Still, this scene comes in direct contrast to the Jon/D*ny scene. While D*ny wants to force Jon to live a lie for the rest of his life, to humble himself and make himself small so she can have all the power and the love of the people, Sansa not only shoots down the possibility of her being the only one in charge of the North and holding steadfast to the idea that Jon will stay in Winterfell. She goes as far as tell Tyrion Jon is the rightful heir when she realizes that despite his supposed loyalty to D*ny, Tyrion is actually afraid of her.

She sees an opening to ensure Jon’s freedom and she takes it without hesitation.

If, at the end of all of this, Jon ends up going beyond the wall instead of staying with a woman who loves and values him this much, then Westeros truly is a cruel and horrible place and I’ll be sorry I invested so many years of my life to it.

Episode MVPs

Euron “Best General in fucking Westeros” Greyjoy:

Euron gets to be MVP this episode because in one fell swoop he destroyed D*ny’s fleet and brought down one of her dragons. What can I say ... Competency really turns me on.

Too bad Cersei doesn’t love him. If these two actually cared about each other, they could be the McBeths of Westeros. Nothing could stand in their way!

Lord “What an Icon!” Varys:

What can one say about this glorious man? He is MVP for the second time in 4 reviews and somehow I think he’s not done yet.

Varys and Tyrion got down to some realpolitick this episode. But Varys had some truly outstanding lines, like:

Varys: How many others know?

Tyrion: Including us? Eight.

Varys: Well, then it’s not a secret anymore. It’s information. If a handful of people know now, hundreds will know soon.

It’s so rare to find a man that understands gossip so well!

Varys: I’ve served tyrants all my life. They all talk about destiny.

As a person born under a communist regime, I concur, Varys.

And my personal favorite:

Varys: You know where my loyalty stands. You know I will never betray the realm.

Tyrion: What is the realm? A vast continent, home to millions of people, most of whom don’t care who sits on the Iron Throne.

Varys: Millions of people, many of whom will die if the wrong person sits on that throne. We don’t know their names but they’re just as real as you and I. They deserve to live. They deserve food for their children. I will act in their interests, no matter the personal cost.

If this show doesn’t end with a 7 foot, cockless statue of Varys presiding over the whole of Westeros as the ICON that he is, what was even the point?!?!?

#got8 #got8 spoilers #got 8x04 #got8 review #sansa stark #jon snow #dark!dany #lord varys #jonsa #euron greyjoy #braime

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expression-in-its-essence · 5 years ago

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The Goldfinch movie.

7 min 26 secs in : Why the fuck did they start the movie like that. Why didn't the explosion take place? Theo's mom's apartment? His anxiety? Also.. why do they keep cutting the scenes abruptly? They ain't tweets... No limit.. then??

8 min 2 sec in : Okay they went to the apartment. Audrey's sweater deserved more screen time. The lipstain on the mug in focus *chef's kiss* poetic cinema!

9 min 19 sec in : Do you see what I see? Tom Cable's face has a stark resemblance to Boris's face. Did Theo have a crush on him?

9 min 54 sec in : Mr Barbour's hand is shaking. I like that they put it in there. He was sick. Nice. (I'd imagined Audrey's apartment building entrance like they showed the Barbour's apartment building entrance. Wild.)

11 min 8 sec in : Don't shove it into his face that y'all are fancy okay? He's not used to that life style. He didn't have maids making his bed. ARE YOU GIVING HIM DRUGS, MRS BARBOUR? But you just glared at your husband for offering him the same sort of thing?? Oh God. Poor child. "it's perfectly understandable" my ass. You gave him meds just because your sleep was getting affected.

14 min 39 sec : Woah woah woah Theo wtf you're so smol how'd you do that? Also... Again. The frame of Theo and Tom standing close and Theo and Boris standing close when they kissed, Theo is wearing the same damn sweater.

16 min 58 sec in : Ayyyy Jeffery Wright!

20 min 33 sec in : "He drank a lot", Theo about his dad. Honey just wait up, you will too. (The grilled sandwich and the cute lil smile 😍 also this is the first time since the movie started that Oakes' voice isn't deep.)

23 min 54 sec in : Wizard of Oz poster, I see you!

24 min 19 sec in : I love how Oakes is expressing being caught off guard. Theo knows he did something bad and every time he's dealing with something he didn't expect to deal with, he's like OMG THEY KNOW ABOUT THE PAINTING AND IM FUCKED even if no one knows.

25 min 1 sec in : The glasses made a difference. He went from mature to cute. Angry bird to angry birb.

25 min 44 sec in : Another sweater? Or was this THE sweater of Audrey? (Off topic but Oakes is hella cute. I could murder anyone who hurts him.)

29 min 9 sec in : Pippa doesn't remember or doesn't wanna remember? There was something in her eyes that was hard to read. Also, why doesn't anyone say 'I'm sorry about your mom' to Theo? Do Americans not care? It's weird to see no response when he tells people that Audrey is dead.

31 min 17 sec in : "The Goldfinch, destroyed"? Then why is Theo upset. Good riddance. Oh yeah. I know why. It's Donna Tartt we're talking about.

32 min 39 sec in : Hobie just casually predicting the future. "It's only fake if you pass it on as an original". Theo's like, "noted, gonna do exactly that".

34 min 16 sec in : Why does Theo write like a five year old child? That's toddler handwriting! And omg all the Andy-prom-dress memes are making sense now. (Also did I mention that Mrs Barbour seems more selfish in the film than she does in the book. Like hey I'm putting up with this kid because he helps my kid. He's serving a purpose for me. What the hell.) (How old is Andy anyway? He looks younger than Theo. I think he's different. Didn't grow up like other kids. That was mentioned in the book right?)

35 min 20 sec in : Ayyy Hobie's earring!

35 min 49 sec in : He shopped for himself? Nice! Didn't know kids could shop without adult supervision in the West. (Because they can't in the East.)

35 min 50 sec in : Ayyyy Sarah Paulson! Damn she's hot. How can you dislike her? *heart eyes*

37 min 30 sec in : I can't bring myself to hate Luke Wilson since Skeleton Twins but SHUT THE FUCK UP LARRY! AUDREY DESERVED BETTER. Look at how Larry and Xandra are looking at the place like they're vultures.

39 min 34 sec : They got the airport scene right. STOP GIVING HIM DRUGS WTH IS WRONG WITH THE ADULTS IN THIS MOVIE!

41 min 12 sec in : Ayyy Popper!!!!!

43 min 27 sec in : It just dawned on Theo that he's alone. Oh god. My poor baby.

45 min 12 sec in : Let me take this moment to say that Ashleigh Cummings is pretty. And I finally get why y'all were pissed at the non linear storyline and the weird voiceovers. Guess I'd been prepared for that so it didn't really suck that much.

49 min 30 sec in : I'd imagined Boreo reunion like the Platt Theo reunion. In the day. Dang it. Also... Adult Platt Barbour was not supposed to be good looking? In the book?

55 min 34 sec in : Without context, none of it could make sense. Apologies to whoever didn't read the book beforehand. Crowley fucked this up.

58 min in : Ayyyy Finn Wolfhard! BORIS IS HERE AND IM SO EXCITED IDK WHY

1 hour in : It's such a Boris thing to leave the bag unzipped.

1 hour 3 min 20 sec in : Slumdog Millionaire's Jai Ho (2008) is playing in the background. The only song that I've recognized so far. Wow. Lets me know about the time setting. Nice.

1 hr 3 min in : Someone gif " That cost twenty dollars!" *Stare* "That would have cost twenty dollars!"

1 hr 8 min in : So Boris's room is exactly like I had imagined but Theo's room isn't. Boris just mentioned Kotku though.

1 hr 9 min 14 sec in : Isn't it hella hot in Vegas? Why are they wearing sweaters? Or does drug intake make you more vulnerable to the environment?

1 hr 10 min 15 sec in : Xandra Theo argument : gold. "Cocktail sausages that you like." I wanna laugh in Crowley's face. What was he thinking?? Omg I'm dying.

1 hr 11 min 17 sec in : The slap sound didn't work??

1 hr 13 min 53 sec in : I like serious Boris better.

1 hr 14 min in : The slum house Audrey dream thing was not in the book. That's an entirely new addition.

1 hr 18 min 26 sec in : The Welty Theo scene is awesome. The sound effects work. I feel suffocated. The ambulance noise fiasco is also nicely pulled off. (also Theo's Yellow bag was dirty af then how did it get all clean when he didn't even do anything to it?)

1 hr 20 min 57 sec in : Shhhh Potter.

1 hr 22 min in : Holy shit he got slapped twice!! Ouch! And Larry's audacity to tell Theo to stop with the crying?? Good thing he died. Asshole.

1 hr 25 min in : "You don't tell me a lot of things but that's okay". I see what you did there, Boris. Which was of course, I love you.

1 hr 26 min in : "Act normal" - Theo knows his way around drugs pretty well, doesn't he?

1 hr 30 min in : "No family No friends" line punched me in the face. (Also awww popchik's excuse was the last resort for Boris to make Theo stay.)

1 hr 31 min 17 sec in : That pause after "What do you have to tell me?". You can clearly see Boris struggling to hold something back. Which was of course, I love you.

1 hr 31 min 34 sec in : What the fuck is that music? Oh heyyyyyy they kissed!-- he fucking runs away?? Also what kind of a kangaroo runs like that? (Yes, the taxi driver watched. I don't have to wonder anymore.) (They didn't address why he took the bus instead of flying?)

1 hr 33 min in : I didn't imagine Welty's room like that at all. Also why doesn't Hobie seem happy to see Theo again?

1 hr 35 min in : Longer stretches of one storyline are kinda bearable. From drugs in storage unit to waking up beside Kitsey. We got Vegas and Young Theo. Nice. (Also, who the heck puts jewelry in shoes? Is Theo that dumb? And now I can't think of anything else than Boris piercing his ear for the emerald earring. Tumblr has fucked it up bad.)

1 hr 43 min in : They nailed the Kitsey Theo confrontation.

1 hr 44 min in : Ayyy Ozma of Oz!

1 hr 48 min in : I noticed it before but I wasn't sure... Now I am. Pippa has Welty's ring. On her finger. At all times. (also, is NYC always that noisy? Must suck to walk on the roads.)

1 hr 52 min 23 sec in : They nailed the Theo Pippa date. What's that song playing in the background? I want the name. It's almost like two hours and I still haven't seen Aneurin Barnard once. Why! (Jerome's mentioned in the movie btw.)

1 hr 52 min 51 sec in : Complained too soon. Boris is sat in the dark doing god knows what. My man Aneurin is here!

1 hr 53 min 37 sec in : BOREO REUNIONNNNNN - no don't look at me like that I only watched it thrice.

1 hr 56 min in : Boris saying "it's someone else" with a knowing look and Theo looking at him. The frickin yearning.

1 hr 57 min in : Boris is like you're unhappy, I'm here, we're both rich, let's f*ck. "We could"... What are you suggesting dude he's repressed!

1 hr 58 min in : "you unwrapped it and showed it to me." So many meanings. The heart, the love the soul... Wow. Good for you, screen play writers! ( It's kinda hilarious how Boris got mad at Theo for never quote unquote fucking opening it.)

2 hr 1 min in : I'm calling it. They're going to fuck up the Theo Hobie confrontation. They put it on the wrong time. And they also fucked up the text from the book.

2 hr 5 min 48 sec in : Even Platt is saving his sister's face. Also where did Todd go? Did he never grow up? I wish Mrs Barbour didn't use Theo like she did.

2 hr 7 min in : The frame where Boris is between Kitsey and Theo. Chef's kiss.

2 hr 10 min 54 sec in : *intense music playing* Boris put his leg up on the table and I burst into laughter THOSE ARE THE FAMOUS FUCK ME PUMPS.

2 hr 11 min in : AAAAA THE FOREHEAD TOUCH AAAAAAA (Theo just knows without looking that Boris is close enough to touch? Theo are you sure you don't feel feelings for him?)

2 hr 12 min in : Theo is so worried that I'm not sure if it's for Boris or for losing the painting again. Omg he just murdered a man. Oh god.

2 hr 14 min in : Theo is spiralling. In the movie they imply that Hobie played a part in him attempting suicide. So wrong. Poor Hobie. In the book that wasn't the case.

2 hr 15 min in : The transition of the Goldfinch into Audrey, wow. Also, is it the first time we're seeing her? The movie started so long ago that I've forgotten if I saw Theo and Audrey in the museum. Boris following right after Audrey? That's a subliminal message. Boris is here to rescue y'all.

2 hr 16 min in : No shit Boris is freaking out right now.

2 hr 17 min in : The diner scene. They're both crying. "Happy Christmas, Potter" - which was of course, I love you.

2 hr 18 min in : No don't you dare compare Audrey and Mrs Barbour. Audrey would never drug her child or use him for her benefit.

2 hr 20 min in : Poor kid bumps into his mom lol. I found it funny.

On the whole

The movie was nice if you'd read the book beforehand. The first hour was steak, The second hour was Korean BBQ and the rest of the twenty minutes were minced beef. If you get what I mean. Weird analogy. It could have been much better. But it was really very nice in some places. Most places I'd say.

I didn't like how the pop songs ruined the mood of certain moments. I didn't like how you couldn't hear the conversation over the music playing. For example in the engagement party when Platt and Theo talked. Or in the diner scene.

Both Borises killed the accent thing. They tried their best. Cut them some slack.

Oakes deserves an Oscar for holding up this movie on his smol shoulders. I was shook at how a kid could act that well.

Popchik deserved more screen time. I'm still pissed they didn't add the Popchik Boris reunion. But then they couldn't make it chronological, what were we supposed to expect anyway.

Ansel Elgort y'all. Theo sure improved his handwriting lol. Ansel's writing is nice. He was actually good in this movie. Better than he was in The Fault In Our Stars. The internet is just mean. The critics too. I will never understand the hate.

All in all, it could have been a better adaptation but it didn't suck as bad as everyone made it out to be. John Clownery should be punished nonetheless. Special shout-out to Roger Deakins for making it work.

#donna tartt #theo decker #boris pavlikovsky #finn wolfhard #oakes fegley #ansel elgort #aneurin barnard #the goldfinch #boreo

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mannatea · 5 years ago

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Not That Deep: A Psycho Pass Critique

This post is not spoiler-free, and is the result of multiple rewatches over the span of five years. If you remember any of my old Psycho Pass meta, please toss it straight into the garbage. I swear I’m better at conveying my thoughts now. (Joke’s on you if you think I’ve learned to condense my posts, though.)

Disclaimer: all opinions expressed within this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts and opinions of my followers or friends. I welcome discussion/debate.

Psycho Pass (abbreviated to PP for simplicity’s sake from this point forward) is an anime in that very specific genre that belongs to societies that are portrayed as Utopian but aren’t. For the record, the setting can’t really be described as ‘dystopian’ or ‘futuristic hellscape’ either. The series calls itself “cyberpunk.”

In the year 2112, Japan has closed itself off from the world and implemented the Sibyl System: a judgment oracle. Citizens of the country are monitored by the system and have a “psycho-pass” assigned to them. This “psycho-pass” measures their stress levels, brain activity, and potential to commit a crime. When a person’s crime coefficient (CC) exceeds 100, they are considered a latent criminal and put into isolation to receive mandatory therapy. If they do not recover, they remain in isolation. The story follows the main character, Tsunemori Akane, as she joins the series’ version of a police force.

Trigger warnings for this series include gore, violence (sexual, emotional, physical), and an obscene amount of philosophy.

Again, below the readmore/cut will be spoilers.

Worldbuilding/Craft

I feel like it’s important to get into the meat of the discussion as quickly as possible with this series, especially considering the title of this post: Not That Deep.

I’m not going to bother ‘rating’ the different facets/aspects of the show because I don’t think it’s necessary, and this isn’t really a review so much as a discussion/critique. Either you liked the series or you didn’t. If you’re reading this you either have an open mind or you want to get angry, and both reasons are at least a little valid.

PP is a series that REALLY wants to be deep, but falls flat in almost every conceivable way. I’m saying this as someone who enjoyed it enough to write fanfiction about it the last time I watched it, and who not only recommended it to multiple friends, but screenshared the entire series with one recently so that she could see it.

I think the general concept of Sibyl and Akane’s futuristic society is presented in a digestible way. I appreciate the attempts to integrate cool future tech into the show, but I’m especially impressed by the way they go about it. It’s all stuff that your average person living right now would adopt and use regularly if given a chance (auto driven cars, drones, AI secretaries, holo clothes/outfits). Without those specific scenes, I feel like the worldbuilding would almost collapse in on itself; these little details made it easy to imagine living in the world, and gave a little personality to the characters as they made use of them—like little glimpses into their personal taste.

It also helped to take the focus and pressure off of the less-nice aspects of the Sibyl System. No wonder people are generally pretty happy/content in this world: they can wear sweatpants and just holo something else over it! (Sign me up!)

Unfortunately the worldbuilding beyond that isn’t great, but I also don’t think it’s fair to say that it’s bad. It’s just...kind of mediocre...while still managing, at least for the first season, to feel coherent.

We have hues and crime-coefficients. They are not the same thing, but they might as well be because one isn’t bad without the other being bad: EVER. Ginoza’s CC rises as his hue darkens throughout S1. Togane’s hue is black and he has the highest CC on record. Makishima’s hue is clear and his CC is 0 (when he wills it to be). What’s the point of having both, then? Is it just for a fun color-coding system? It’s never explained in any way that makes sense. The one character likely to have a high CC and a clear hue is Makishima (a sociopath), but he has both a clear hue and a low CC. (Kamui is another anomaly, but he can’t be measured at all, so he doesn’t really fit into this specific discussion.) Basically, having hues and CCs both exist just feels a little bit too much like “it sounded cool so we included it” instead of: “These both serve serious purposes in the world.” They want really bad to fling philosophy at the viewers, but seem to neglect this really large aspect of the world where it would be perfect to latch on.

Technology is advanced to the point of having cybernetic arms that function effortlessly and people can almost achieve full cybernization if they have the money/will to. Kamui was 184 people stitched together lol... And yet Akane has just one living grandparent (who apparently can’t even move on her own). I’m not really put off by this, but you’d think the technology/health debate would be a much bigger part of the story beyond the news broadcast that was shown.

I think the biggest niggling little worldbuilding issue is the fact that the implementation of Sibyl happened ~20 years ago. I like the detail for what it gives us for some characters (Masaoka and Ginoza specifically), but I find it mostly implausible. Maybe it was fully implemented 20 years ago, but the framework was another 20 years in the making. It just doesn’t work otherwise. The second it was implemented families would have been shattered and that shattering would have put even more people into isolation due to their CC rising. I mean, if someone took my 5-year-old away from me, I’d be in isolation REAL QUICK, ‘cause that’s the kind of trauma you don’t just Get Over or Move Past.

Speaking of five-year-olds, in the boarding school episodes, they mention a law that protected minors, which feels out of place because Kagari was not protected by that law...which means it couldn’t have been around very long in the first place. If the scanners can flag a 5-year-old child and take him away from his parents, high school students aren’t exempt either. The mention of the law would have been a nice touch if it had only recently been appealed/removed, but it was only around for a few years ~20 years ago, so it feels awkwardly placed/silly.

Again, not everything worldbuilding/craft-related is bad. Like I said earlier, the world in general feels pretty cohesive and the characters belong there. The issues mostly sit with the fact that they tried to include a lot of ‘neat’ or ‘dramatic’ (or even ‘dark’) things...without stopping to consider if they actually fit within the narrative they were trying to construct.

Plot/Storylines

This is where the series shines. Or at least, this is probably the strongest point in PP’s favor.

The biggest criticism I have: it doesn’t actually do anything new and exciting.

That said, I don’t think every bit of media out there needs to flip the script to be enjoyed, and I liked PP just fine for what it was.

Season One was definitely stronger in this department than later material. What made S1 feel strong was having enough time to actually move the plot along while also developing the characters. S2 was comparatively rushed and had a lot of really unnecessary plotlines and gore. The movie was...eh, but I think it was an improvement over S2. (I haven’t seen Sinners of the System yet, so I can’t comment on those installments.)

I can find fault with a lot of S1 stuff, but for the most part I think it did a pretty good job and any faults I’d bother to point out would just be me nitpicking. The storylines melded into one another, everything was connected, et cetera. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of character relationships/development, but I’ll talk about that later. Besides, I’d rather have a cohesive series than not, so this isn’t exactly a criticism so much as an observation. The production team(s) did an excellent job of making the most of the screentime they had to work with.

S2 feels flawed almost from the start. Rather than build off of what we already learned in S1 and further develop the characters, it chose to rush headlong into a half-assed plot featuring an unbelievable antagonist. Yikes. I think it brought up an interesting question in “WC?” but instead of striking a believable balance they really just made an antagonist who was 184 people’s bodies stitched together. I can’t get over how stupid that was. Honestly, it was straight-up foolish of the writers to go through with that concept. Makishima might have been a pretentious pile of shit, but at least he felt like a human being. Kamui as a concept was just too overblown to work.

Also working against S2 was Togane. That whole plotline was completely unnecessary and throwing Akane’s grandmother under a bus on top of that was just the icing on the idiot cake. S2 was the Break the Cutie trope tenfold, but there was no danger and therefore no sense of urgency or fear. It was just gross for the sake of being gross, which was disappointing. I’m not saying that Togane isn’t the type of person to beat a crippled old lady to death, because he is, but I also never thought he was an idiot, and the progression of his attempts to blacken her hue jumped straight to the moon instead of progressing at a pace that felt more natural/reasonable. If the guy hasn’t been eliminated by an inspector after blackening many of their hues, he’s not the kind of dope to take silly risks. He could have tried any number of things to ruin Akane that didn’t involve her poor old granny (who had no real screentime and whom the audience had no connection with anyway).

S2 also gave us Ginoza doubting Akane’s sanity early on (acting like she might have written WC on her own wall), which not only feels incredibly out of character for S2 Ginoza, but never amounts to anything/goes anywhere anyway.

Hungry Chicken was an interesting touch, but SO MANY PEOPLE DIED that its impact was diminished. Division 3 had such a non-appearance in the series anyway that them being there at all just felt stupid without more lead-up.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think S2 is irredeemable, but I feel like it missed the mark consistently from start to finish. A shame, because the concept of a ‘plural’ psycho-pass might have been nifty if, say, Kamui was made up of 5 or 6 people’s bodies. Then the holos would feel meaningful. Then each ‘part’ of him would feel like a different person with different feelings and motives and skills.

Anyway, I think S2 muddied the waters too much with Kamui and the body doubles and Shisui all that nonsense, too. At a certain point if your plot gets too complex, especially with overblown concepts thrown into the mix, it just feels silly. That’s basically what happened to S2.

Again, S1 wasn’t perfect. Makishima was exhaustingly boring. Cool, so you can quote a bunch of crap you’ve read. Great. So can I. Who are you as a person, though? That Guy in my Philosophy 101 class who argued with the professor? Yeah, I could picture that!

People love waxing poetic about how amazing an antagonist Makishima was, but the dude was a hollow shell quoting things other people said 100+ years ago. It felt like he didn’t even have his own thoughts, and as far as I saw, there weren’t even any fake philosophers mixed in with the rest to make us feel a little extra immersed in the world (and/or give us another philosophical spin on the situation).

Hey, maybe that was the point, but I’ve never seen that criticism leveled fully at the character/plot in general, so here we are.

It was just too heavy-handed. By the end of the series I wanted him dead just so I could stop listening to his mini-lectures.

Still, it may as well have been amazing compared to 184-People-Stitched-Together being the main antagonist.

I think the movie jumped in face-first and was perhaps a little too...all over the place? But I didn’t have to endure 184 people as a single person, or ears in boxes, so... I consider it a win.

The bitter reality when it comes to Psycho Pass and the plot is that...the plot is its greatest strength, but it’s Not That Deep...even though you can tell that it’s consistently trying to be. Oof.

I think if they’d shot for something less complex, especially in S2, they’d have at least met their goals of depth/consistency. Instead what we ended up with was having a fairly decent plot devolve into one of the worst second seasons I’ve seen.

Characters & Character Development

For such a small cast, I think PP did a pretty piss-poor job with most of their characters, but the series as a general rule is so plot-heavy that it’s not really surprising.

I can’t help but expect a lot from a series that only has a few ‘main’ characters. In this case, Akane is the Big Main Character, and is flanked by Kogami and Ginoza. In S1, there was a decent balance (with Masaoka and Kagari thrown in). In S2, it was mostly just Akane and The Bad Guys, which would be fine if the plot was incredible, or The Bad Guys were super duper interesting, but as discussed previously, the plot was akin to liquid cat barf and the characters weren’t treated much better. It was a little insulting to be handed characters who could be really fun in the right hands (literally everyone) only to see them used as plot vehicles/hallucinations/memory thoughts. Kogami randomly appearing for long boring scenes wasn’t fun or cool; it was uninspired. It’d be way cooler if it was for five seconds and felt like a...memory, almost...a passing thought. For more screentime, it could even happen more often. But no, it’s gotta be like two minutes long.

How about the scene where Saiga talks to Koichi who just keeps turning into Kamui and he talks for like five straight minutes? UGH. Is this supposed to feel deep and meaningful? It doesn’t.

Shion sleeps with Yayoi so she can monologue plot things while Yayoi is getting dressed. Can I add that Yayoi doesn’t matter at all at any point, and Shion conveniently can do anything that needs to be done because Reasons?

Togane isn’t around long enough to feel like a worthwhile villain. Nobody cares about Shisui because we honestly don’t even know who she is! Oh, were we supposed to feel bad for Division 3? We’re supposed to feel gross about Akane’s grandmother but the writers took one line in S1 and used that to try and break the character (while also knowing full well it wouldn’t have any effect on her). Let’s not forget Mika, who is remembered as being incredibly annoying...while everyone forgets/doesn’t notice that she’s the student from the boarding school who didn’t die (and we never see her outside of work doing her own thing, which adds to her just being a pain).

Ginoza seems a little like he’s supposed to fill a spot his father left, but he doesn’t, and he’s pushed to the background to...not really do anything of import. Hinakawa is a worthless character who exists just for one plot-specific purpose. Saiga exists so that more dialogue can happen and not seem too out of place.

I’m not saying the character writing overall is trash, but it definitely ain’t good, and I think S2 is where it really struggled. S1 gave us a really interesting character in Kogami. Akane was learning and struggling to fit in at work and do things well, which was somewhat relatable. Ginoza was struggling with his mental health throughout the entire first season and had a lot of character development. But then S2 happens and the development kind of...stopped? Akane didn’t seem to really learn much because she was too busy always being right? Kogami noped out of Japan so I didn’t expect anything with him specifically, but why couldn’t Yayoi have moved into the limelight? Shion? One of the new guys? ANYONE?

Don’t get me wrong. I still have characters I like, and I can see potential in the others. I just wish I was seeing more than potential is all, especially with characters like Yayoi that have been around from Day1 and still haven’t really done anything noteworthy.

General Criticisms/Other Thoughts

There’s a lot of shock-value violence (SVV). I guess you could say I ‘get’ the purpose of it, but there’s literally no reason that helmeted person couldn’t have beat a man to death with a hammer instead of a woman, especially considering that we have to see Spooky Boogie’s corpse looking grotesque and plenty of other crimes against women.

I feel like S2 was especially guilty of SVV, but it existed in S1, too, pretty much to the point that it started to anger me. It might not have bothered me as much if some of the violent acts were cases that stood alone, but they were all linked to the main plot and that somehow seemed to make it worse.

I also wasn’t a fan of Akane constantly being naked/near naked, of Yuki being in her underwear/negligée, of every crime against a woman ending up with a woman’s clothes being removed, and (the list goes on). One of these things? I might be able to overlook. All of them? Come on. Don’t pretend these creators weren’t doing this for their own purpose.

(I know the scene with Aoyanagi gave us the men getting undressed too [This is your natural self!], but then they showed her with all these action scenes, legs spread wide open, coordinated lacy undies/bra... C’MON. All the butt-shots of Professor Saiga and Kogami don’t make up for this or cancel it out. I KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS ARE DOING AND I DO NOT LIKE IT.)

The music was mediocre but acceptable/fitting.

The animation is nice.

Overall

This isn’t a series I’d recommend to just anyone. It has a lot of issues, and they range from being petty annoyances to straight up offensive. If you can ignore the misogynistic undertones and general lack of consistent attention to the characters, there’s a decently interesting plot waiting for you.

Unfortunately the series just feels...lacking, in the end. There is a S3 coming out (apparently featuring other characters), so the creators aren’t done playing in this world. Maybe S3 will fix some of the consistency issues?

I’ve seen a lot of people make comments about Psycho Pass being a ‘genius’ work, ignored by the general public despite its godliness. I agree that it doesn’t get the attention you’d expect a series of this caliber (nice animation, decent soundtrack, likable main female character who isn’t some moeblob) to have, but I think I hit upon all the reasons it’s not everyone’s cuppa in the first place...and while it is open for fanfiction and so on, the lack of attention to the characters by the series itself makes it less likely to appeal to the sort of people who write fanfiction. So there you have it: a pretty decent, mostly coherent series that’s terribly violent and misogynistic. Definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but worth a watch if you can get past those pesky negatives.

#psycho pass #psycho pass meta #don't sleep on this title yall

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bigfrozenfan · 6 years ago

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My all-time favorites fan art - part twentyseven - Agnarr/Iduna Special

King Agnarr and Queen Iduna in younger years

I guess many fans asking themselves how Agnarr have met his Queen and how they felt in love to eachother. There is hardly to find any art work about this theme and this one seems to be a rare example how it probably looks like.

It's summer in Arendelle, the dawn has broken and the sun sets slowly, the moon and some stars are be seen and young Agnarr and his Iduna are standing on the balcony of the castle. They are enjoying the fresh air from the coming night and Iduna leans on him with a happy smile. She's the first time in Arendelle and they haven't married yet. It looks like a dream have come true for her.

I really would like to hear what the are talking to eachother in this intimate moment, if they are making wedding plans, what Agnarr has promised to her, or just maybe if she's asking him whereto they will ride out this beautiful morning...but wait...there's a lot more below.

The pictures radiates so much feeling and love, are so emotional and intense. Really amazing! I love them and there should be a storyline in Frozen II about the past of them!

Art by corosuke-kansai Title 1: “Summer of Arendelle” Title 2 (picture below): "I want to be with you forever"

http://corosuke-kansai.tumblr.com/post/176988683037/summer-of-arendelle

I have been in contact to the Artist and i've got the permission to use his art work for this post. The artist has drawn more pictures of the relationship between Agnar and Iduna, take a look!

The artist is - as far as I can judge - the only one so far who deals with the history of Agnarr and Iduna in his works. In my opinion this would have a great potential for an illustrated fan fiction!

I'm not very good at writing stories, especially not with conversation and describing feelings, facial expressions, small plot details, etc., but I would have ideas about that already. I've never written a fan fiction before or any story at all and maybe one or the other of you can help or make a little story out of it. Anyway, i'll give it a try now.

The following story is based on the time before the birth of Elsa and Anna. Imagine the following idea: The small kingdom of Arendelle, maybe 20 years ago, before the story of Frozen begins - a Frozen PREQUEL so to speak!

The story begins with a short review of the kingdom and how it came into being (1). The actual story then begins with Agnarr, perhaps with his coronation, and his diplomatic travels and trade relations to allied countries. On one of these journeys he meets the future queen of Arendelle, Iduna (2). Agnarr falls in love with her at first sight and since he sits alone on the throne of Arendelle, he plans to take her as his wife - of course only if she feels affection for him. Iduna doesn't suspect anything of this yet, but is ready to accept his invitation to Arendelle. It can't hurt to get to know an important new trading partner of her country up close and personal, and he is also very gallant and very attractive. But she doesn't let it show - not yet anyway.

On the long ship voyage - the ship is fully loaded with important trade goods, which Arendelle urgently needs - the two get to know each other better. They talk about themselves and the peculiarities of their countries. While Iduna talks very reservedly, Agnarr raves about the beauty of the fjords in Arendelle and begins very carefully courting her. Now that ship journeys take a very long time and even for a big three-master it is not without danger to defy the wild sea, this voyage becomes quite turbulent for the two of them. When the ship finally lands in the port of Arendelle, Agnarr is greeted with cheers by the population, everyone is glad that the not entirely harmless journey came to a happy end - Arendelle obviously loves his king. Iduna is very impressed by the sight she sees -- Agnarr really hasn't understated it! Arrived at the castle, duly picked up in a magnificent carriage, the two are greeted respectfully by Kai and Gerda, Agnarr's most reliable servants. (3) Iduna is assigned the best suite and on Agnarr's instructions every wish should be fulfilled and Gerda should also take care of the new wardrobe, which is appropriate for Arendelle's climate.

The king then left Iduna with the words "My Lady, ya forgive, but unfortunately I have to take care of important government affairs for a while. You may move freely and every wish of yours shall be fulfilled." Iduna answers with a slightly astonished expression on her face and bends before the king, "Your Majesty, Sire, you are too kind. Thank you." She hesitates a little bit and then continues with "I would like to have a small request, however. I noticed the pretty city with its beautiful roofs and imaginative doors when I arrived in the carriage driving past. Could I also take a walk there". Agnarrr smiles and replies "But of course...you are welcome to have a look around there. If you already like the city so much, you should see it at the Yule-Fest, all inhabitants lovingly decorate their doors and facades with Christmas decorations and make gifts for the children. We have such a special tradition here at the castle. I will instruct Gerda to accompany you and show you everything. Please do not hesitate to express any special wishes." Iduna nods happily and smiles back "You must tell me about your traditions in Arendelle on occasion, Your Majesty, Sire. All this sounds very interesting and is new to me. There is no such thing with us".

While Agnarr has to take care of the most urgent government business, Iduna now has the opportunity to look around the castle and the city. Gerda accompanies her and carries a basket with her for a few small errands. Iduna takes the opportunity and has many conversations with the inhabitants. In this way she learns more about the king and everyday life in Arendelle. They visit several shops and finally end up at a stand where a large and strangely dressed young man loudly praises his goods. Iduna, turns up her nose, leans towards Gerda and asks quietly "What stin...smells here so obtrusive?” She looks up and reads "Oaken's summer sale" on a large sign above his stand, and on a slightly smaller sign next to it "with sauna". Gerda grins and replies in the same whisper "Oaken is a well-known city trader and offers something, let's say, something solid.” As they strolls past the stand, Oaken with a trained eye immediately recognizes that Iduna is new in town. "My Lady!" and a little quieter in Gerda's direction "Hello Gerda.", "May I offer you my speciality of the house?" and he holds out a large glass of a yellowish cloudy liquid with separated fish heads to Iduna. Iduna involuntarily takes a step back. "Lutefisk! Freshly pickled only last year". Iduna, somewhat perplexed, puts on a crooked grin and says "Thank you, but no thank you. I'm not quite comfortable today...". That's the keyword Oaken was obviously just waiting for. "My Lady, I can help against that", pulls out a small bottle from under the table and says in the chest tone of the conviction "A miracle cure against all kinds of discomfort... from my own production". Iduna slowly realizes that she can't get away without buying something. But Gerda saves her from the situation "My Lady, it's already late and I have to do my errands there in the shop". She winks at Iduna. She nods understandingly and says goodbye friendly but definitely to this obtrusive dealer.

As they continue, the two inevitably pass Oaken's Sauna, from which it steams strongly. Suddenly a young man with his upper body naked appears behind the small window and waves out. Iduna opens her eyes wide and quickly turns away. "There's a...", Gerda laughs, "That's Oaken's other specialty and the young guy in there is his partner, as they say." Iduna opens her eyes a bit further and her eyebrows move up in amazement. All of a sudden Gerda recognizes what she has just said out loud and opens her eyes in shock and presses her hand in front of her mouth, while Iduna asks "He is his... wait, WHAT?!", "Oh, My lady, please excuse my unseemly mouth, please don't listen to me, that was a little careless of me to talk about something like this in your presence." Gerda sinks down a bit and is very angry about her faux pas. But then her face brightens up again and she happily turns to Iduna and says "My Lady, I've got something, I'm sure you'll like it!". Iduna is grateful for Gerda's mood and they both enter a small shop where it smells beguiling. "My Lady?", Gerda watches amused as her companion takes a deep breath and lifts her head with her eyes closed. "Hmm...?" She opens her eyes again and looks around curiously. "What is that, Gerda?". Everywhere artfully manufactured small....yes, what exactly...little stones lie in the displays. Some of them piled up as small heaps, in the most different colours and forms. While Iduna is still looking around, Gerda talks to the seller and has her basket filled almost to the edge. After she has pushed two bank notes over the counter she quickly steps back at Iduna's side and asks astonished "My Lady? It seems you don't know any chocolate", a few seconds pass, "Chocolate...". Iduna repeats this strange sounding word quietly to herself. "Would you like a taste, my lady?" First she looks at Gerda, then at the basket with all the delicacies, she nods slowly but surely and carefully fishes one of the brown pieces with her fingertips. She looks questioningly at Gerda, who only nods in agreement. Slowly Iduna pushes the chocolate into her mouth and closes her eyes. In this wonderfully sweet moment she realizes that she could die for chocolate.

Back in the castle there is a lot of activity and all sorts of servants scurry here, carry something there and are in full working zeal. Gerda makes her way to the kitchen apologizing and Iduna stands a little undecided in the big hall, watching the silent hectic. It doesn't take long and King Agnarr walks down the stairs, directly towards her. "My Lady. How was ya day? Ya've been on the road a long time and I very much hope ya enjoyed it in the city". Iduna nods enthusiastically and starts telling stories as they stroll through the castle. At some point they step onto the balcony overlooking the fjord. For a while there is silence and except for a few birds there are no more noises to be heard from below. They both lean against the veranda and enjoy the peaceful view. After a while Iduna lowers her head and quietly, almost inaudibly asks "There is another reason for my presence here in Arendelle, not only because of the trade relations...isn't there, Your Majesty, Sire?". Agnarr quietly breathed in the cool evening air and looked up. The first stars were already visible at dusk. Finally he said "Yes", he turned to her, she lifted her head and looked at him. "My Lady...or may I just say Iduna to you?", she nodded slowly, already suspecting what he would say. "Iduna, I want to be honest with ya...with you. Since I first saw you there, in your country, and since our first conversation, when we were alone...I was...", he faltered. Then he looked up and they gazed directly into each other's eyes. Seconds passed. He took a deep breath and finally asked "Would you like to stay here in Arendelle? Forever? At my side?" She held her breath, trembled slightly all over her body, but held his gaze. "You felt it, didn't you? That I fell in love with you". She nodded barely audibly. Again seemingly endless seconds passed. Then she surrendered to her feelings and leaned against him. She looked out at the fjord, felt his warmth and his arm, which lay tenderly around her, remembered every little detail, every word of him since they met. She smiled as she quietly replied a single word, "Yes."

To be continued...?

---

I know, the story sounds quite clichéd and sometimes a bit pathetic. At a certain point I couldn't stop writing and suddenly certain peculiarities of Anna occurred to me and I thought to myself, she must have it somewhere ;-) Well, it's just an idea of mine. After translating the text from German, I only corrected it superficially, so it may still contain mistakes. The most difficult thing for me in English are the noble forms of address, I hope I did it right.

What do you think?

Notes/footnotes: (1) Keyword trolls and Agnarr's ancestors as link to the picture in the book of trolls (2) here one could already now go into possible predispositions of Iduna to magical powers, of which Agnarr, however, does not suspect anything yet (3) here perhaps a possible hint that Kai and Iduna are somehow familiar?

#frozen #agnarr #iduna #fanart #fanfiction #my fanfic #frozen prequel

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msbeccieboo · 6 years ago

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Arrow 7x13 brain dump

So this review/brain-dump is probably not going to be very thorough as I am simply too excited for our Olicity baby!! I really enjoyed this week, and haven’t felt this giddy about an episode in forever!!! Positive!Beccie is back with a vengeance! No ranting (probably) from me this week!

The Queen family

I could probably write this review solely under this heading, because this was a truly family-centric episode. We got some real scenes of the three of them this week at last!!

Source: lucyyh

Continued under the cut

The pancake scene was just brilliant; Oliver starting off out of his element, then Felicity playing bad cop to get Oliver to start the conversation, then Oliver just acing his chat with William, like he’s been Dadding forever! I loved Oliver calling William “young man”; when I used to get “young lady”-d by my Mum I knew I was in the shit 😂 William was brilliant in these scenes too-he had some valid points, and spoke them up well, but in that wonderful moody/angry teenager way obvs, of course resulting in a storm-out, followed by a “we’re not done here”! I realise as I’m writing this that we never really got to the bottom of why William got expelled; he said it was a fight, but no more information than that, I’m guessing that’s all we’re going to get? Anyway, I really enjoyed the Oliver-William scenes, and we got that adorable scene between Will and Felicity with the Rubik’s cube, that we saw mentioned in the flash forwards earlier in the season.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Oliver and Felicity deciding to let William go and live with his grandparents was heart-breaking 😭😭 I adored Oliver sticking up for Felicity and fighting for his family...there’s our boy!!

Source: olicitygifs

I’m so pleased that Oliver asked Felicity for her opinion, and actually made that decision with her. This is a true marriage, a family. A family that is now torn apart again and I don’t like it, but I think it was the right decision for the time being. I also don’t think this is the last we will see of William, despite how the FFs may make it seem right now. He most certainly wasn’t abandoned here; it was his choice to leave.

But when one child leaves…we get another one 😂😂😂 THE OLICITY BABY IS HERE!!!!

Ok, so this wasn’t exactly the jaw-dropping moment it was teased to be (was it teased to be? I don’t even know; we work ourselves into such fabulous frenzies over these things that I can’t remember what we were supposed to be expecting haha!). Anyway. We been knew. But for every worried anon, Loliver stan, morally questionable writer (looking at you MG) or otherwise delusional troll/comic f*boy that may have put an element of doubt into our heads….HA!! Of course Mia was going to be Olicity’s daughter, it was the only logical explanation. The hints were still coming thick and fast throughout the episode; there was even one beautiful transition scene where Felicity morphed into Mia before our very eyes! And we now have a pregnant Felicity! I’m not big into baby/pregnancy storylines so I don’t have a boatload of things I’m desperate to see. I just need to see Felicity tell Oliver, and have a few cutesy overprotective/scared prospective parent moments and I’ll be happy! I’m still more interested in Felicity as a character and her personal storyline, and I’m hoping that that isn’t lost. For me it’s the solidification of their family in the present, and the legacy that they leave for us to see in the future that I’m excited for (SO EXCITED!!!).

Stan

Source: plotbunnyshipper

Why hasn’t he been a proper Big Bad?! As many have already said, he’s been a more frightening, involved, relevant and empathetic villain in the 2-3 episodes we’ve known him as a villain for, than LizardBoy has been in 1.5 seasons!!! It’s almost a shame that they used him on such a family-focused episode, because I think he could have carried a full-on villain-centric episode by himself. He was a scary combination of vulnerable, creepy and violent and he left us (or me at least) wanting more!! I hope we see him again, but I don’t think we will. I loved his drugging of the Queen family (ok that drugging was a bit ridiculous, but this is still Arrow), and his truth bombs about the rest of the ‘team’; the man made some serious sense!! And I loved seeing the three of them work as a team to take him down!

Flash forwards

Mia frikkin Smoak guys!!!!

Source: feilcityqueen

Baby Olicity is a savage lol!! A gloriously imperfect mix of island rage Oliver and angry Felicity. This girl is damaged and has been through some serious shit for sure, which I hate for her, but makes her so interesting to watch. I loved her punching out William and Zoe (for no real reason ha!) and taking on Dinah and Roy (with Connor’s help). She’s fearless, no nonsense and will do whatever it takes to achieve her goal, which is to use the Archer program to find Felicity, her mama 😍😍 We got to see Parkour!Roy, still never fails to make me smile (and he’s SO HOT), and saw Dinah recognise Connor as Dig’s son, calling him Connor, not JJ. So Roy and Dinah didn’t know JJ, Mia or William (not really), and Dig, Oliver and Felicity are all still unaccounted for. Looks like OTA and fam went scram, be that into hiding or just out of Star City, and a long while back too.

The future story arc is really quite well done in S7; the writers have had us puzzling within fandom so much over Mia’s parentage, when the real mystery is what the f is going on in these flash forwards! I have zero clue what is going on, and I like that I don’t know! It’s still frustrating, because we are so used to an overload of spoilers and the somewhat predictable writing, so it’s refreshing to be sooo in the dark still at this stage. We also have to think that as well as the ‘present’ future situation, there are also 20 years of unknowns to be filled in, and it’s exciting! It’s also grim as hell, and by the sound of it we won’t get a ‘happy’ resolution by the end of the season, but I’m hoping there is a teeny bit of sunshine in amongst all the grey clouds! I’m also (maybe?) in the minority whereby if this hopeless future is a result of Oliver having died in our current time (i.e. in the crossover), I don’t want his inevitable resurrection to ‘reset’ this future timeline, or else what would have been the point at all of this storyline for the past season? I dunno…I’m ultimately so confused by it all, but for now I’m ok with that 😊

NTA + Dig

It hurts my heart that Dig is in this category, for now at least. They were fine, not too annoying I think as they took up an acceptably small amount of screen time. I would have liked to see a bit more Dig, but it wouldn’t have fit in this episode. I thought the murder-house stuff was cool, suitably suspenseful and funny in parts. It’s a shame they put Dinah’s attack in the trailer, as that would have been an awesome shock moment otherwise. So is that her Canary Cry gone now? That seems lazy to me…this is a metahuman superpower, and one swift non-fatal slit to the throat puts an end to it? I call bullshit.

Curtis Holt has left the building!! He couldn’t leave without reminding us why we grew to dislike him; signing over Helix to Felicity (Smoak Tech RISE!) so self-satisfactorily, as if he’d done a damn thing towards it in the last year (and what he did previously for Helix he used to intentionally track and cause bodily harm to the recipient…still mad). Bye bitch! I’m glad they got rid without resorting to offing a black gay character though….WELL DONE WRITERS!!! Under another showrunner (*cough* MG) this would have gone differently I’m positive. Also, the fact that Curtis’ exit is so unnoteworthy and TOTALLY overshadowed by MIA FRAKKING SMOAK is just beautiful!!

Ok so this got long again, quelle surprise! Sorry! And we have to wait 3 weeks till the next episode 😣😣

Thank you to the wonderful gif-brigade! Our saviours 💗

#arrow #arrow 7x13 #olicity #arrow season 7 #beccie's brain

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maxattack-powell · 7 years ago

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Winter Break - Time's Up

Winter Break - Time’s Up (1-17h)

***This is an original fic that fits in between the Luxury Date special and Book 2/Chapter 1 (1-17h) in my masterlist)***

Masterlist - go here for other chapters and related original fics

Disclaimer: The following are fics (adaptations from actual game chapters AND original works) to Choices: The Freshman and The Sophomore stories. It is a fictional adaptation. I do not work for Pixelberry Studios, the game developer or own the rights to the characters Chris Powell, Nicole or any other IN GAME character. All of the ORIGINAL characters, storylines and events were developed for my adaptation of The Freshman story.

Comments: I enjoyed playing Choices The Freshman… and then I found this awesome group of people and their works - I’ve loved it all, very much so. Deciding that I wanted more interaction than the options allowed, I’ve gone through the first book, chapter by chapter (omg painfully slow) to follow the story (95-99% I’d say) and add to it as I felt would benefit. Now I am doing the same to Book 2 as well.

Basically, I wanted to include certain things that weren’t really full fic worthy, adding more substance to the story. However, I did add some full size fic moments also… some are included in cannon chapters and some are their own full chapters in between. I wanted to see MC and Chris through their freshman year… with more angst, fluff, sweetness, real life and overall detail. So, if you like that pairing then you’ll be satisfied, otherwise sorry James & Kaitlyn fans lol. I even added some parts from Chris’s POV, so that we have a chance to see what he’s thinking, knowing what she experienced.

NSFW moments in future chapters - Mature Readers Only Please

Paring: MC x Chris

POV: ~MC~ or ~Chris~

~Chris~

The guys toss their bags in the back and climb into the Jeep. Ryan grumbles about missing shotgun as Ethan smirks silently from the front seat. Chris starts the engine and lets it run for a minute before they head out. As the guys get situated for the trip home, Chris watches as MC reaches Madison under a tree near the quad entrance. He smiles softly as he memorizes the image one last time before he puts the Jeep into gear.

As he pulls out of the parking lot, he makes sure to pass them both, waving when they see the Jeep. He focuses on MC, shooting her a wink as watches, biting her lower lip. She does it only for a second though, seeing him narrow his eyes slightly as he silently tells her to stop. She flashes Chris his smirk in response before she gives a small wave.

He reluctantly tears his eyes from her and focuses on the road in front of him. It’s going to be a long trip home. Much longer than it took to get here, now that he knows he won't be able to stop thinking about her the entire time. He lets out a small indiscernible sigh as he adds up the hours before he’s back at Hartfeld. Back with her.

Ryan and Ethan stay quiet for a while, sensing his inner monologue of thoughts that he's obviously running through. Ryan decides to play Candy Crush on his phone while Ethan texts back and forth with his girlfriend.

Chris is thankful for the moment of silence. He knows his friends are doing it intentionally, letting him have some time to collect himself and adjust to everything that's happened over the last few days. Of course, he didn't tell them anything specific, but they basically know what’s going on. They had picked up on how he was feeling about MC before they even met her, and now, well now there is no denying it.

He glances over to Ethan, wondering if he’s going to get a lecture about moving too quick or if his friend will support him. Sure, about a month ago he basically landed on Ethan’s doorstep, asking for help when he was lost about dealing with MC. But would Ethan still support him, knowing that Chris was falling face first into this with MC, and unable to control his speed this time?

Then there is Ryan, who he knows will do anything, and he really means anything, for his friends. Especially Chris. He looks in his rear-view and watches his dark haired friend for a moment, a small smile creeping on his face. Chris knows he has the best friends a guy could ask for. And while Ryan might not know how to help him relationship wise, seeing how he's never been much of a long term guy, but Chris knows that Ryan will do anything for his friends. Anything.

Ryan and Ethan will always have his back. Chris doesn't even have to ask. And he will do the same for them. Always. Because they are more than friends, more than family even. Whatever that means, he's not exactly sure... but whatever it is, they are it.

Feeling more secure with that last thought, Chris finally speaks. “Sorry for the weird magazine situation in the gas station earlier. I uh…” He clears his throat. “I just wasn't ready to tell MC about ...all of that.” He glances over to Ethan then in the mirror at Ryan, finding both their eyes on him. “I was completely caught off guard, but I shouldn't have reacted that way.”

He sees Ryan shrug it off in the mirror and turn back to his phone. When he glances over at Ethan he finds him still looking at him, but more out of the corner of his eye as he faces forward again.

“So, what have you told her… about all of that?” He looks down at his phone, giving Chris a moment to consider his question.

Chris takes in a deep breath and holds it for a minute while he thinks. Finally he lets the breath out in a long drawn out sigh. “She knows about Nicole. She knows the basics of what happened between Nicole and I…. and that I had a… a uh, rough time after. The details of that time, not so much.”

He glances over to Ethan and sees his friend nod slowly without making eye contact. Chris’s eyes flick to the rear view mirror, seeing Ryan look at him briefly before he turns his eyes back down too. He knows they don't want to upset him by digging up the past, but he needs to get this over with. Chris has been working too hard to get past everything to get his life back, and now he wants it more than ever. He wants to share it with someone who he knows deserves it, and that means he's got to let go of everything else. He needs to move on.

“How do I do this... “ He asks no one specifically. “I mean, I need to tell her. I want to be honest, but when… and how...” He lets out a frustrated sigh.

“And I don't want her to think I’m… that I’m... like that.” His voice becomes an angry whisper towards the end. “That wasn't me.”

Ethan turns his eyes towards Chris for a moment, then back towards the road in front of them. “MC’s not like Nicole, Chris. She’s smart and she's tough too. I can tell. She wouldn't have put up with you this long if she wasn't both.”

He gives his friend a small smirk, trying to lighten the mood. Chris doesn't miss it, his shoulders relaxing a little as a small smile slips out.

“You just have to relax and give the both of you some credit here. She can handle it. If you want to be honest, just tell her what happened.” Ethan nods and looks out the side window as the scenery passes.

Chris sees Ryan make eye contact with him through the mirror as he nods as well. “Yeah. Chris, man… I’m sorry I brought the magazine over then. But I think MC is a cool chick, and Ethan’s right. She's going to understand. I mean, she obviously cares about you. I mean... come on, I couldn't keep her attention for more than a minute at a time, that should say something.”

He cracks a ridiculous grin at Chris, making the taller, longer armed man reach back behind him to grab and punch at his friend playfully while his other arm holds the wheel.

Ryan squirms and shifts out of the way just in time with each swing, laughing and hooting the entire time.”Okay, okay! I give! She’ll never want me!”

Chris laughs a little as he straightens back up, keeping his eyes focused forward as he drives.

Ethan turns in his seat to be able to see Ryan and Chris at the same time. “Look, last year was rough, but we made it through. Together. We’re never going to let it happen again, right?”

“Good. No more lies, no more B.S. Now let’s get back to normal.”

After a few minutes of silence, Chris finally breaks it once again. “I really miss you guys.” He says softly but firmly.

“Me too.” The other two say in unison.

~MC~

Her mother arrives to pick her up about 20 minutes after the guys had left in Chris’s Jeep. She keeps thinking about the trip. Memories of their Winter Break flash through her mind too. Even as she gets her stuff loaded in the back of her mother’s SUV and climbs in the front, she stays silent for a while, her thoughts running through her mind like a swollen river.

MC stares out of the windshield, her vision unfocused as she thinks about everything from the past month. She almost can't believe things are where they are now. If she had gone back in time to tell herself that Chris not only would have come back to her, but that things would have progressed as far as they have, she never would have believed herself.

She tries not to smile too obviously as she remembers details from the trip to Nationals. Dancing with Chris in the club, followed by his admission to her in the alley - that he’s here, waiting, if she wants him. She didn't tell him then, but she does. She really does. Thinking about that now makes her stomach flutter with excitement and desire.

MC swallows and tries to calm herself, her mind dragging up the memories of their early morning run and the kisses in between. Then after, when they were getting ready for the game… and then he answered the door in a towel. Her eyes go wide and she stops her thoughts immediately, aware that this was not the time or place to reminisce about that moment. Maybe later, but not now.

Her mother sees her smile and clears her throat. “Penny for your thoughts…” She smiles knowingly at her daughter.

MC turns to look at her mom for a moment before she smiles. “Sorry, I was just thinking…”

“About Chris.” Her mother finishes her sentence while raising her eyebrow as she turns her eyes back to the road.

She nods slowly. “Yeah… I really like him, Mom.” She says quietly, almost as if saying it louder will jinx it.

Her mother lets out a soft laugh. “I hadn’t noticed, MC.”

MC snorts. “Right.”

“Well, tell me a little more about him.” Her mother gently prods.

MC’s expression turns thoughtful as she decides what to say. “I donno how to describe it.” She turns to face her mother. “You know how Peter was, right? He was always so nice, so thoughtful, and loyal….”

Her mother nods. “Yes, Peter was always a good boy. He’s going to be a great man someday soon.”

“Okay, mom. I get it. I know you liked him. Everyone did. He was, no… he is great.” MC sighs. “But…”

“No spark.” Her mother smirks without looking at her.

MC slowly nods. “Yeah…” She takes a deep breath. “Chris is like Peter in those ways. He’s hard working, loyal to a fault, generous and so sweet. Even when he's hurting…” She frowns as she remembers the many times she’s seen Chris struggle to provide for others when he's curling into himself.

“But he has this passion… this drive, to do so much more. It’s almost…” She chews on her cheek while she thinks. “No, not almost. It is inspiring. He’s capable of so much, but it’s like he doesn't realize it yet. I just want to see what he can do, because I know it will be great.”

She turns slowly to look at her mom. “Does that sound ridiculous?”

Her mother smirks and glances over to her briefly. “No. It sounds like love.”

MC leans back sharply, caught off guard by her mother's statement. “Love?”

The older woman chuckles softly. “I’m not saying you love him, MC. You still have a lot to learn about him, about each other. But that’s a possibility. When you love someone, or love something about them… which is more your case right now, I hope...” She trails off and glances over at her daughter with a humorous look mixed with concern.

MC narrows her eyes at her mother, making her let out a breath of air, not wanting to dig deeper. “Well, this is how it feels.” She smiles warmly at her.

“Just do me a favor. Take your time, get to know each other. You can still spend a lifetime together, just make sure you know who and what you both want, so you can both be sure it is exactly that.”

MC nods and looks out the side window without a word. Her mind swirling through a million thoughts after absorbing her mother's words.

~Chris~

The guys finally arrive back in Cherryfield. It's dark when Chris pulls his Jeep into the driveway and they all slide out of their high seats. After gathering their bags and saying their goodbyes, the best friends jump into Ryan’s Bronco, waving at Chris as they pull away from his house. He closes his eyes for a second and takes a deep breath of cold Maine air, enjoying the serenity for a moment.

He knows as soon as he goes inside that he will be stormed upon by his brother and sister. Possibly his mother as well, all wanting to know how the trip went. He has to decide now how much he is going to tell them, specifically how much he is going to tell his mother. He deeply wants to tell her about MC, but is worried that she might be weary after his behavior from the past year.

This is different though, and he needs her to understand it. Chris isn't sure exactly what to call it or how to describe it, but is feelings for MC are very different. They are nothing like when he was with Nicole. He realizes that at the time, he thought Nicole was his End Game. That she was the only one he could ever love, but now, he knows. The feelings he has now, they are so much more than anything he's ever experienced before. He needs a thesaurus to begin describing how he feels about MC. And even then, it will no be enough.

Chris pulls out his phone and sends MC a quick text to let her know they made it home safely. When he receives her conformation he shoots another one back, saying he will call her tonight before bed. Right now he needs to go inside and be part of the Powell household again. His time here is limited.

Chris turns and opens the door, dropping his bag and taking off his shoes near the entrance before walking further inside. When he does, he finds them all around the dinner table, making him finally realize it is about that time. It has been a long day.

His brother perks up first, smiling broadly at him. “Chris!”

Kyle gets up and runs to him, wrapping around his side in a fierce hug when he makes contact. Chris reaches down and one arm hugs him back. Jo quickly does the same but without a word. He reaches down and easily pulls her up to his chest, wrapping his arms around her for the briefest moment before she squirms and demands to be put down. He knows it's an act, as she has started behaving a little tougher since his absence.

“Hey guys, how's it going?” They nod and smile at him as his mother approaches. “Hey, Mah.” She pulls him in for a hug and he lowers his head so she can kiss him on the forehead, her standard expression of affection to her older son.

He doesn't say much as they all sit back down and he fixes himself a plate. Tonight is spaghetti night, one of his favorites. As they eat and chat about the week, Chris stays mostly silent. He listens to their adventures and their daily activities. He thinks about it again, that not only does he miss them, but his life here with them will never be the same. The thought makes him both happy and sad. Happy because he knows that he will get to be with MC more, to play college football, get his degree, and possibly go Pro if he wants. It’s sad because he will miss some of their youth, and as they grow, the distance between them all will grow as well.

He shakes his head to remove the melancholy feelings from his mind, trying instead to focus on the here and now. He makes a mental note to keep in touch with them as much as possible, even over the long distance, so they will still maintain their bond. Now is the time to enjoy his family as much as he can. He wants to talk to his mother about MC, but not tonight. Tonight he will focus on his family and enjoy the evening with them.

After they cleanup their dinner mess, the four of them go to watch some ridiculous show on TV that his brother and sister are obsessed with. He laughs and comments along with them, as they sit as close to him a possible. Eventually they ask when he will have to leave again, making him sigh slightly as he smiles.

When he tells them he only has a few more days in Cherryfield, they ask to spend as much time as possible with him. He easily obliges, while working around Coach Madison’s schedule of course. Chris reminds himself that he still has work to do at Cherryfield High, inwardly laughing at himself at the irony. He can't seem to escape that place.

Tomorrow he will get up early and go to work at Cherryfield High, helping his old coach with the new players as much as he can while still in town. After he will pick up his siblings and they will hang out for the rest of the day.

Chris also knows that those plans will include visiting his mother and having a conversation about his relationship with MC. He tries to hide his smile as he thinks about that word, relationship. Knowing they haven’t officially said it yet, Chris is pretty confident that’s what they have. Or at least he hopes so. Part of him feels the butterflies in his stomach when he thinks about it, the other part feels the same butterflies being sucked into a pit deep down inside. He swallows hard, trying to focus on the butterflies and not the pit as he reminds himself that MC’s not Nicole. That she will never do that to him. He knows this.

After a while his brother and sister start to get tired and he and his mother make them go to bed. Chris says goodnight to his mom as she does the same before he heads to his room. He changes and climbs under the covers, pulling his phone out and deciding to send MC a FaceTime call instead of a regular one.

He props himself up against his headboard and pillows, shirtless and in his boxer briefs under the covers as he starts the call. It only takes a second for her to answer. He grins at her face when it appears. She doesn't say anything at first, the two just looking into each others eyes as their smiles slowly grow.

She finally breaks the silence. “I miss you, Cap.” She says softly, almost like she’s nervous to say it.

He can't help but let out a happy sigh. “I miss you too, baby… I’ve been counting the hours since I left you this morning.”

She blushes a little at his words, pulling her bottom lip in a little to chew at it absentmindedly.

He shakes his head a little, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “You’ve got to stop that. It just makes me want to touch you, to kiss you... so you can't be abusing my lips… and I can’t.” He looks at her pleadingly, but also with soft eyes of adoration as he studies her face.

She rolls her eyes playfully but stops at his request. “Okay… I’ll stop. For now.” She cocks an eyebrow up and looks back at him.

He lets out a huge breath of air as he tries to not outwardly laugh at her future promise. “You’re killing me Smalls…”

She laughs at the old movie reference. “You can make it up to me soon.” She smirks, that damn smirk, at him. Again.

Chris groans and shifts on his bed, feeling his lower body heat up at her implication. She seems to pick up on it and bites her thumbnail a little seductively as she watches him, the smirk still in place.

He finally adjusts himself and looks back at her eyes, narrowing his when he sees her enjoyment. “Oh, trust me… I will.”

He gives her a very hot and promising smile, this time making her squirm a little. “We’ll see…” She finally manages to choke out.

They talk for a while before it gets too late, but when the time comes MC is the first to sigh and say goodnight, a small frown on her lips. “Goodnight, Chris… see you soon.”

He smiles warmly at her. “Yes, but not soon enough. Goodnight, beautiful.”

As the call ends, Chris sets his alarm and plugs it into the charger before turning off the lights. He lays there for a while, trying to get what he wants to say to his mom in his head before he eventually falls asleep.

The next day is a blur to Chris. He remembers sending MC her ‘Good Morning, beautiful’ text which he quickly received a reply to, making him smile. He read this text a few more times throughout the morning as he works with Ryan and Ethan to condition the new Cherryfield High football team.

It was later in the afternoon now, and he has picked up his brother and sister, just like he promised. They hang out around town, checking out the park and some shops as they make their way closer to his mother's workplace. When they get there his siblings run off, all to familiar with the stores contents to entertain themselves with.

Chris walks around for a while, thinking about getting a gift for MC. He has been planning to do so for a while, but still isn't sure what he should get her. He doesn't have a lot of extra spending cash at the moment, being so soon after the trip and all. So it will unfortunately have to be more simple than he wants. So many ideas fly through his mind, the things he wants to give her, to surprise her with, to take her to see… the list is endless. All the things he wants to experience, all the things he knows she will want to experience. He wants to do them together.

Being so deep in thought, he doesn't hear as his mother approaches. She moves close to him as he halfheartedly searches a display of different jewelry pieces. All the prices are outside of his budget at the moment. He sighs.

Chris feels her hand on his shoulder before he realizes she's near, making him jump slightly and turn quickly to see who it was. “Ah, hey Mah….”

She smiles warmly at him. “Christopher. What are you doing over here…” She looks at him curiously.

Chris looks around the immediate area, checking to make sure that no one was close by, especially his siblings, locating them on the other end of the store. He turns to look back at his mother, finding very similar blue eyes looking back at his own.

He takes a deep breath and just goes for it. “Ayuh, I was uh, looking for a gift….” He looks away for a moment. “For my friend… MC.”

When he turns to look at her again, he sees her smiling. Not the reaction he was expecting. She searches his eyes, making him feel a little uncomfortable as she studies him closely.

"I would love to help you. What does she look like? What does she like to do?” He sees her patient look, her supportive smile, and he relaxes.

“She uh… well. She's amazing…” He sighs and pulls out his phone, swiping through many pictures to find one that does her justice, suddenly eager to show her off to his mom.

“Is she now?” His mother tries to hide her smirk.

He notices though and scrunches up his nose as he tries not to smirk back.”Yes. She is.”

Chris looks into his mother's loving eyes and takes a deep breath. “I uh, should tell you some things though, first… I guess.”

His mother looks at him curiously, cautiously waiting. He takes another breath and begins.

“When I went to L.A. with the guys on the team, to visit Thibbs?” He waits for her to nod in acknowledgement. “I uh, asked MC to go with me… and this last trip to Nationals… I took her with me then, as well.”

Chris studies her face as she contemplates his words. He knows what she’s thinking, but he has to make her understand. This is different. When she looks up at him with concern on her face he gives her a small smile and reaches up to squeeze her arm lightly.

“Mah… I’m sorry I didn't tell you about her right away. To be honest, I’ve uh… been struggling with it.” Her brow creases deeper so he quickly continues.

“But I’m okay. Seriously. I didn't tell you guys…” His eyes shift briefly towards his siblings across the store before focusing back on hers. “...because I didn't want you to worry. Not until I was sure that… that it was something… more.”

He frowns, not feeling entirely sure with his word choices, but knows it’s out there now. He hates that he’s been keeping it from them, but he wasn't in his right mind about all of it. Not until now. She stands there for a minute, her eyes searching his face for more information. He knows she’s trying to tell if he's really okay, so he gives her a reassuring smile.

“Here.” He holds up his phone and shows his mother one of his favorite pictures.

It’s actually one that Madison had sneakingly took of the two of them during the trip. They were at the game, MC standing in front of him when he pulled her there, wrapping his arms around her as they watched the championship together. He watches her face as his mother studies the image, nervously wondering what she's thinking.

She looks up to him after a minute, her smile even warmer than before. “She looks lovely Christopher.”

Chris beams at her. He couldn’t agree more.

“I think I know the perfect gift…” She turns and walks away, gesturing for Chris to follow her. They turn down a different aisle a few rows down and she reaches towards a display of gloves. She grabs a few different pairs and gauges their size and materials before settling on a specific pair. She turns and hands it to her much taller son.

He looks at her confused for a second before his mother speaks. “These should fit her. They are one of our best sellers this season, as they are some of the softest yet toughest gloves we have this year. And they are on sale.”

She looks at him knowingly, giving his hands a soft squeeze as he holds the gloves securely. He looks down and runs them through his calloused hands, and even he can feel how soft they are.

He looks up to her and smiles. “You think she will really like these?”

She nods. “Yes, I have a feeling she will. I can see part of who she is in that picture of you two. You both looked very happy.” She says softly.

Chris slowly smiles at his mother, finally feeling fully relaxed. “I am Mah… it’s not like before…” He gets quiet as shakes his head a few times.

She nods and looks at him with much love, her eyes shinier than in the moments before. “I know Chris, I can tell.”

She reaches for his hands again. “I want you to be happy. You deserve it, just…” She swallows and pauses.

“I know… I’ll be careful. Don’t worry. She won’t do that to me. Not MC.” He says slowly as he pulls her close. They both wrap their arms around each other and stand there for a moment.

“That’s good… I’m very glad to hear it.” They lean back and she smiles at him, her unshed tears still in her eyes.

Chris gives her a warm smile, knowing that he's right. Now he just has to wait… only another 78 hours or less to go. Then he will be with her again, his beautiful girl.

#chris x mc #chris powell x mc #TheFreshmanChronicles #Chris Powell #Christopher Powell #The Freshman #the sophomore #choices fanfiction #choicestoriesyouplay #choices stories you play #thefreshman #thesophomore #choices #choices the freshman #choices the sophomore #choices the junior #tf/ts/tj

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getoffthesoapbox · 7 years ago

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[FMP!IV] EP3 - A Hint of Gold Amidst Pyrite

If not for the final five minutes, episode 3 of Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory would have been an utter disappointment after such a strong showing in the first two episodes. One of FMP’s weakest areas has always been its mecha-focus when Sousuke and Chidori’s emotional storyline is removed from the battle. The side characters in FMP and even Sousuke by himself just aren’t strong enough to carry the emotional core of a story as ambitious as FMP, and unfortunately that means any episode that focuses heavily on the military characters at the expense of Chidori ends up being a weaker showing than episodes where she’s at the center. It’s not that the storylines themselves are bad, it’s just that for whatever reason the chemistry of the characters and the narrative pacing just don’t mesh well enough to create the tension necessary to pull them off effectively.

Fair warning: much griping full speed ahead. Proceed with caution.

An Unwelcome Return to Form

What we end up with is a long episode of pointless fighting with characters we barely know and hardly care about being turned into canon fodder in order to up the stakes artificially. Sure, it’s flashing and “exciting” if mindless battles are your cup of tea, but there’s almost a sense of ridiculous overpowering to the villains’ godzilla mechs that the sense of urgency and surreality captured so beautifully in the first two episodes is completely destroyed.

What’s incredibly disappointing about this kind of lazy writing is that it is coming off such a strong foundation--the first two episodes upped the stakes in a believable, dramatic way that was organic to the situation and truly did raise the tension and the stakes. This episode put us back safely behind the fourth wall--no one we actually care about is “truly” in danger on the military battlefield because there are plenty of redshirts to be sacrificed meaninglessly for them. Overall, I was quite disappointed with the majority of the episode. This would have been tolerable in season 1 and and TSR (TSR was of course the weakest of the seasons precisely because it dispensed with its strong points and tried to focus whole-heartedly on the military aspects), but it’s not acceptable in IV and I hope this is the end of this kind of lazy writing for this season. The last five minutes give me a bit of hope that it might be.

That being said, I have a major bone to pick with how Tessa was handled that I’d like to address separately. I’d also like to dig into the final five minutes for a bit, as that’s where all the gold was this episode and also where its saving grace lies.

Tessa - Once a Figurehead, Always a Figurehead

I mentioned in my previous post on episodes 1-2 of FMP!IV that I was delighted to see Tessa step up as a commander. One of my chief complaints about her character is that the story tries to have its cake and eat it too--it wants us to believe she’s (a 16 year old kid) is a capable commander of a fleet of mercenaries while also having us believe she’s a lovable goof of a girl who bumbles into love for Sousuke. These two things cannot exist simultaneously, and episode 2 made me believe we were finally moving forward with her character’s qualified attributes and dispensing with the harem hijinks variants.

Unfortunately, episode 3 decided to roll all that back with Speck asking Kurz if Tess “really meant it” when she threatened to take his life. Kurz, predictably, downplays her intent--she’s “not that kind of girl.” What kind of girl is that, exactly, Kurz? The “kind of girl” who says what she means? The “kind of girl” who knows that in a life/death situation, sometimes drastic measures have to be taken to protect the most people? The “kind of girl” who is capable of making hard choices?

What ticks me off about this turn of events is that it retroactively makes Tessa look weak and full of nothing but hot air. Her strength in episode 2 lay in the believability of her threat--she was serious, and she was going to take matters into her own hands because she is a commander and when push comes to shove she will take responsibility even if it means dirtying her lily white hands. But what Kurz (and the narrative) try to do in episode 3 is backtrack and say “oh wait, we didn’t mean it! Don’t worry! She’s still a cute, bumbling oaf who’d never hurt a fly! You can keep on fantasizing about her innocent waifu-ness! She’s not threat to you! She’s still the perfect wife for your self-insert Sousuke!”

In other words, Tessa in episode 3 is reverted from a budding commander who is starting to stand on her own two feet and take responsibility for her crew back down to cutesy mascot figurehead who sits on the commander’s chair but needs Big Strong Men to do the dirty work for her. I really resent this turn in the story, and perhaps one could argue that that was just Kurz’s opinion, but the problem is, the narrative seems to support his opinion rather than act like he’s just misreading the situation and is underestimating Tessa. If Tessa isn’s a commander capable of dealing with a mutiny (which is what Speck was suggesting when he wanted to mutiny in the first place), then she’s not a capable commander. A mutiny in the midst of hard times is not a joke and not something you can just “pretend” to threaten--you have to be able to back up your threats or they’re useless as threats. If Tessa wasn’t at least willing to shoot Speck in the leg and put him in the brig (even if she isn’t yet ready to kill him), then her threat wasn’t even real and if Speck had half a brain he’d have called her bluff and gone through with his mutiny.

My, I had more to complain about that than I thought. ;) Sorry about that! On to better things!

Chidori & Sousuke - Fragile Vows

The last five minutes of this episode saved it. With Tokiwa in danger of being blown up and the school in chaos, we return to the tension built from the previous two episodes. It’s a bit annoying that the writers decided to leave us hanging on this plotline for the first 20 minutes; it almost seems manipulative, that in order to get to the good stuff we had to sit through the ridiculously bad early half. But I’ve complained enough about that for one day.

But Sousuke and Chidori always save everything, and even only three minutes of them is enough to rescue a dull episode. They’ve retired to a small shrine to gather their courage for the fight ahead. I cannot stress enough how refreshing this couple is. Their conversation is open and raw and honest in a way few anime/manga couples are allowed to be, and they truly do feel like a genuine couple working through the bugs in both their relationship and themselves together. It’s charming and endearing and heartwrenching, because the pendulum blade is still swinging over their heads, inching ever closer. Yet I just have to applaud in appreciation at how genuine they are with each other.

Chidori admits many of the things the subtext carried in the first two episodes of FMP!IV: she’s been running from the truth that one day she’ll lose her happy typical life, she’s afraid of herself and her growing abilities, and most importantly, she’s afraid of Sousuke and the unknown facets of him even though she knows she loves him.

Sousuke, instead of running from Chidori’s feelings or downplaying them or reassuring her, answers her forthrightly with his own feelings. He, too, is afraid of her--she stirs up all sorts of conflict within him and confuses him, even though she is the center of his world and the one who transformed it. But even so, he loves her dearly and wants to protect the world she lives in and the place where she can smile and get angry at him and confuse him and charm him. He even admits the very thing I was sure he wanted in episode one--he wanted to run away with her, to take her away and hide her. But he knows her well, and he loves her too much, and he knows that she’ll never be happy unless he stands by her and protects the world and people she loves.

And so he makes her a vow that he will fight to protect not only her, but also the world she belongs to. Rather than being willing to destroy the world to keep her safe, as his actions hinted in the first two episodes, he has reassessed his priorities in light of her fear and her reaction to him and has chosen to walk a harder, but ultimately better path--to protect the the things and people she loves, in order to protect her smile as well as her life. Sousuke has realized that there are more important things than merely saving one’s skin--if there is no “home” to come back to, what does one’s skin even matter?

Chidori agrees to help him find a way to accomplish this, and they agree to work together to keep their mutual world and each other safe. Chidori plays coy a bit, but there’s no question that she’ll do everything in her power to rescue her friends and help Sousuke.

What’s tragic about this scene is that ultimately things are going to go south really fast for these two, despite the promise shared between them. Their vow is a fragile butterfly’s wing that will easily be blown apart in the next strong wind. What they’re about to face is surely going to test them in a way they’ve never been tested before, and they’ll have to enter the fire and emerge stronger from it.

Still, I just have to bask in how wonderful it is to see a healthy, functioning relationship in anime that isn’t at the end of the story or being forced to have stupid misunderstandings that ultimately don’t matter. These two beautiful souls have significant personality and value differences, and it’s a huge treat to watch them work through those differences with raw honesty and an unyielding love for each other. I just hope they don’t break my heart too much in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I’ll brace for the pain.

Until next time!

#full metal panic!#full metal panic #full metal panic invisible victory #sagara sousuke #chidori kaname #soukana #fmp #fmp!iv

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epb-archive · 7 years ago

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Okay, this is me trying not to care too much about Brighter by Wingit on Ao3 or @wing--it on tumblr (and failing miserably)

DISCLAIMER: Everything is my opinion and is in no way attempting to bash other fic writers because writing is hard and everyone that put their personal time into doing this and sharing fics with people over the internet deserves praise and to feel proud of what they’ve written. For this reason I won’t be naming any other fics aside from Brighter because that’s the focus and #Boost Ur Fandom Writers ya feel

DISCLAIMER 2.0: I realized I told @wing--it that i’d have a meta done for their fic except I realized I’m not entirely sure what Meta is so I’m probably not good at it wow this is long im sorry okay let’s do this thing

Actually as I’m writing this, I realize it’s just going to turn into a giant ass review for Brighter and I don’t know how I feel about that but @wing--it hi, i love your fic, we’ve been over this right? Under the cut this goes. (contains mild spoilers for Brighter but I’m trying not to say everything outright)

Brighter is a Victuri fanfic that is by far one of the best I’ve read in terms of storyline, characterization, conflict, and angst revolving around that conflict.

Starting with storyline, Brighter is a godsend fic that gives that good ass almost immediately after the GPF life for Victuri. So the two of them figuring out their relationship and working out how to live together in a more intimate sense (that being on their own and not constantly surrounded by Yuuri’s family and the patrons of Yu-Topia). Now, there are some other good ass fics that also have the lives in St. Petersburg and that do this shit well (actually, I appreciate every fic out there, shout out to all fic writers yall are doing gods work) BUT something different that stands out about Brighter is how the storyline isn't just focused on Yuuri Katsuki.

Honestly, at the most current point (10 chapters in, updated last on the 8th of June) the two main characters are NOT Victor and Yuuri, but Yuuri and Yuri which is??? Possibly one of the few fics I’ve seen where these two are the main focus while still having the fic be Victuri centered. Like without getting too much into Yuri’s storyline for the sake of spoilers (though it’s kind of revealed in chapter 3 or 4 i think, pretty early on) This fic, by far, has some of the best characterization of Yuri P that I’ve ever seen.

Which is saying a lot because I will often stop reading a fic because of how they characterize Yura (especially if he’s a major recurring character in the fic). Yura does play a huge part in this fic in terms of his own character development and conflict (godddd I just really fucking love his story line) and Tash!!!!!! Gives a solid reason why Yura would be “”angsty”” 24/7 and h*ck!!! It’s just ugh!!! Everyone knows, if you’ve gone through your angry teenager phase, it’s so incredibly difficult to stay mad 24/7 unless something’s happened or something’s happening (mental illness notwithstanding) and like just godddd. Okay??? Okay. So Anyways, Yura opens up to Yuuri (eventually) and friendship happens and honestly out of this entire fic Yuuri and Yuri’s friendship is my favorite. Like yes, this includes Victor and Yuuri’s relationship or Victor and anyone else or any of the characters combines. I just think Tash did such an amazing job working with Yuri in the fic and I’m already emotional this is a mess I’m sorry.

Okay, So that’s Yuri’s character. On to Victor’s. I think Tash does a beautiful job having Victor adjust to life loving someone. Like here, we have a guy who’s spent his entire life trying to please and surprise so many people, like aside from splurge stuff, what has Victor done for himself? When going off that logic (and like the 50 in depth tumblr posts about this) Brighter is so beautiful in his characterization. Because it starts with Victor and Yuuri being soooo in love and everything’s perfect!!! For exactly .2 seconds

Because everyone knows that’s not how relationship work and people have to work together and have conflicts and allow room for being human together. (And dont get me wrong, I am just as likely to read a 50k coffee shop au with 0 conflict because I enjoy not hurting). Anyways, Victor’s characterization is essentially him trying to figure out how to be genuine (and failing on multiple occasions) and just him trying to teach himself that he doesn’t have to do what he thinks Yuuri would like to get him to stay because Yuuri loves him and they’re in this for the long run but still Victor IS STRUGGLING to figure this out. Tash just. God. Tash just does this so well.

And Victor. He’s also subject to his own anxieties but in a different way from Yuuri and??? Like the fact that he’s throwing himself back into his career after a year break and to go back to his way of surprising people and then coaching Yuuri and choreographing short programs for him, yuuri, and yuri too (i think he was doing 3 short programs anyways). The ice skating portion of this fic is so fucking important, which of course it is, in an anime about ice skating of course it’s fucking important but what I mostly mean is that it doesn’t necessarily take second to the romance in the fic with is easy to do. The Ice skating and the romance are like on par with each other with the only vaguely second plot line being Yuri’s story line which is :,,,) still

Anyways I just fucking love this okay I’m so sorry this got off track I’m not even done yet but please, read Brighter.

Last on characterization is of course, the main character, Yuuri Katsuki. Alright, I just h*cking love Yuuri in this fic. Like?? He’s so understanding and doesn’t deserve half the shit he’s gone through because if!!! SOME PEOPLE just TALKED IT OUT1!!!!!! Maybe. But no. Tash’s way of writing Yuuri is one of the ones that I appreciate the most. His way of dealing with things (which is to overthink then not solve anything) or his way of sherlocking through other people’s problems (see: Yuri P see: Victor N) His insecurities are all #relatable and just, Idk how to talk about this because i really can only say how perf i think tash did with him and that’s nonsensical imo anyways yuuri in brighter is like best yuuri hi i would die for him to be happy

For Brighter, the conflict and the angst go hand in hand (though tash has been hinting at things getting more painful in the next update and i’m not ready but :,,,) ya kno) and so without spoiling anything I just want to say that the conflict/angst is different in a way that it’s something that doesn’t seem improbable and is just 100% believable like past the characterization in the fic, I could almost 100% see this happening in canon which is a weird feeling and idk if the movie turns out to have any of these problems I’m gonna pay Tash like $20 or something (so open ur paypal now cause I have a feeling). Specifically here I’m talking about the conflict between Victor and Yuuri (not necessarily Yura’s because that’s something I definitely don’t want to happen but god it makes for some really good ass story telling and background on a character).

For Victor and Yuuri, it’s a matter of being honest about one’s feelings and just you know, um, telling the truth and not saying what you think someone else wants to hear. Which doesn’t really sound hard or difficult at all but here we have Victor who’s done everything for other people up to recently in his career and has probably never been so deeply in love as he is with Yuuri right now so he’s confused and I’ll give him that. HOWEVER, sometimes, Victor just needs to have a little more faith in Yuuri’s feelings for him.

The same goes for Yuuri though, the conflict isn’t 100% Victor’s fault. Some of the blame is deff Yuuri’s and Yuuri’s anxiety (which is essentially a whole nother Yuuri except darker with idk maybe a goatee and constant bad ideas). But also you can’t blame a character for being anxious and stuff and really I’m not ragging on Victor for this but I also don’t think Yuuri’s entirely to blame here? Like I’m so bad at meta okay I’m sorry buT I think to a degree they both have insecurities and doubts that are straining the relationship. They really do try to work through things but on Yuuri’s side, he almost always links the problems back to himself and in term him not being able to satisfy Victor like sexually and emotionally I THINK. Like…….. Okay I can’t go into it because I’m not sure how to put what I’m thinking into words

Another point I cannot stress enough and can’t actually find a good place to put in even tho this was number 1 on the list of things I wanted to talk about in here is This conflict is seriously all good conflict. Brighter has character’s growing and developing and just. Nothing seems forced or out of place?? Like it wasn’t just put there in order for there to be something wrong. Actually I think i did mention this but I cannot stress enough how much the conflict in brighter just fucking makes sense!!!!! I’m actually repeating myself I know but seriously my favorite part…. Second favorite part after Yuri’s characterization is how good the conflict and problems Yuuri and Victor have are. Like they’re honest to god relationship things and fuck!!!!!!!!! It’s so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But essentially, Yuuri and Victor need to have a good oldfashioned talk but that’s not going to happen because Tash is about to rip out our hearts and I’m ready for once.

Alright, that’s been my not meta. I’m sorry @wing--it if you’re on mobile and cant read under the cut, it exists and also I’m sorry that this got so long……. But you know i told you!!!! It was gonna be long I just really fucking love brighter and i cannot express that enough. I tried to be coherent here in talking about all the things I enjoyed and I definitely missed something like the JJ conflict but this is almost 2k in length and I’m really embarrassed bcos of how passionate I am about this.

tl;dr: just read Brighter for fucks sakes, that’s all I want. More people to read brighter and scream about the character(ization)s and just heck!!!!!

#i speak #yoi #victuri #wing--it #tash this turned out to be 1.8k im sorry #@ my followers pls read brighter and scream at tash abt it like ??????? revolutionary #double @ tash i really am sorry this got so long god this is embarrassing

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entergamingxp · 4 years ago

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Final Fantasy 14’s big 5.3 patch opens up the path to new players • Eurogamer.net

It’s been almost seven years since the release of Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, a game whose story has been recounted countless times, after putting Naoki Yoshida in the director’s chair, who since pulled the game from the brink of disaster with the release of A Realm Reborn. Fast forward seven years, with a few critically-acclaimed expansions under their belts, the Final Fantasy 14 team looks back at older content, and introducing the game to new players with patch 5.3.

“There isn’t any time to relax, or chill out at the moment,” producer and director Naoki Yoshida tells me over Zoom. Final Fantasy 14 has just hit 20 million registered players, but according to Yoshida it’s still not enough for Square-Enix’s President and CEO, Yosuke Matsuda. “We have to continue driving this forward, so there’s really no time to relax, or lower our guard.”

The latest patch for Final Fantasy 14 was delayed by a few months, due to disruption no thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, as announced via a live stream from Yoshida in May. “The situation has affected us heavily these past months. It’s really hard for us to get back on track.” With schedules out of the window, just what is it like to run an active MMO with millions of players during a pandemic?

“Even through this situation, the FF14 team is in a good workflow, there’s a great team with a high sense of responsibility… At the moment, 90 per cent of developers are working from home currently, and they’re starting to get familiar with the change in environment. As for the mentality and psychological perspective. I’m confident that we’re all quite stable, and we can focus on the work. We’re getting back to normality.”

The patch, which releases on August 11th on all platforms, is going under the name Reflections in Crystal.

5.3 is due to be released on the 11th of August, and Square-Enix has since released a mini site for all the new additions to the game. However, just underneath the surface more significant changes are being made to the game in order to accommodate new players, starting with a complete overhaul of the content released in the original game, which was created in just two and a half years, according to Yoshida.

“We needed to create really tight guidelines for creating quests. For example, they have to make each quest 9 minutes long, including all the text and all that. Because we had the concept that we want the players to spend a lot of time on those quests, that’s why we made that kind of guideline for each quest. With that, as a result, it kind of revealed so many quests that may be unnecessary, or lots of excess steps which you don’t really need, so we wanted to revisit and remove all the excess quests and unnecessary bits, because we thought that the focus has to be for players to enjoy the storyline.”

Yoshida’s words ring true. The first hours of A Realm Reborn are rough, and can be a significant turn-off for many newer players of Final Fantasy 14, but this streamlining does not come without its own challenges. “If we just take out some bits from the existing storyline, then we have to take out the NPCs that may be playing the key role, or really important role, and it could also affect the lore of the world and everything. We listed all the quests that are included in ARR, and then we figured out the priority, and the necessity of the quests existing in the game or not. This removal of the unnecessary quests, took up a third of the entire workload.”

But if new players still want to experience all of the content that was in the vanilla release of FF14, Yoshida has words of reassurance. “Those quests that are decommissioned, we didn’t really remove them completely,” he says. “We moved them to side quests. For anyone who has the time and wants to dig more for lore and stuff like that, then they can spend time on it.”

The Heroes’ Gauntlet Dungeon in action.

Exactly how many quests have been removed or altered? “We didn’t really count, because if you do that then it will be so disheartening, discouraging,” says Yoshida with a laugh. “So many quests are there, so we didn’t track how many quests we needed to work on.”

Regardless of just how many quests have been removed from the game, it’ll make the game significantly easier for new players to get into. But as a seasoned Final Fantasy 14 player, I had some bones to pick. In the base game, there is a location that you need to repeatedly return to, with no fast-travel links nearby named The Waking Sands. What’s the deal?

“It’s a hideout, so it feels so cheap, so easy. (to put a fast-travel location there) We don’t have any intentions to implement an Aetheryte (fast travel point) near that location. That said, we totally get that this is a really time-consuming journey, where you have to come up any time Minfilia calls you to come over. That’s why… This is kind of new information that we’ve not really revealed to anyone yet. We actually have a new item, a kind of teleport ticket you can use to teleport to Camp Horizon straight away. You might be wondering, even though there isn’t an Aetheryte ‘How come Teleportation is possible here?’ Anyway, it’s a special item for easing the travel burden. Please don’t be angry at Minfilia.”

But, I wasn’t quite done yet with the list of sorely-needed quality of life changes to the base content of the game. There are two infamous dungeons in A Realm Reborn, Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium. Both are pretty lengthy, with unskippable cutscenes every time they might come up during a daily dungeon roulette where you can get extra bonus XP. It’s not uncommon in these dungeons for some players to be AFK, and just wait for others to complete it for them. What’s going to be done with these now-archaic dungeons?

“We came to the conclusion that it would be easier just to create those two eight-man dungeons from scratch, rather than tweaking the existing content,” says Yoshida. “We totally understand that those two dungeons are very time-consuming, so we have discussed it, but we let go of the idea. We were looking into it, and we thought that it would be best to create new dungeons, but kind of separate out the battle against Ultima Weapon as kind of standalone content outside of those two dungeons. When we do that we will make sure that it will be trust system compatible.”

The Yo-Kai Watch collaboration also returns from August 19th.

The trust system has been introduced in the latest expansion, Shadowbringers. This allows you to go through dungeons with a party of capable NPCs, instead of other players, for those looking for a more single-player experience.”We cannot say when it’s going to be happening, but it’s something in our mind, and we want to do it at some point in future.”

From Yoshida’s responses, it’s clear the team is dedicated to a significant rehaul of content to make the game more friendly to new players. This is assisted by a hugely expanded free trial, which now includes the base game in addition to its first expansion, Heavensward. However, this free trial does exclude some key community features such as being unable to trade using Final Fantasy 14’s market boards in addition to restricting chat and the ability to party up with friends. “We’re not considering changing the current business model of subscriptions, it helps us maintain the quality of the game,” says Yoshida. “There’s a risk of RMT, real money trading, and stuff like that, so once they can use those tools, they’ll just use it and it’ll rise to uncontrollable levels.”

Yoshida also gave a lengthy explanation as to how subscriptions essentially protect Final Fantasy 14 against a higher influx of RMT in the game, which is an incredibly costly endeavour, but it remains to be seen how many players of the new expanded free-trial will be turned off by the lack of community functionality.

However, there is still new content to look forward to in 5.3 for existing players in the form of a new raid, in addition to other side content. But, there’s still one key beloved Final Fantasy 14 character seemingly missing in action. Fan-favourite Hildebrand is a rubbish detective, with an incredibly fun quest line that players experienced five years ago. But, since then he’s been missing in action.

“I don’t currently know the whereabouts of Hildebrand. I don’t know where he is. I can’t go into more details here, but in 5.3 you may or may not find him, not as himself, but more like a tip or a clue as to where he might be. I would like you and all players to join together and search for clues that’ll be dotted around in-game.”

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With a slew of crossover content in Final Fantasy 14, such as the Nier raid series that’s due to be expanded, or the Ivalice raid series, which contains winks and nods to Final Fantasy 12 and Final Fantasy Tactics, or even the FF15 content released several years ago, we wondered about the absence of some high-profile games that the team could have collaborated on.

“We’ve had lots of feedback and lots of hopes that with the FF7 Remake that we’ll do some crossover with them. It’s just part one of the journey, so we need to kind of nail down all the details and flesh it out, so it may take a while, it will take time to actually make something great. That said, we are positively looking into it, and we have hope that we want to do something with this at some point in the future. As for a Kingdom Hearts crossover, for this idea, one of the troubles is that we have to coordinate with Disney, and so I feel that there would be so many hurdles and challenges around working with them, so I try not to think about a crossover with Kingdom Hearts.”

Patch 5.3 of Final Fantasy 14 signifies the end of the current bigger patch cycle for their latest expansion, Shadowbringers. Since it’s been almost ten years since the original release of Final Fantasy 14, just how long does the game have left.

“We haven’t set any goal for how long the game will continue. As long as players enjoy playing the game, then I think we will continue delivering the great content. We don’t really have any sense of time set yet. FF14 is the game that we’ve created, with not only the people on the development team, but with the players around the world. Even though my life may end at some point, I hope that the game will continue after that, that someone will succeed me and continue. That’s my hope.”

Before our time with Yoshida was up, we asked Yoshida if there was any event where he would personally stop working on Final Fantasy 14. With swirling rumours around another project in the works at Square-Enix’s Creative Business Unit 3 and Yoshida himself having to actively deny that he’ll be the director of Final Fantasy 16, could he potentially be taken out of the directors chair anytime soon.

“The possibility would be that either I fell ill, died, or if the CEO fires me. It’s okay, you don’t need to worry about it.”

With Final Fantasy 14’s player base continuing to grow, allowances for new players, and a charismatic director at the helm there seems to be no end in sight for Final Fantasy 14. Patch 5.3 drops on August 11th – and it should contribute to what continues to be one of the strongest MMORPGs in recent memory.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/final-fantasy-14s-big-5-3-patch-opens-up-the-path-to-new-players-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=final-fantasy-14s-big-5-3-patch-opens-up-the-path-to-new-players-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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