#its a plot i admittedly dont talk about a lot but its very much there in chaos and balance

[kiwibirdlafayette]

im itching to infodump about the songs in the syndisparklez playlist again bc cats post got me thinkin about the delicious little bit of “behind the scenes” story between capsize, tom and jordan i wrote in my head to talk too much by COIN and violet by bad suns that is exactly the whole bit about capsize being jordan’s scapegoat (loving her bc he was in denial about tom) and tom’s side of it being absolutely fucking pissed and seeing right through it all

[realclaramorrow]

my (admittedly not very good or coherent) thoughts on wind and truth so far, divided by characters and kind of organized by storyline?

not all of us can read that fast, wind and truth spoilers up to chapter 80 below

- I love adolin and yanagawn's friendship, they are so important to me. he's teaching him towers and theyre genuinely friends and he got noura to begrudgingly approve and gah. I love them dearly. I would like lift to be able to talk to yanagawn again too. adolin trying to learn everyones name is so emotionally intelligent of him. I love that that one guard (hmask?) got to tell adolin that he saved his son, sweetest moment ever. me son you!!!!!! adolin is so much smarter than so many characters (and readers) seem to think he is, his head for battle strategy is almost unmatched and he's an incredible leader. may aladar is an icon and notum coming to help was very satisfying. his growing bond with maya is not only healing her but its healing my heart. I dont know if in the future they can bond like aliveEye spren and person can but that would be neat. adolin would make a fantastic edgedancer.

- sigzil the man the myth the legend himself is crushing it with an awful situation in narak. his plot is the most anxiety inducing to me because they are not getting shit for help and the everstorm is literally parked right there. the engineering being key to his strategy is very cool to me because no one else is doing anything like that. also, vienta being able to calculate the lashing force and distance needed to kill one of the new fused (forgot their names. the belt guys) is epic and theyre such a duo.

- venli and co. in the chasms is going to play into the battle for narak most definitely. chasmfiends being chill with them is so awesome and cool. chasmfiend pov chapter when. pure tones of roshar save the day? also want rlain reuniting with these listeners so he can a) see his friends and the remnants of his people and b) chew them out for letting him go be a spy with absolutely no protest

- dalinar is getting on my nerves, I understand he's under a lot of pressure but he's being such a dick to the stormfather. in character yes but MAN do I wish both of them were better at communicating. the spiritual realm storyline is very interesting and the way he's going about it is putting me in physical pain.

- loving the navani time but I low key miss the scientific toxic lovers thing she had going on with raboniel. I dont see how she puts up with dalinar, because he's a blundering ape. also, I share adolin's opinions about oathbringer's publication of the razing of rathalas.

- little gav is a revenge hungry angel but an angel nonetheless

- CHANA DAVAR CANON???????

- shallan has grown so much and I'm so proud of her :) I love getting details about her backstory and I love that formless wasnt a one and done defeat. she has to keep fighting her. just as veil was created to hold difficult memories I think radiant was created to battle shallan's imposter syndrome and self confidence issues. it would be cool if radiant was also integrated by the end of the book, but at this point its clear shallan still needs her. great investigating of the ghostbloods and ba ado mishram. it pleases me. dalinar take notes.

- rlain making a soul projection of him and renarin kissing and renarin being like holy shit we do NOT have time to address this was so funny. I love them too. my weird little autistic queers. they're so othered from their respective peoples that theyre each other's people. shallan is tired of their flirting after literally 1 second. they're meant to be. rlainarin canon I love gay people (and trans people. shout out that one trans blacksmith in azimir and that one person that desperately wanted to talk to the sibling and was immediately like "so what is not being male or female like")

- kaladin's journey of self care here sure seems like the way to swearing the fifth ideal, and syl being on her own journey that way is so so fantastic. spren learning how not to live for their radiants is very poetic to me in a way I can't explain right now because tired. nale gets on my fucking NERVES. I know people that argue like that and I hate hate hate them. whats up with the wind? want more info about the old gods of roshar, made directly from adonalsium. sequence with kaladin dancing with syl and the wind is absolutely gorgeous. kaladin's realization that szeth is like tien instead of like himself was heartbreaking and a great example of dramatic irony. the observant reader (me) sees him treating szeth as a man who chose to fight instead of a boy who was forced to (because reader gets the exact years ago and the ages and such) and goes NO KALADIN NO

- szeth is becoming one of my favorite characters. I love knowing about his backstory as well. the culture of shinovar is so interesting to me. the splashes? stone being sacred? the Farmer, their monasteries (I LOVE monasteries), the ritual of pilgrimage? adding and subtracting? love it all. also szeth being like "thank you kaladin I can finally off myself" and kaladin being like "no?????????" was kind of hilarious. his spren is a piece of shit. I really dislike that highspren. most unhelpful spren ever. also, is the voice odium or an unmade or the stones (like the wind) or a secret fourth thing? (edit: I haven't read much further but I'm an idiot, its obviously ishar because of the spren) I have such feelings about szeth but you need to just know them as I project them from my heart to yours.

- jasnah kholin the love of my life has finally broken up with my competition (Wit) and she's also figured out that the ships dont actually have soldiers in them which is so so smart. back to the scholar roots. best leaders are always academics (like sigzil) or genuinely caring people (like adolin and kaladin) (dalinar watch your back. however, I acknowledge that he cares). jasnah is the smartest person in this damn book and her pointing out her own fallacies and internally discussing the effects of her as a general and knowing how everything about her affects how she is percieved a role model for women all over eastern roshar shows it. I appreciate jasnah freeing slaves and learning from her mistakes and actually trying and stuff but its upsetting that this is definitely brandon's extent of addressing lighteyed privelage and displaying that complex relationship. I have read very very good fanfiction about this, in which it was good to see that other people agreed that "bridgeboy" is a much more offensive nickname than "princeling" (because of the power imbalance and racial connotations of "boy")

- why are we doing hemalurgy on roshar rn. (also aluminum negating investiture everywhere is cool and awesome.) moash is really only one letter away from marsh. also, I'm losing hope for a redemption arc for him. can't tell if its good or bad narrative for a story with overarching morals of second chances to have moash not be redeemed. on one hand, it's not realistic to redeem everyone. on the other, I don't think he's beyond redemption and I think it would tie up that storyline in a nice little bow. but in real life, nothing ends in a nice bow like that. teft's story ended beautifully, and its tragic he died, but he had reached the end. I think its interesting when characters are purposefully killed off before completing their arc or veer in a different direction because it leaves the audience unsatisfied and feels more empty and like a real untimely death. my feelings about moash are complex, but as someone invested in these characters I want him to be redeemed

[wormstar]

no no wait keep spitting facts whats your hated tropes in these rewrites

where do i begin..... ill format this as a vague list of 5 so that i dont just ramble on in circles, not necessarily numbered in order of hatred

5 "all the clans actually unite and live together at the end! and nobody has any problems ever"

this is like the most naive liberal bullshit plot point i constantly see people do and its like. something on the level a 13 year old would come up with. like yes i get it people like to do this because it is a conclusion to the first arc and the last hope and a bunch of other subplots but people always approach this idea as a magical solution to all problems of clan society as if the only thing wrong with it is the fact that interracial marriage is not allowed and not like, that every fundamental facet of cat society is war hungry, hostile to outsiders, panopticon-y and of course, broadly fascist. i cannot suspend my disbelief that every cat would come together and agree on living as one unit (or even between open borders) because there are multiple cats in the books that are canonically bigoted as hell and i think that is more interesting than making everyone milquetoast hippies as these rewrites seem to do. theres also a strong attitude about either a) starclan being right and awesome and cool b) starclan being completely abolished which both suck. i want to see the eternal torment of the clans at the hands of the literal personification of their own history.

^ admittedly ive only skimmed through the books and listened to her own videos about it in the backgorund, but its why i cannot vibe with s/unnyfalls oots rewrite whatsoever, trying to put a bandaid on all the weird fascist implications that are in the books by going "no see all the fascist parties are friends and any child can CHOOSE which kind of little fascist they want to be" like thats the kind of thing that works for a children's book series Base Setup, but warrior cats does not have that base setup, and rewrites like hers are very much attempts to make the series way more "deep" which just tremendously fails when paired up with that idea. sorry

one last comment i want to make is that these kinds of conclusions, especially if its a development that occurs after the last hope, it reminds me of a lot of very liberal ideas like "we are all one race the human race.... we are all. one nation. wwe are all the saame" which is just like. Lmao.

tangentially its why i disagree with the idea of having wildly different cultures between clans because i've grown to really like the redundancy in clan tradition and structure while still having the clans be very territorial and antagonistic to each other – thus i think its more poignant that in theory/for short periods of time, the clans CAN unite because they operate in practically identical ways, but they always drift apart in the end due to a sense of righteousness, ego, and the weight of "legacy" and all that bullshit. its not a trope i necessarily dislike though, i actually quite enjoy fleshing out cultural differences between clans and i actually like using it as a in-universe justification as to why the clans cannot ever find peace as a cohesive unit, with cats falsely playing up the differences between the clans as reason for why theyd never get along, etc. i like depicting all the clans as clearly having the same origin point with shared basic mythology, laws and beliefs, but each bearing little minute variations on them due to regional separation. in a sense i want to view the differences between clans as more akin to differences between languages or neighboring countries' folklore rather than completely distinct units

4 "character x randomly gets with character y"

the title of this one is very vague, but i think i can just say "you know when shipping squirrelflight with the dead kid shrewpaw who she was barely best friends with was a big thing, because they talked once, and because people thought that a child getting hit by a car in the midst of a massive starvation event was really sad and the only solution was to retcon his death?" yeah. stuff like that. i suppose with that example it delves more into the "a character's death is erased because people like to delude themselves that so-and-so is more important than they actually are, when the character's death is actually the most impactful and interesting thing about them" which i've complained about in the past with swiftpaw in particular (and i especially do not like retcons where he becomes disabled in lieu of dying, because at that point if youre going to explore that, brightheart literally exists! think of her as a character with her own trauma instead of just as an accessory to cloudtail)

anyway, this was actually kind of a bigger thing a few years back and i think people tend to be more thorough with their headcanons (that are still bad, but at least theres thought put into them) nowadays. it also mostly haunts cats from early arcs now that i think about it. i dont see much of it for like, violetshine or whatever lol

as a tangential thing, this extends to people just making relationships between cats "perfect" and ironing out all the weird implications of them just because it intrudes on the 'wholesome' idea of cats popular to fanon. like biggest example i can think of is yet again brightheart and cloudtail. cloudtail kind of sucks and never listens to her and i think thats interesting to explore instead of being like. Oh yeah. I made this ship GOOD and better than canon because theyre he/him lesbians and nice to each other. Like keep them dysfunctional at least

3 tangentially related to the last one, "character x who is a good good character is now deputy!"

i dont like brambleclaw either. i hate him. but within the intent of the series, he has so much more going for him narratively as a son of tigerstar who succeeds firestar, his literal enemy, as a similarly benevolent leader. i prefer to chip off the earnest expression of him as a good person and make him much more troublesome akin to the fanon depiction everyone agrees on where hes manipulative and abusive, because that keeps the major part of his narrative purpose intact while also not dodging the implications of his writing (thus my ideal bramblestar is: son of tigerstar who succeeds firestar, his literal enemy, as a leader who succeeds in warrior cat society and seems overall progressive and kind, but is deeply bitter and unable to maintain healthy close relationships, thus still reflecting tigerstar's treachery in a light different to the one firestar saw him in at any point in time. this is because irony is good.)

anyway. that is a preface to say, i think anyone who starts up their rewrite and is like Alright. you know who should be deputy of thunderclan? brackenfur. sandstorm. fan favorite character #89. i literally dont think there is a character more interesting than brambleclaw to immediately succeed firestar's leadership due to the way the first arc builds him up so anything else just feels fanservice-y and skinny in a narrative sense. just like. Oh yeah. this cat could be passable at leading and thats the only qualification we need. people forget that warrior cats is a story and they get way too into the head of how a deputy would be rationally picked by the characters. so they make boring choices.

^as a positive aside, its why i rather like the idea of twigbranch becoming squirrelstar's deputy and its why i was campaigning for that back before ivypool (yuck) was announced. twigbranch had plenty of setup as a cat who switched between clans numerous times, was an apprentice for an extended period of time almost as punishment, tends to be very benevolent and 'outside' of all the conflicts her peers seem to freely jump into.... would she be a perfect candidate? no shes young and uncertain and inexperienced but that wouldve made her more interesting, and i dont think squirrelflight knows ivypool much more than her, so itd still make sense in the story. ivypool was very much a fan favorite pick. and she is very boring as deputy. the only way they can redeem it is if she gets hit by a car in the coming arc and never gets to be leader

rapid fire round foir the last two because i havent eaten yet and ive been staring at a burger i made for the past 20 minutes of writing this

2 rewrites that "fix" genetics to make them accurate to real life cats or go heavy on the traditional naming

you people are boring

1 views of starclan

this gets broken down into a smaller list of Annoying things people do

making starclan good and benevolent wholeheartedly

making any starclan cats apologise for anything

making starclan cats rational and sensible

anything that focuses on arcs 1-4 view of starclan and makes them overly ethereal and mysterious and not as vital to the living cats' daily lives, which is simply very boring, because i like focusing on starclan as an extended limb of the living that is naturally flawed for giving cats that have barely just died the privilege of dictating the laws of eternal incarceration and interference with the living, because these cats are still reflections of the culture they were raised in and inherently cannot be free of bias, and the idea that magically traversing into starclan rinses you of all the systemic cat racism in your mind is laughable and indicates just how stupid and white the average warrior cats fan is

"we reject starclan" narratives because thats too happy for warrior cats. as i said i want eternal torment at the very physical hands of your ancestors and history as an extended allegory for society and politics and the dominoes that fall down to get a person in the place they are now. you dont get to run away from it unless you run away from your society. simple as that

making starclan too close of an allegory to god or jesus or whatever, i think a very fundamental part of how starclan operates is that yet again it is a collection of previously living people who are simply now dead people with all the biases that come with formerly being alive in a society, and i cannot stress this enough, the fact that it is a collective force that disagrees with itself and sometimes makes the wrong decisions simply because not enough reasonable people were there at the right time. this is why i think things like the trial in squilf's hope and ashfur's takeover of the dark forest in tbc are delicious plot points and very good pointers for the ideal depiction of starclan. the new team is doing awesome with them. thumbs up.

[the-s1lly-corner]

I wish to hear about the knd oc

>:3c

Give us the lore Silly!!!!

Sososo sorry for taking so long to get to this! Admittedly I was putting this off simply because theres so much lore! I'll be adding a cut to this because with me summarizing stuff, it's still a lot! I'll try to break it up in sections, since there are different.. chapters... for lack of a better word.. this ocs entire life is plotted out! From early childhood to present day when the show takes place! That's a lot of lore considering the character is well into adulthood by the time the main series happens!

Apologies if it's all over the place and some points are.. whack.. this is my first time putting everything into writing! I'll also need to talk about other ocs so this main one can make sense, mostly it'll be talking about their sector, in regards to other ocs! Also its 3am at the time of writing this + my stomach is being MEAN

With all that said, let's hope this doesnt turn into a novel!

Also also** lore may contradict what's in canon, maybe.. I'm not sure! I'm still not done reading the comics and I havent touched anything GKND so I'm unsure if theres any extra info that in unaware of that would complicate things

Feel free to send any questions about the oc!! Lore stuff, interactions with canon characters, ect!

cws: mentions of controlling/toxic parents but i dont go too in depth about it but just know that this is a part of her story. mentions of sexism as well, obligatory its there because "admin uses his ocs to process his experience with his gender as well as being afab and other stuff" but i dont go toooooo deep into it

Name; Rose Wood

Pronouns; she/her

Age; obviously since we're sliding around all over her time line I'll let you know based in the section... but shes in the same age group as Benedict and Monty

Appearance, present day; short, rocking a chubby mom bod! Red hair that's a little faded with a prominent streak of grey. Green eyes. Very curly and fluffy hair! Not sold on a length, but currently it's just last her shoulders! Often wears cardigans or sweaters, though I'm yet to make an "official" outfit for her... her default outfit! Short :( she stopped growing in her early/mid teens height wise, about 5'5

Appearance, KND era; assuming this is in the later half of her time as a KND operative shes tall by kid standards (assuming like. 4'6 is the average for girls as google is telling me). Lanky!! Very long hair, hair is more vibrant but that's really just a design choice rather than an in universe thing. Hair changes length, it starts at mid back but she cuts it to her jaw a few months before shes decommissioned. No default outfit but she swaps between her school uniform and baseball uniform (sports kid before her dad made her stop!!)

Personality; very sweet and kind, patient.. however shes no nonsense, though that develops slowly over time and really roots and shows itself in her young adult years. Lots of internalized feelings, as a child and teen, she feels she had to suck it up and put on a happy face because to do anything else would be "unbecoming", at least according to her parents. As an adult shes oblivious to the whole child vs adult war and doesnt realize how serious it is, shes just vibing

Occupations, past and current; knd operative (decommissioned), teacher (current)

Family; she doesnt talk to her parents all that much however she keeps in touch with her grandfather (very old, think 80s, rose was an oops baby + so was her dad LMAO), and 2 younger sisters. She does have other family members however they're not very fleshed out currently. She does have a son who is a teen by the time the main series takes place! Maybe I'll make a short follow up post on him!

Former Sector teammates, numbers and names; Numbuh 246 (Rose Wood), Numbuh 165 (Jamie Robinson), Numbuh 162 (Kimberly "Kimmy" Wilson), Numbuh 527 ("Sammy" Jones), Numbuh 129 (Davis Peterson) (the leader of the sector)

i'll probably make a separate post for her teammates, this post is already pretty long LMAO

KND days;

she joined within the very early days of the KND, after monty started it. i would go further and say shes a "first generation" knd operative, being there when they fought and overthrew grandfather. she didnt actually join a sector until the last year or two of her time as an operative, working solo prior on missions and helping built up the operation. thanks to her experience, she was sent to go basically work and "pass off her knowledge" before shes decommissioned.

a actually wrote in parallels between her sector and sector v for thematic reasons but i wont get into that here; but if i had to make a comparison shes like the numbuh 5 of the group. fairly level headed and in tune with whats going on as well as being able to step up when it counts to push through on a mission

"if she was sent to basically pass her experience, why wasnt she made the leader?". tight schedule on her part, parents cared a lot about keeping up appearances and they worked rose like a horse by having her sign up to a bunch of extra curriculars + her having her share of chores as well as her parents being strict. she just did not have a lot of time to spare. a lot of her ark is her slowly becoming more and more independent as time passes, but as of now shes pulling herself between being this model student to appease her parents and fighting for the knd's cause. ironic given the whole fighting against adult tyranny thing

there was some friction in the beginning when she first joined the sector, shes the second newest member the newest being 527 (Sammy). a lot of coming from 165 (Jamie), actually throws her failures in her face if they ever fumble a mission because of her whole history. they do eventually become buddies though, but its a slow burn!

she does get what she was sent to do done before she turns 13, her decommissioning is your standard decommissioning albeit with some pizzazz; she was a first gen operative but she was one of the last remaining ones at that time so its like. a whole chapter ending in their history with only a handful of others remaining. she doesnt get to be a secret operative

Teenager;

probably the most underdeveloped part of her story, i mostly focused on her childhood as well as the present day.. so this section and early adulthood is a little under baked. a lot of the themes as before are still here, overbearing and controlling strict parents completely dominate her time so she doesnt have much time to just. be. she does end up reconnecting with some of her old teammates, but theyre all of course decommissioned at this point in time. the only one who is still an operative is sammy, but thats due to them being so young in comparison to the rest of the sector and even then theyre at the end of their time as an operative. due to the whole "operatives arent to mess with the lives of ex operatives" rule thats mentioned, sammy doesnt interact much with rose or the others unless they approach them first.

main thing to note is that rose and davis have a short fling that quickly burns out due to teens being dumb: short explanation davis was insecure and jealous and rose did not want to deal with that on top of everything else going on with her. good for her for looking out for her health

she was not an evil teen, though, far too deep in her studies to really do anything rebellious as well as being afraid of falling behind and disappointing her parents

around this time, not long after her and davis break up her and her family moves out of town

Young adult;

she went NC with her parents not long after she turned 18, moving out soon after. she does keep in touch with her younger siblings, though. the breaking point was really her parents confirming that theyre disappointed with her existence. literally all but saying they wish they had a son instead of a daughter as a first born, lots of old values/views there that finally pushes rose over the edge. noting now that rose did have some feelings about her gender but never really explored it due to feeling the need to conform + this takes place pre 2000s so... but moving forward she does start to embrace herself and slowly take the time to get to know herself now that shes got the time and space to do so. i do like the idea of her experimenting between now and present day, and while she does eventually lean more towards presenting feminine there are instances where shes presenting more masc/feels more masc

while at college she meets someone, obligatory "i havent given him a name yet", they get together. everythings good, they have a kid. they break up. im still cooking up a reasoning for why they split but for now its just "they changed because they got married young, and now theyre older"

Present day;

a few years before the events of the show she moves back to town, i was going to say she moves in during the current events but i decided to be nice and give her a chance to get accustomed to being back in her hometown. i havent decided how it happens but she ends up getting in with the villains but like. not in the way that shes a villain too, in the "shes like the nice lady from down the street who makes some killer brownies so we all vibe with her". kind of just started as a joke that i turned into the canon for her because i can... kind of see that happening... this leads to her meeting benedict, blah blah she vaguely remembers him, they catch up and it leads to them getting together

i actually didnt originally ship them because "ooooooooouuugh father kinda...." actually it was because "the delightfuls need a decent parent figure because GOD!! i love father and my take on him does soften him a bit with time but GOOD LORD" and then it mixed with that and the "ooooooough hes kinda..." LMAO

not much to say other than shes the cool mom at the PTA meetings and just gets along with everyone, probably thinks the delightfuls and sector v are friends. which drives both of them up the wall they HATE it LMAO

Post series finale;

Dead/j

Okay well, that's just a concept. Admittedly I dont know what to do with her after the series finale takes place. Logically one can assume she just continues on with her day to day because shes not really involved in the fight against children, shes quite literally. Vibing and staying in her own lane asides from when she gets dragged into things by the people around her; even then shes still.. oblivious.. not much different than how Monty reacts to the knd stuff, when hes not recommissioned. Simply thinking it's this elaborate game of sorts, ESPECIALLY if she were to get dragged in through the delightfuls (who are. You know, effectively her step children thanks to her relationship with father)

[bahamutgames]

AFTERTHOUGHTS - ROUNDUP ROUND 17

January 2025

Hey hey, new year, new games to play! I took a break from playing stuff in December because I was feeling particularly down and wanted to enjoy my next big RPG in a better mood (it was Fantasian, I'm currently feeling better and playing it right now and enjoying it a lot!)

Ultimately it was the right choice, and now I'm really back with a desire to play a bunch of games! And I got some good gaming done in January, and now it's February... Soooo... Let's talk about what I played!!

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite & Beyond (December 21, 2024) - PC

OH MY GOD!! DID YOU HEAR, MARVEL VS CAPCOM IS IN THE NEWS AGAIN!!! I feel like I don't talk about it much, but even though I'm not a huge Marvel (or comic in general) fan, I AODRE Marvel vs Capcom. A genuinely lovely and incredibly fun fighting game series that's become very near and dear to my heart over the years (I just recently came to the conclusion that UMVC3 is one of my favorite fighting games of all time!) And you may also know I ADORE mods! I love modding and got really attached to it through Brawl mods and my love for Project M and have recently dived into TONS more Smash mods like P+ and Akenia Build!

So... imagine Project M... but for Marvel...

I'm sold. I actually LOVED Infinite, I thought it was a really underrated game in terms of its gameplay, a lot of its newcomers are AWESOME, the power stones are fun, I even like the story (though I dont remember much of the specifics, it's just a great idea for a plot with Ultron Sigma and X being the protagonist.) But when Beyond was announced I was BEYOND excited (ha) for it!! MORE MvCI? And they're fixing the admittedly pretty nasty graphics? YES PLEASE!!

I haven't played it an insane amount but I've played it a bit and so far it's WONDERFUL, the game genuinely looks AMAZING. The new OST rules (I particularly love the remix of the MvC theme in the menu and Zero's new theme rules! I also find it funny that they gave Gammorah She-Hulk's theme. It's a great song and I love playing as both of them lol). The new stages are awesome, the new costumes and colors are nice, and it's cool they're trying to change some balancing and moveset stuff. I'd love to see them add in AT LEAST 2 new characters from both sides of the battle, but I imagine something like that is WAAAAY down the line. No rush, they're already doing amazing work with this!

My only issues is that the Onslaught stage makes the game CHUG like crazy, just becomes unplayable for me. And also GOD DAMN THAT FINAL BOSS IS A PAIN IN THE ASS AND I WAS PLAYING ON NORMAL MODE!!

But other than those tiny nitpicks, nah MvCI:B rules! And I can't wait to see where it goes from here! I hope it shows that there's still an audience for the VS series, even if Marvel isn't the next foe for Capcom to take on. But in the mean time, I'm cool with an insanely high quality mod.

Side note: PLEASE MAKE MODS FOR FIREBRAND THAT ADD THE OTHER DEMON'S CREST GARGOYLES TO HIS MOVESET, I DON'T CARE THAT THEY DON'T ALL HAVE WINGS, DESIGN SOME CUTSOM WINGS FOR THEM!!

Panzer Dragoon (March 10, 1995) - Sega Saturn

And next up, for my first brand new game I beat in 2025, we have Panzer Dragoon! A series I have been LONG overdue to play! I love Dragons, I love Starfox and general Shmup/On Rail games, I love lowpoly graphics, I love tropical settings, and I love mixes of ancient/scifi technology. Panzer Dragoon is TAILOR MADE FOR ME. And yet, I haven't given it a chance yet. Mainly because Saturn Emulation wasn't that great for a long time, and Panzer Dragoon isn't super cheap (though not as bad as Saga.) But I decided to give it another shot this year, and found an emulator that takes a bit to understand, but works PERFECTLY! And so, I finally got to dip my toes into this series!

And uh... honestly?? This game was okay. Like, it has a COOL story and world. Like, people having to fight the strange experiments of a bygone civilization while the powers-that-be are constantly trying to resurrect them for their evil gain. And dragons are there? That RULES. I LOVE that shit. I love the graphics, and the music, and the design of the Blue Dragon are wonderful. I particularly enjoy the kind of odd design the Blue Dragon has, with it's big horned helmet, it's unique! And the fact it has fully animated cutscenes is pretty impressive I feel like, especially in a pre-starfox 64 world. The game is very compelling.

But honestly it just wasn't really the most exciting game for me. In fact, I felt like it was pretty lackluster from a gameplay perspective. I know I shouldn't compare it to Starfox 64, its one of my favorite games ever and Panzer Dragoon came out before it... But maaaan, there's just not much you can do in this game. No real movement techniques, movement is kinda stiff in general and I felt like I could barely dodge ANYTHING and instead had to rely on shooting it down. No bombs, no laser upgrades, no upgrades of any kind. Even lock on feels a little impactless to me? And it makes the whole game a little boring at best and frustrating at worst. Like, the main gimmick is that you can look in 360 degrees all around your dragon to fight attackers on all side. Cool! But when you're looking at another angle you lose the ability to dodge all projectiles. Not so cool. It's a neat idea but it's not really as exciting as I feel like it could be if you made more use of the buttons to give the player more techniques and tools. Maybe it's just me?

Gargoyle's Quest II (July 17, 1992) - NES

Speaking of Capcom series I don't talk about nearly enough. Did you all know I LOVE Firebrand? More specifically, Demon's Crest! It's one of my all time favorite games ever made!! But I hadn't really tried any of his other games until GQ1 was added to the NSO. It was fine, but not exactly what I want out of the series and not nearly as good as DC (an unfair comparison for sure). And then, GQ2 just never came to the service! So I forgot about it... UNTIL TheSeventhForce did their Firebrand video and it reminded me I never played it (one of my favorite channels atm btw you should totally watch their stuff!!) And now I finally made the time to play it and complete the Firebrand trilogy! How did it stack up compared to the other 2?

Eh, it's tough to say. Obviously it's not as good as DC again, but that's still an unfair comparison. And when compared to GQ1 it's get a little trickier. It looks way nicer, the NES sprites are actually very good looking. It's faster cause there's no random encounters this time. And it probably controls better and the plot is maybe more interesting? But idk, it was just a little more boring maybe. I don't remember any of the music or anything and sad to say, it just didn't leave the most impactful impression on me. But it was fine! Like, it wasn't bad or anything. Just kind of unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. However, if they ever do that Firebrand Trilogy Remake they mentioned in the Capcom Survey, I think they could totally make this and GQ1 REALLY nice with some improvements and mechanics pulled from DC. But in the mean time, it is nice to have finally played this whole trilogy :)

I will also say, now I have a better understanding of what I think a new Firebrand game should be if the series ever got a reboot of some kind. I won't go into too much detail but I think they should just fully embrace the RPG inspired parts of the Gargoyle Quest games and make the next one a full blown JRPG. And since the series never really had turnbased stuff, and even GQ1 used platforming in its combat, you could totally make it an Action RPG! And what I'm getting at here is that the Tales of team should make a Gargoyle's Quest / Demon's Crest JRPG Reboot.

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei (March 22, 1996) - Sega Saturn

Speaking of Panzer Dragoon... Did you all know there was a sequel to it? I actually don't think I was aware of this game until recently (I thought Saga was next). But I was never one to not be thorough, so, I had to give the sequel a shot too!

Zwei is more of the same, cool world, cool plot, cool cutscenes, you ride a dragon. But this one improves on the first a LOT in my opinion. For starters, you can actually maneuver your dragon in a more meaningful way, allowing you to actually dodge enemy fire. The game on the whole just feels better to control and play, like it's considerably more polished. And while they didn't add a ton of upgrades or techniques your dragon can preform. There is now a bar at the bottom of the screen, and when it's full you can preform a screen wipe / deal massive damage to the boss. It's small, it's not really groundbreaking, but it's COOL and makes the game feel that much more engaging. But I think the most interesting change is the fact your dragon can mutate based on how well you play the game!! This is REALLY cool and I can only imagine how interesting it could've been if different mutations allowed for different control, blasters, or sub weapons you could use in levels. However, I'm not sure if this mechanic will return in the future games. We'll have to see. In the meantime here's what mine looked like by the end of the game, again a very interesting and unique look for the dragon. I like their use of oddly shaped helmets for them.

And building off that concept of lost potential, yeah the game still isn't perfect. Once again looking around you isn't used that amazingly, and some of the bosses are real damage sponges this time around. Similarly, what was UP with that final battle? The camera for the first time ever is jumping all around the arena and it was genuinely a little stomach churning with the way it's snapping all over the place. It certainly was an improvement over the first, though. No question about it, and I hope to see some big improvements on your options in Saga and Orta.

And yes. My Saturn emulator works like a charm. I've played Panzer Dragoon AND Zwei... That means it's finally time. Next time I return to the world of Panzer Dragoon... It's finally time to play Saga. I can't believe it.

Bombing!!: A Graffiti Sandbox (May 18, 2021) - PC

Next up is a really tiny game where there's not too much to talk about. But it's an indie game so I still wanted to give it some attention and love. Bombing is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, a graffiti sandbox! You just walk around small areas and do some graffiti! It's simple, but it's a lot of fun. There's no goal, you just take your time drawing stuff in quiet night time locations in a city. Listen to music, experiment with different tools. The works.

I don't have too much to say except it's really cute and you probably own it if you've bought any of those big relief bundles, cause it was in a few of them! If you're looking for something small to play and draw with for a bit, it's a good time!

BUT, I have to give it one point of criticism. It's unnerving to me. IDK WHY!! But for some reason cozy first person games where there's NO NPCs while you just do your own thing in silence freak the FUCK out of me. Power Wash Simulator is genuinely so unnerving to me aha. And this one takes place at night so it's even worse. But it's still cute.

Bayonetta 2 (September 20, 2014) - Wii U

ITS FINALLY TIME FOR PEAK ONCE AGAIN!! I played Bayonetta 1 back in 2023 and was blown away by just how amazing it was. And so I went into Bayo 2 with high expectations. I've heard it was just better from my friends and also, I prefer her character design in this one a lot more! I just like the short hair over the bee hive lol.

Overall I'd say Bayonetta 2 is more of the same but clearly much more polished. Combat feels nicer, movement in general feels nicer, and those graphics. GOD DAMN THIS GAME LOOKS GOOD!! I was seriously blown away by how amazing the cutscenes looked, I dont think I've played anything this hyper realistic made for Wii U, and I'm genuinely impressed it was able to do graphics that look this stunning. I also liked the new story, it's nice seeing Bayo adapt to her new life and hanging out with Jeanne. I thought the whole plot with her saving Jeanne from hell was really cool and it was nice to fight some demons this time. I like teaming up with Bayo's parents, I'm shocked this series has had 2 child main characters and neither of them were annoying, Snake within was SO COOL I can't believe the animal transformations aren't in smash, Bayonetta pole dancing on the ISS before shooting it at the final boss was AMAZING! The whole game is just as exciting and over the top as the first, and I'm SO glad they didn't tone anything down! In fact, it felt even hornier and even more violent than the first, I'm blown away Nintendo let them do all this stuff lol. I liked the new summons like the frog, and I loved do boxing matches between the giant summons. Bayonetta is still awesome!

But, I still have a lot of the same problems with it as I did the first. Easy is too easy, hard is too hard ect ect. Like all character action games I just cannot be bothered to care about combat when it's stuff like X,Y,X,X,Y,Y,Y,X ect ect. But for me. I do just feel like this one dragged a little bit towards the end. Like, it wasn't as exciting in the final moments as the first one was? I'd argue the plot was easier to follow than the first, but I still found myself more bored by the ending than I did the first one. However, it certainly did pick up for the final boss. Maybe I would've liked it more if it had focused on fighting Hell's forces the whole way through, cause I can't help but feel like the Loki stuff almost got in the way of it and Jeanne's revival felt a little rushed? Idk

Over all though, yeah it's more good as fuck Bayonetta fun. Bayonetta rules, and I'm... interested to find out why everyone hates 3 so much. Oh well, even if 2 maybe wasn't as life changing as 1, I still think it was probably over all a better game. Maybe... Maybe I just think she's hotter in this one... Idk. Bayo is cool.

Fatal Fury 2 (November 26, 1993) - SNES

They put Fatal Fury on NSO. I pay for the damn thing so I'm gonna play some Fatal Fury!! I've played my share of SNK fighting games in recent times, but I still feel like I haven't played enough of their stuff. So any excuse to try more is always appreciated.

Not much to say on this one cause I'm a coward and played it with super easy settings, but yeah Fatal Fury 2 was neat! I'm actually still really impressed with the graphics and music in this game, I don't know if it was higher quality on the arcade cabinet but it looks pretty damn good even if it was compromised in any way to get it on SNES. I was particularly really thrilled when I saw it had a light day/night cycle where the time of day changes between rounds. More fighting games need that NOWADAYS, but this game was doing it on the SNES. Also while I couldn't really get the hang of the lane system (something I remember struggling with when I tried FF1 when Terry was announced for Smash, and also struggled with in Guilty Gear Isuka lol) I feel like the idea of having a fighting game take place on multiple lanes COULD be really cool. Especially if they were to make attacks that traveled between lanes or could be angled? Idk.

Another random small detail I have to give this game some love for is that the final boss music is actually being played by a band in the background. Such a cute detail. Neat game :)

[tribow]

So I watched Ars no Kyojuu

(A.K.A. Giant Beasts of Ars)

What a way to end a show...like really? Just like that? Okay.

After seeing how it ended, I had to try to find what other people's thoughts on Ars no Kyojuu were. I did expect its ratings to take a hit for that ending, but that low??? Huh??? Did I watch the same anime these other people did? Why are there several people comparing it to Attack on Titan? It's literally nothing like that show. There's barely anyone really talking about this anime. Wow.

I'm not gonna sit here and claim that Ars no Kyojuu is some kind of masterpiece, cause it's not. It has some issues, however, this is a unique fantasy anime brought to you in 2023. In a world of generic isekai after generic isekai, every fantasy world taking place in the same western medieval setting, so many characters that are walking tropes, distracting amounts exposition, and adaptations on top of adaptations; Ars no Kyojuu takes a bold step forward.

It dared to be a completely original fantasy world that tells a story with very little to no exposition. It's very character driven, so much so that it spends time following the perspective of the main protagonists even when the plot is moving forward without them. Yet, we don't get internal monologues from the characters either. It's a story that takes advantage of the visual medium its being told through to show instead of tell the viewer everything.

I wish I could give this anime more high praise, but in the second half it starts to fumble a bit. Ars no Kyojuu is another case of an anime just needing more time to elaborate itself a little more. Some of the story beats just don't have the right impact because not enough time is spent with the characters, despite all the time the anime spends.

Conversations are implied to happen off-screen, dramatic reveals don't last long enough, and the characters dont get to properly react to a lot of what's going on.

The 12 episode time constraint is really felt in that second half since characters would seemingly ignore or not ask questions about something that just happened in front of them. The story was rushing to reach a specific part of the narrative so it spends less time on the characters and suddenly becomes entirely about the plot. All that just to end on a cliffhanger. Why??

From what I can tell, Ars no Kyojuu might have a video game in production or something? I couldn't find anything on a season 2, but admittedly I didn't search very thoroughly.

I did find out that Ars no Kyojuu is written by the writer for Akudama Drive. I didn't see that anime myself, but I know it got some notoriety, certainly more than Ars no Kyojuu seems to have gotten.

Oh, and this aired on HIDIVE for the western crowd. I'm not sure how HIDIVE is doing, but I doubt it's doing better than Crunchy or Netflix.

It's a shame honestly. For a 2023 anime this is pretty unique. I watch anime in a pretty weird way so I don't keep up with modern trends well, but I know how oversaturated anime gets. I can tell the cultural zeitgeist is getting safer and safer productions. Ars no Kyojuu is a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of what aired around the same time. It's risky and not executed perfectly, but it's well worth the watch.

Also uuh, side tangent: this was animated by Asahi Production. I haven't seen anything from this studio myself, but they did this interesting thing where the 2D animation is stylized and directed in such a way that almost perfectly matches CG animation shaders. I legit couldn't tell if some shots were 2D or CG and it was kind of impressive.

Overall, the animation was fine, but some shots are stinkers. It happens, not every shot is gonna look good, but there is one part they really needed to nail visually and they unfortunately don't quite pull it off: Facial Expression.

There's a lot of dramatic moments that really REALLY could have used some more detailed facial animation to sell a scene and I can't tell if they didn't have enough time or if it was a skill issue, but either way it's unfortunate.

Oh well.

Give Ars no Kyojuu a shot if you're interested! I actually liked this anime's story, world, and characters even in spite of how it ends. I love its choice to have almost as little exposition as possible for its unique world to give more focus on the characters. It was good, and I hope it gets to continue cause you can't end it like that please don't end it like that.

[leynaeithnea]

...fine

The story has great potential, the concept is great, the writing isnt good enough to live up to it imo, Im glad some other people can read this without issues, but when i read them i kept wanting to shake the pages and edit them into smth better myself

Im not the biggest fan of school type stories anymore, but I could gloss over that if it wouldve been done well. But it didnt rly feel well done for me, the pacing was off, we kept being made promises about/told what these characters were supposed to be - and then....the characters didnt live up to the potential.

The "mysterious and dangerous morally grey" character rarely acted in any way that wouldve made him dangerous (rn i remember exactly one scene, and that was mostly justified because it was a response to an assassination attempt?? yes he didnt hestitate, a normal person might have, but theyre in a college where less than half of the students graduate, the rest DIE)

The mc is supposed to be "super smart" its her one strength she has above the others (since she has a physical disability (hypermobilty iirc, correct me if im wrong, that makes surviving in a school thats focused on fighting and dragon riding quite hard! (that part was acutally pretty nicely written and good rep, i think so the one thing thats rly well done in this story is diversity, i dont have any complaints about that) but , despite being supposedly super smart, the foreshadowing wasnt done well, since there were some VERY OBVIOUS hints that only "we" as the readers were supposed to realize but they were written in a way that SHOULD have the MC realize it too

the one nice character got killed of for shock value, it gets brought up again later but it feels awkward the way it was dealt with, I was shocked but couldnt rly feel the long-lasting pain of this loss later on, emotionally it didnt hit me enough to move on (i know it hit other people more, so its again a me thing)

it both carries over to book 2 too, where things also kind of get worse?

The romance (it is romantacy, admittedly not my main genre because i dont tend to like romance main plots,....esp straight ones, written like this...) developed in a really awkward way considering its supposed to be enemies to lovers, but then the characters have so much sexual tension because of their....dragons?

then theres this whole conflict about "pls tell me your deep dark secret! id never shy away from you!!!!" ..... so he gives in after her begging finially and guess wHAT she hates him for it, dispises him and refuses to properly talk to him for ALMOST A WHOLE BOOK

MISCOMMUNICATION AND PETTY IMMATURITY IRK ME

another thing is that these characters are supposed to be in their mid twenties but they act like theyre in their teens, awkward.

(kind of the opposite from six of crows ngl lmao, there they act like theyre in their mid 20s and then you learn theyre 17, one of the bigger things that bugged me about SoC but it was still...better) Anyway, so what else was there

...so many things i could go on about this for another fifeteen pages or smth idek, the story had a lot of potential, esp the Male love interest character design as well as the main character have rly nice concepts but both fail to live up to it, and largely to blame on the romance. The mmc ends up too obssessed with the mc and that becomes his only purpose and reason and its BORING i know some people like it, thats fine, i get it, but it couldve been written so much better

the fmc could also be really neat! the disabled youngest child of a war general surviving at a brutal dragon riding college against the odds and balancing her physical disadvantages through her wit and maybe friendships

but

it

just

doesnt

get

executed

right

I'll give the author some grace because shes been a romance writer for so long and it was her first fantasy story, but even then I feel like all of these stories would've needed more...editng? so much more editing

and i know theres stuff getting published that are so...sigh badly written in the sense that the writing isnt rly effective and immersive as much as it COULD be, and i know these books still have a lot of fans and thats good, and I know that publishes dont want to spend a lot of time on editing but i dont like where the publishing industry is going, its falling victim to wanting to push out stories as fast as possible and going for tiktok trends (gotta publish them fast before the trends move on to the next) but it just makes the quality of those suffer SO MUCH and they focus so much on tropes (like in fourth wing there are so many tropes that people love mixed with some spice and dragons and its basically garanteed to be a success because thats whats popular BUT THE QUALITY SUFFERS and i hate that

there you go @lorethebookworm

EDIT: another thing was the story kept managing to build up nice tension and then the resolution of these conflicts were really anti-climatic, disappointing too

What is a famous book that , in your opinion, did not live up to the hype ?

*ahem*

Fourth Wing

*leaves before i go on a tirade*

[darliiin]

I posted this on twitter and I wanted to post it here too cuz I'm a menace idk LMAO heres my (bad) opinions about most Redacted characters. Feel free to talk / disagree with me in fact its encouraged if you wanna!!

Vincent: I like him as a character much more than his plot. "Lovely gets hurt. He has to save them." Repeat til death... actually, continue to repeat post death. While at the same time being similar enough to the freelancer storyline for me to notice (flirtatious immortal magic user who doesnt understand boundaries helps humanborn magic user navigate the magical world, ft being taken advantage of by someone else because of their lack of knowledge, going to damn, etc etc). I really do love him as a character, though, he is so dang sweet, his nightmare comfort is one of my favorites and his character development was great I luv him

Sam: My comfort character, my favorite! I struggle with this because since I joined the fandom, and since the honor of comfort character was bestowed upon him, he has changed a lot, and his original plotline has been neglected imo. Also the jokes about him being old (he is a singular year older than vincent) and a cowboy (he has a southern accent) were never a thing earlier on and honestly they kind of bother me, just cuz they dont make sense to me. If it was occasional that would be fine, but it's become the punchline of every joke? Truly I think my issues started when they became mates, simply because that was a Bonus Audio. Sam set a boundary and then went to bone town in his very next standalone vid. It felt really rushed and unneeded. Maybe I just found comfort in the fact that neither him nor the listener were being sexualized. The one after it was spice too. The fact that imp!Sam exists, that it is a possibility for him to be the way he is there if circumstances were different, alone confuses me and makes me think I've misinterpreted his character. Despite all of that, I love him very very much. The first half of his storyline is amazing and I really hope they bring it back full throttle. The struggle for trust between him and darlin and them becoming partners despite their circumstances is really cool. Both of them being rough and tough and unfeeling on the outside but truly soft and gentle and touch starved 😭😭❤... I love them dearly, especially as a concept and their potential and I cant wait to see more of them and I want them to have a good ending even if I literally cant conceptualize a happy ending for them LMAO

Adam: ... my skrunkly.. I absolutely adore the idea that went into him, and like... his character idk hes just so cool. One of my favorites even if short lived

David: hmmm hmmm... I like him a lot. The beginning of his playlist bothers me, and his talk with Darlin was iffy, but if you get past that stuff, I do really appreciate him. Hes very good. I want to see him sad more I love his angsty stuff and his voice is nice to listen to

Asher: his voice is a cheese grater to my brain. He is my favorite wolf despite this. Before the inversion, I wasn't 100% sold on him, but during and after it? Hes just so good and genuine and soft and I am so down, even if his voice took a second to adjust to. I don't have much to say here simply because hes just very good

Milo: hes good! I didnt pay a ton of attention to him, admittedly. I wish sweetheart got some more focus, theres such a great opportunity there to clarify some stuff about the department

Caelum: please I have a 6 year old brother I dont need another one

Lasko: cute! I like him, not much to say, I ship him with Gavin and FL lol

Damien: also cute! I like him very very much, grumpy lil guy

Kody: ... I really love kody a lot. Not as a person, but his voice, his mannerisms, the rain noises during his videos. I love a guy that will manipulate me (we will address this later)

Huxley: I am so sorry I hate him I'm sorry I cant listen to him I like him and Damien together I like his personality but idk what it is about him I just ,, I can not take him seriously

Gavin: I struggle with Gavin a LITTLE bit, especially earlier Gavin, but more recently I really love him. Especially during and after the inversion. Hes so soft and he cares so dang much

Marcus: as a character and concept I really really like him, as a person I dont

James: girlboss

Avior: My second favorite character! Hes SO good I think the story has slowed down recently and I just want to KNOW but also, I dont mind too too much. Hes the character who holds the most of my favorite videos. I just want them to be happy so bad. I relate to him the very most. Hes never done anything wrong in his life. Actually he has but I understand why he did it too much to possibly judge him for it. 10/10 I adore his storyline and his listener and their relationship and I just want everything to be okay for them and I want to see more fluff from him so bad 😭😭 I think he is easily one of the most well written characters and best plot lines, but the stuff after his confession so far couldve been consolidated / shortened and been just as effective

Regulus: Empathy daemons in general being compared to children worries me too much to watch his videos. I have lots of thoughts about (empathy) daemon ages and how they work but I have no idea what's canon and that in and of itself is the problem

Vega: My third favorite! Absolute love of my life I loved him before anyone else fuk u guys prime Vega is perfect (/j) and I am SO excited to see where his story goes I love being manipulated I love how hes a total monster but hes so chill about it he has gaslit me into thinking hes a good person and I'm cool with it I love him so much hes probably my favorite to listen to he is very well written and his voice is so soothing 10/10

Alexis: Unpopular opinion time: She did nothing wrong. Sam is absolutely allowed to be upset, hes allowed to be pissed, hes allowed to never forgive her. He can feel whatever he needs to to get through what happened to him. She did nothing wrong and I will die on this hill. Maybe she should've given him longer to try to save himself. Maybe she could've been more gentle. They were BOTH panicking. They were both in shock. Vincent was turned against his will under very similar circumstances. He hated william for it. But we dont villainize William, in fact we praise him for saving Vincent. For all we know, Alexis has a very positive relationship with being a vampire and her own turning, and didnt really understand the gravity of the change she was about to put him through. I'm not saying shes a perfect character with no flaws, or that we should praise her, but she did a perfectly human thing. I dont see how saving someone you love and then never ever pushing when they dont want to see you again could possibly mean she had bad intentions or is a bad person

[cosmicjellies]

dark shadows update- finished 1795!

spoilers ig for this show from the 1960s// 

 took me a minute to get invested in the new set of characters but i did eventually get there. hate to be That Guy but vicki did keep frustrating me throughout this (stop telling everyone youre from the future! at the trial why would you admit to doing a seance rev trask was not there he doesnt know! just lie!) but admittedly she is going thru a lot. i am not normally a person who needs everyone in media to be acting rationally at all times. anyway angelique was fun but rev trask was a surprise i found him soo funny with his evil little widows peak and eyeliner hope he comes back as a ghost or something.

started to notice some inconsistencies- eg the way barnabas talked about and hated jeremiah in earlier episodes does not sound like he knew he was under angeliques influence. also, i really dont think everyone was supposed to look exactly like their ancestors! why else make such a big deal out of barnabas looking like "the first barnabas" if everyone else also looks exactly like a collins ancestor. plus i really did not get the sense when barnabas was grooming maggie to be josette 2.0 that she looked exactly like her (seems like something he would have mentioned!). i knew they were going to use the same actors for the past but i really thought at first that it was just a theatrical convention and not literal. anyway none of these are complaints- i am sure there is a certain kind of person who is bothered by inconsistencies like these but i think they are cute little quirks of the format. fun to notice. 

weirdly, altho the plot moves very slowly esp compared to modern stuff, i did find myself wishing it would linger longer on some things. wouldve been fun to spend more time with josette and jeremiah after their marriage- trapped together and miserable, not understanding how this even happened. or the millicent gaslight moment. another complaint i have: why have barnabas' first kill happen offscreen with a stranger! there was an opportunity for it to be with someone he knows and loves, onscreen- so much more drama! a waste. at first i did not like how innocent he was of josette's death however i did like that he then tried resurrecting her and how despite doing it out of love this was a horrifying violation- love  a corruption narrative! 

side note, what is with barnabas and strangling people. just bite them?? 

finally, i do think its cool how this very silly, pg-rated soap opera manages to tap in to a lot of things i find genuinely terrifying. so much about a loss of self, having no control over your actions etc. 

i AM excited to be back in the present (or the 1960s ig) and looking forward to what lies ahead. ill be taking another long break before i do tho.

ps: imagine being a vampire and nearly dying in a car accident. embarrassing.

[taki118]

Go Watch the Venture Brothers

So just heard the complete and utter Bullshit news that Adult Swim has cancelled one of (if not the best shows) they have the Venture Bros. This series is one of those shows that for WHATEVER reason never got to the level of fandom Rick and Morty has even though they’ve been at the genre parody game longer and in my opinion better. 

The series is about Rusty Venture former boy adventurer and failing super scientist who in an attempt to keep his head above water in debt goes around with his two boys Hank and Dean, and bodyguard Brock on misadventues while various legal archnemisis go after him, such as the Monarch. 

So if you never watched or never heard of this 7 season series let me give you a break down on why you should, 

1) Art Style & Animation

Venture bros is one of those rare Adult aimed animated series that that really truly tries to utilize their medium to the best of their abilities. Season 1 had like such a small budget and corners had to be cut so it can be a little hard to watch at times. 

But with each passing season they get a little better, a little more fluid, go just a little harder and it truly feels rewarding to watch. Like seeing an artist you follow online improve over the years. Like they COULD have stayed with the choppy and stiff animation from season 1 it fit right in with its fellow adult animated shows but it didn’t. They strove for quality to have something that matched the story they were telling.

2) The Writing 

Venture Bros has some of the tightest and consistently great writing of ANY serialized show I’ve seen, adult, animated or other wise. Wanna know why? Cause it’s all done by TWO people (save for like one ep each season where one other person is allowed to touch their baby). Yeah TWO people and they work their asses off every season to interject, humor, refrences, parody, plot and character development in equal measure. 

3) Character Development

Um yes in case you were wondering that’s right an adult animated show has CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT  that holds as the series goes on. Not to give spoilers but characters will go through changes in alignment, relationships will develop and change, some characters will go through negative arcs where they are straight up unbareable for a season before coming out the other side even better than they were before. There is no end of epsiode or even end of season reset. Characters, settings, and dynamics all change over the course of the show and it feels just so god damn good.

4) Story Development 

Just like the characters the story of the Venture Bros grows and changes each season. Things that are set up even as early as season one are paid off as the series goes on. Like not to be that bitch but you know how RIck and Morty teases an overarching plot ALL THE TIME but like will often just spit in the face of fans hoping for more than like one episode a season addressing it? Yeahhhhhhh that doesnt happen here, fans are consistently rewarded for putting the time in to rewatch and really think about what happened in the series. Characters that are seen in the background or are just referenced by other characters will be brought in to be recurring characters, things that start off as a small detail or gag will be given larger relevance and each time they do this you get that “OH I remember that from last season! So thats what it was!” The writers WANT you to rewatch, they WANT you to analyze and they WANT you to theorize, and they give you a show that gives back the time you put in.

5) Parody & Reference 

This series does a great thing with parody. They make real characters  who are just as enjoyable as the characters they parody, they make story lines that both poke fun at the absurdity of the media but shows the writers love for it. So often parody and references are just used to mock the thing but with Venture Bros you feel the love and care so when you know the thing being parodied you can laugh but feel good about laughing cause they are never laughing at a thing maybe you cared for in your youth but rather laughing with it.

And it’s never just one thing. When they parody a thing its often layered with other things to make it even more unique. Scooby-Doo is overlayed with famous criminals, Laura Croft is mixed Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, GI Joe is given the look of the Village People and so on. They never go for the easy joke or reference. Hell theres an episode that starts with them reciting the lyrics to David Bowies Space Oddity for really no reason other than they could. They weave these things in naturally with their setting and characters so nothing feels out of place. Like if you dont catch a reference or parody you dont feel like “I think this isa reference to something?” like a LOT of things do not just adult animated shows. You arent taken out of the moment cause it all feels so natural. 

6) The Characters 

God damn these characters, I could go on for hours about these characters. From main to one off these are some of the most likeable characters you can find. I mean it when I say I can’t think of a single character I wish they had cut cause they are all so well created. Even the ones I hate i have fun hating cause they were made to be that way. I’ll be good though I’ll only talk about my absolute top faves.

- The Monarchs

You ever sit and wish villain couples could have functional  healthy relationships? Well look no further than Malcom Fitzcarraldo aka The Monarch and Dr. Shelia Girlfriend (yes that is her last name). The Monarch is a high strung impulsive saturday morning cartoon villain whos tendency to over react is only matched by his unspecified hatred of Dr. Venture. And Dr. G is his nonsense partner in crime who will cut a bitch if they don’t play by their admittedly weird rules. Both characters are great on their own but are better together. Though that doesnt mean they always get along. Like a real couple they have their ups and downs they fight, break up, make-up and grow stronger in their relationship with each season. 

- Shore Leave

Ok ok so I want you to imagine James Bond, mixed with GI Joe simmering in a cocktail of the most flamboyant gay men you have ever seen and you have one of my favorite gay characters/characters in general. Shore Leave is a member of OSI (the shows SHEILD/GI Joe parody organization) he’s loud, brash, flippant, sassy and highly competent at his job loving every second of getting to beat bad guys down within an inch of their life. I love seeing him play off the stoic Brock and the two have this great brotherly dynamic that’s never called into question. He also gets to have a very cute romance with Al the Alchemist (who is also great). I could talk about this man all day.

- Dr. Rusty Venture

They did such a good job with this man. He’s a self serving, sexist, perverted, whinny, self important asshole and yet you feel pity and genuine sympathy for him and want him to succeed. You can see how Dr. V was given a raw deal by his father who seemed to care more about his adventures than his sons well being and how this molded him into the bitter man he is today, but on the flip side you can see where he chose to use that as a crutch for his worst behaviors and impulses. Seeing him slowly grow and change and be an actual good father to his boys while all the while still be a giant dick is actually really great. 

- Dr. Byron Orpheus 

Ahhhhh Dr. Orpheus part Dr. Strange Parody part busybody stay at home dad, he’s just such a delight. Dr. Orpheus is a divorcee, with an unfulfilling job of maintaining order to the cosmos (which isnt as hard as one might think), and uses his magical ablities in ways most of us would (ie menial tasks and home chores). Overly dramatic and affectionate Dr. O is a delight whenever he appears, but he’s at his best around his daughter and old friends The Order of the Triad. 

Again I can go on but all these characters ranging from main to recurring are crafted with the utmost care for you to want to see them succeed or fail, to see them again even if you know it’ll never happen, and want them to cross paths with other characters. 

The Venture Bros is one of those series that I will ALWAYS recommend even to the pickiest of humor tastes. But if you don’t believe its as good as I said or don’t think the concept is to your tastes I’ll recommend a few eps that I think best show off the base idea of the series without giving much away. In terms of plot and spoilers, though somethings wont make a lot of sense. 

- S1 ep10 "Tag Sale – You're It!" - Dr. V is having a yard sale so of course all manner of costumed weirdos show up.  - S2 ep5 "Twenty Years to Midnight" - basically a fetch quest around the world to save the planet with daddy issues - S3 ep2 "The Doctor Is Sin" - Again daddy issues but with one of the best recurring characters and a great showcase of the series deeper emotional plots - S4 ep6 "Self-Medication" - Really embraces the parody as Rusty goes to a former boy adventurer support group.  Anyway the show is 7 seasons with 80 episodes, please go watch it. I will never forgive @adultswim​ for cancelling what was to be their final season. And in closing GO TEAM VENTURE!

[vampacidic]

ITS LEO hiii sage. using anon bc i dont want my main to be on here u know how it is. sleepover saturday real..... can i make u pick an aoi twin. also grabby hands thoughts on my special guys... mao ibaba tori ... ALSO whos your most brainrotting oc . u can answer all or none of these go wild

yes yes i getcha leo... i acfually have a couple friends named leo so i was like. Which one for a good second... anyway

ohh an aoi twin.... if i had to pick one my favorite is hinata :) it's the older sibling guilt lol... not that i dislike yuta. yuta is also my little guy. but there's something so..... grabby hands about hinata's. i wouldn't say asshole-ry but the way he's so adamant that he knows yuta that he refuses to acknowledge any change in yuta... echoes a lot of problems i have. im excited to see when he realizes that 'protecting' yuta has only been hurting her in the long run... ultimately damaging their relationship. etc. i love guys who are lost in the past

admittedly i don't know much about either ibara or tori... i never watched/read kiseki series lol. i know a speed run of ibara but i wouldn't say i uh. Know her. if you get what i mean... i think she's silly though. definitely a guy i'd pick up by the scruff of the neck if i ever dig in. tori was also a character i wasn't particularly interested in so i never dug in... i remember during my twitter days thinking her fans were annoying. which to be fair i was right but that was less because of tori himself and more Twitter.

mao however? my silly guy. im a big mixed jp/south asian mao enjoyer. which relates not at all to his character but i just can't see him as pale. i see his canon art and go Whete is his pigment. i love his character... his self sacrificing nature. also he's a fuckin LOSER. he's a younger brother 2 me. he is so special. the meow meow est. funny to me that he's the 'normal' guy of trickstar yet also the most popular... i don't talk about him a lot but he's very special to me. one of the first guys i latched onto... i think i cried over him more than once. his cringe tboy gnc swag seduced me

ok on the oc note. this one took me a while bc all my oc art is old LOL but my most specialest little meow meow is maisie

this is recent ^ ANYWAY i made her in freshman year chem so she’s been here for a few years… she’s a vampire lol. and a very transparent self insert LMAO she has a girlfriend luna :] (pictured above). i have an entire story for them lol but i need to sit and write it some time… basically maisie is a sad little bitch who lives alone in the woods and despite the happy demeanour she has Guilt surrounding the fact she’s feeding off her friends (human. who also have designs and are important 2 plot but i can’t be assed to remember their names). until she wanders across a lost wolf and is like ohhh. friend ? and it turns out it’s a werewolf lol. and it’s luna. and luna has amnesia or smthn idfk but what’s important is that they’re in lesbians andn it’s about fuckign. allowing yourself to be close 2 ppl again. i have other ocs lol (honeydew is a slime girl and she has a wife named valkyrie. valkyrie has touch sensitivities and thus they can never hold hands….. and they’re going 2 be short comics :] they’re just silly. no deep plot there. i have june who’s important in luna + maisie universe and she has a design i enjoy drawing. and there’s bea who’s a cow girl. not like a lasso and rides horses. like she has hooves) but maisie is my most beloved little fella who i project every problem onto

[wickedpact]

You can't just drop that "I read Forces Multiplied" bomb on us and not give a ten page written reaction.

[cracks knuckles] if u insist

nicky cant drive hc: destroyed. rip. also i loved how andy and nile stole those sports cars and were being badass and driving off the bridge & meanwhile joe and nicky were just absolutely vibing in the van

'heres the thing about power: people who have it think they deserve it' [shot of police car] i see u greg

5 whole panels being dedicated to booker not being able to unlock his door. booker not even seeing noriko sitting RIGHT THERE in the window at first. incredible

noriko being 24/7 horny was surprising. like wow all of the stuff i saw she did out of context was 100% equally horny in context as it was out of context. love that for her

i didnt think the 'andy + slavery' thing was handled as badly as everyone made it out to be when telling me about it. tho from the way it was talked about i had kind of figured the conflict between andy and nile re: slavery would be really racially charged (esp considering nile is a black american and would obvs have Thoughts on the subject in that regard) but like,, done in a cringey 'a-white-guy-obviously-wrote-it' kind of way? but it wasnt that. i mean. it makes sense that andy would be implicit in slavery through the years

i mean, like she says, is that not what people just did to each other in the aftermath of battles for thousands of years? and i really like how its pointed out that it was what she was raised with (in the beginning when you see her put shackles on that guy after the battle) but she also accepts responsibility for it and acknowledges that it was wrong and not just 'what people did'.

i like how from her expressions you can kind of tell baby andy knew it was off but she sets those feelings aside bc she felt angry. it explains how she felt but didnt make her out to be blameless in it. plus i mean. i dont know, the fact that andy was involved in a lot of morally shady stuff for 7000 years is not that wild for me. if you live that long youre just Going to be involved in some shit, and she didnt even have other immortals with her as positive community influences, she literally just did whatever the fuck she wanted for thousands of years

'i was worshipped as a god once' i mean, yeah no shit she wouldve been involved in some seriously fucked up stuff, gods were fucking scary back in the day

tldr it could use some polish but it wasnt that bad

tho everything people said about moose being boring was unfortunately a little true. sorry king i tried to be interested in you

joe and nicky writing verbal fanfiction about nile and moose was iconic. 'you seeing that?' 'i am definitely seeing that'

it was also extremely funny bc that was like 60% of their contribution to the whole comic, besides kidnapping copley. they came, they wrote some fanfic, they left. kings. at least in tog1 they had an excuse to be useless bc they got kidnapped

joe just found out his old friend who he thought was dead is alive (and also probably wants to murder them) and instead of investigating with andy he stopped to help nile up. champ.

nicky shooting noriko through andy was cool. rip to the concept since it wont happen in tog2

wanna see mr ejiofor deliver this line

on that note imo copley was. weirdly enough, more interesting in fm than in tog1. to me at least. the fact that andy let him live and he was so haunted by what had happened that he came back and sought them out despite knowing they would likely kill him for it bc he wanted to not only make up for what hed done but also to tell them what theyd done for the world was admittedly more interesting than andy just kind of drafting him to the cause and him going 'okie'

i like how nicky was drawn in this one. in opening fire he looks like a blob man but in fm he looks more like a very nice grampa with a very good dye job

'theres no pain like a broken heart' andy 🥺

noriko implying andy's never drowned. .. .idk about that one, she musta drowned sometime

joe and nicky came, they waxed poetic about nile's love life, they waxed poetic about grog, and then they left.

sports bras being a reason humanity is good. i mean..... okay, yeah.

i mean. wild but you cant exactly tell her shes wrong

i liked how noriko telling andy that their purpose is to make people suffer coincides with joe and nicky finding out that they actually did good all those years

joenicky in opening fire: jail for booker jail for booker for 100 years

joenicky when copley tells them he knows where booker is: WE'LL KILL YOU WHERE IS HE

joenicky when copley comes back: if your vibes come off as even remotely rancid we Will destroy you

joenicky 2 minutes later when copley helped them find booker: he made up some ground :)))) <3 lov you j cops

theyre forgiving af

moose: how old are you?? a hundred??? a thousand???

nile [vine voice]: I M 2 7 ?

alright andy you got me there

joe texts like my aunt

i dont know why noriko drowning andy in that car tickled me. Bad And Naughty Andromaches Get Put In The Pear Wiggler To Atone For Their Crimes.

the drowning sequence was cool

copley trying to talk to andy while she was like o_o at him was great

ive hit the picture limit but id seen that panel where nicky goes 'forgive me' as he kills a guy out of context and it was HILARIOUSLY anticlimactic for me to discover that there was literally no context to it. nicky just apologizes to random people he kills. i thought that guy was someone he knew or something. nope its just Some Guy that nicky didnt know from adam

nile's complaint that andy was especially brutal to the guys on the boat... i mean. . , how exactly does one kill a man with an axe and not be brutal about it?

it was funny how noriko kissed andy and the only people who seemed surprised by that were nile and also andy

nicky and joe's complete non-reaction to finding out noriko is alive And Evil Now is endlesly funny. they just left her on that boat and neither cared. i get book and nile not caring but joe and nicky knew her, and they just have 0 input on the subject of what to do with her

pinstripe suit guy!

joe and nicky and booker packing up and leaving with nile

andy blowing up at nile was A Moment tho

i dont know, i get why people didnt like the ending but its. .. . it makes more sense in the comicverse. bc the squad doesnt really. .. interact outside of jobs? i mean, think of the moon landing story in ttt. that was booker and joe and nicky doing a job and andy only showed up a for a couple minutes after it was done. or the brunch in the first issue of opening fire. the squad arent as tight in the comic, and andy often seems to do her own thing outside of work, so andy saying 'i dont want to do work anymore' and the squad being like 'alright bye then' makes more sense in this universe than the movie one

also i feel like greg was Trying to set up a thing where nile becomes the Leader of The Squad after andy dies but like. its not very well done since. . . i mean, nile hasnt spoken to booker since opening fire, (and she only knew him A Day). and shes known joe and nicky all that time, but there isnt really anything that indicates that they have any relationship at all, much less one that's grown. in all the comicverse the only time nile and nicky speak is in FM, and in that scene nicky tells nile about noriko. nile goes from someone who needs to be set aside to have background knowledge explained to her to being the Leader of the group with nothing in between. it kind of... comes out of nowhere.

on the other hand tho... i felt really bad for andy thru the whole thing. well, i always felt bad for andy, but in this one she seemed so miserable, especially since it really felt like none of the others actually.... cared about her. when noriko came back no one asked andy how she was doing (big question ik, but it wouldve showed they cared at least), nobody ever expressed any concern for her, no one even really seemed to want to be around her. in opening fire everyone was more distant than in the movie of course, but there were little moments where she would joke with joe, or nicky would try and comfort her, or stuff like that, but in FM it really felt like they just didnt really care about her. & in opening fire it felt a lot like andy's relationship with nile breathed some new life into her, but in FM it felt like all they did was argue. i get theyre not *as* close in the comics but it really felt like the only person who cared about andy at all was noriko (which was probably also how andy felt) but it just seemed to come out of nowhere. honestly i was reading and i was honestly agreeing with andy that she might just be better off if she did just die. opening fire, on the other hand, never make me feel that way

tho everyone made it sound like when the squad split up it was one of those cursed 'the found family leaves each other at the end of the journey' tropes. but guys i mean,,, this is the second installment out of three. that isnt the End. theyll come back in the third one and Dramatically Reunite to fight some baddies (probably those 'others' noriko mentioned). im guessing yitzhak fits into that too somehow.

anyways it wasnt That Bad but it made me kind of sad and the only Sweet Found Family vibes in it were when they saved booker. also they shouldve beefed up that nilemoose romance, it underwhelmed me. 6.5/10

i also ABSOLUTELY understand all of greg's comments about how you couldnt make FM directly into a movie, he always said that it had no plot and. i get it now. it really didnt have a plot sdfghjkl

[sparkys-ec-corner]

Can you lease enlighten me as to why you ship Amomiche and why you love Amostia so much? Since Amostia is given very little screen time if you will and barely characterized at all it's difficult for me to see why you ship them so much and why you love Amostia so much. Or is it partially because your a hardcore Len x Miku shipper? You can ship whatever you want ofc I just am curious as to what led you to ship it and stuff. Plus I'm more of a Gumi x Gammon shipper (#NemesisxNyozeForLIFE!!!) who barely ships Miku or Len or Rin with anybody and when I do ship them it's more often Miku x Rin (I'm trash for girlxgirl ok) sooo. And yes that goes for in Evillious as well I barely ship any of the Mikus with anybody (minus Michaela x Clarith) and same goes for any of the Lens. So oof

dw!! i understand your points and im aware of how unusual it is for me to love a character like amostia and ship something so unexpected like amomiche (i already apologize since this is long,,, oops,,,)

i would be lying if i said that the fact im a diehard lenmiku shipper didnt affect my decision in bringing amomiche into existence, but it's mostly due to this specific extensive au that serves as amostia's characterization arc and the hcs involving both amostia and michelle.

as for why i love amostia, it's because i thought he was a character with a lot of potential that was shoved to the side as a simple plot device + i was incredibly salty over why amostia is the only irregular who doesnt appear in motheavenly novel at all. since ma was given some characterization that culminated in her "i'm going to destroy the universe to confirm my existence" goal at the end of the novel, i wondered, "what about the Punishment boy? doesnt he get a chance to appear since he's an irregular too? where is he?"

heck, even irregular in scap short story gets a personality, however extremely barebones and single-minded it is, and he's called a boy without an ego since he died right after being born. despite this, he still had the desire of meet his mother.

around 2018, i began writing what would be amostia's backstory because i thought he deserved one. he deserved a personality. he deserved to be cared about. i was ready from the start to be that one weirdo who likes an obscure character no one cares about (i never finished that fic, btw. my hcs changed overtime and my prose back then was kinda ew, so i deleted it)

i never intended to love him as much as i do now. i just wanted to give him a personality and a backstory, but the more i thought about what might had happened to him in lunaca labora and during his time as Punishment the weapon and what would be his personality, the more i wished him to be seen as a person rather than "the weapon nemesis used to blow up the world".

i joined an ec discord server for no other reason but to find other fans, and rather hesitantly shared my hcs of him and fanart in the channels. as i said before, i knew it was weird for me to be attached to a character no one cared about, but i nevertheless persisted on.

before i knew, i was changing everybody's perception of amostia, turning him from a simple plot device into an actual character to the eyes of the fandom.

to be honest, i still do not believe how much everything has changed all thanks to me, only because i cared enough to share what i thought of him. i didnt... expect my hcs to be received so warmly. i made him starkly different from your typical ec len — he's angry, explosive and rude; nothing like the dimwitted and enthusiastically chaotic hansel, much less like the loyal and stoic allen — but maybe the fact he was so different was why people liked him so much. he's like a bright red dot on a canvas of soft colors. im really happy that people liked and accepted my hcs, even after Outlaw & Lychgate was published.

as for amomiche, here's where the extensive au comes in — before Outlaw & Lychgate was published, i had a thought that amostia wandered around the dead world before being found by meta and pretty much adopted by her. this characterization arc of his is meant to be a "coming to age" type of story, exploring his past and making him learn how to be a better person — an actual person with dreams and purpose instead of a weapon merely to be used by others.

initially, i intended michelle to be amostia's friend since they both have a link through nemesis. they would kinda bond through that since michelle wanted to know a bit about nemesis despite amostia himself not knowing much, after amostia finding michelle lost in a snowy night and bringing her back home.

one time, i received a m/a ask in amostia askblog about "len" and "miku" being a couple for some asks. since michelle was the closest "miku" to amostia, i obviously were to bring her in. tbh i was already slightly struggling with keeping them as friends since i found them to be really sweet together and my dumb lenmiku ass bothering tf outta me, and that m/a broke me definitely. i gave in. (although i took a time to answer the m/a itself, admittedly. by the time i answered it, i was already doodling some amomiche stuff)

again, i was ready to be seen as weird, to be the only person in the entire fandom to ship them together. i never hid the fact it is a crackship. i knew i would possibly be cast out as lenmiku trash for it. regardless, i kept doodling them and talking about them simply because i liked them (hell, they stay as friends for a long time in the au before romantic feelings blossom. sue me for liking friends-to-lovers trope with a self-improvement undertone)

and then, my surprise when it was accepted by the fandom despite its status as crackship. gosh, even people who arent into evillious had doodled amomiche!! someone who was into ec actually thought it was canon!! and was saddened to discover that it wasnt because they thought it was really sweet!! and they didnt even ship lenmiku normally!! i swear this still makes me die inside, seriously 😂

so you can say it's a combination of everything that eventually brought amomiche into existence, including my own love for amostia. i dont blame anyone for being confused with it since amostia as a character is so underdeveloped in canon and amomiche is a crackship. it's okay, really. im just vibing here. im not here looking for validation for them nor am i hoping for official crumbs.

all of this is self-indulgent, simply because i want amostia to be more popular, even if slightly. amostia will never become as popular as hansel or allen, im aware, but as long as someone appreciates him as a person, then i think my job is done here. all i want is people to appreciate him. if someone comes to like amomiche too, then it also makes me extremely happy! if someone likes amostia but not amomiche, that's fine too! i don't mind different hcs. if one respects my own, then i respect theirs.

so. yeah. it might not make sense to some people, but that's basically it. i am but a humble artist doodling stuff for a character who she wants to give the happiness and the characterization he didnt get in canon. if someone likes them, then im happy!! 💖

[terriblygrimm]

ohmygod finally someone who shares my views. my sister and I loved fatws for what they did w sam’s character but aside from that the writing was very bad. we really could not understand wtf was bucky’s purpose to the main plot and what new side of bucky did we see. when the action wasnt happening he kept whining about steve and being rude to sam and then marvel thrust sambucky onto us and basically told us to move onto this Brand New Duo. sam and bucky were not on equal footing here and their personal struggles did not hold equal weight at all (i will give credits to anthony and seb here for making their friendship look believable) mcu keeps sidelining bucky and i thought they would do him some justice in this show but they didnt. after reading the articles and interviews post the show it was evident the writers did not understand bucky’s character at all. his whole character development was moving on from steve and now becoming sam’s sidekick? (also im really hoping and praying these writers dont go through with sarahbucky in the future because…no..absolutely not). and i do hope that what you said about a future steve bucky reunion comes true because so far mcu has been very hellbent on erasing their friendship and its just pathetic that they try to undermine their friendship so much, while weirdly enough also emphasizing that yes it has deep emotional value.

yeah like, i’m gonna try to make this as succinct and short (lol) as i possibly can without going off on tangents but tf.atws should’ve been SAM’S show. sam alone. he should’ve been the only title character, and they could’ve properly focused on his arc and the sociopolitical weight of it. that is MORE than enough content to fill up 6 hours. i absolutely love cap!sam and i think he’s gonna be a great captain america. i’m very much looking forward to his future.

but virtually everything else about this show from conception to film was a miss.

the flag smashers? (really marvel? your military propaganda perked its ugly ass head with this one. within the first five minutes of the show they were condemning ppl who believed in a world without borders lmfao. i legit almost stopped watching right then i’m not kidding) and the storyline itself wasn’t even coherent. they had WAY too many characters and arcs to focus on and it just.. didn’t work. didn’t do any one of them justice. not even their title characters - especially their title characers. the whole thing felt very hollow and emotionally remiss. the barely existent dialogue was clunky and awkward, and i’m sorry but.. to me, sam and bucky do not organically get along lol. the chemistry between the actors is undeniable which is why so many ppl ate it up, (and do i think they could eventually get along? yes) but the buddybuddy thing was pretty forced imo. very sudden and based on very little. 

their stories were at odds, with not one common goal between them all the way to the end. they fought for screen time and it caused both of their stories to suffer and not carry the weight they should have. they both had VERY heavy content to work with (a black captain america / a trauma/abuse/pow survivor) but somehow marvel - in true marvel fashion - did not commit to either and tried to tread lightly on both. 

bucky and sam only had the thin thread of steve woven between them & even that was done poorly because the writers themselves admittedly weren’t told what happened to steve, therefore they couldn’t write a definitive arc about it. and instead of actually committing to the deep bond between he and bucky, they took the no homo route and had bucky express anger over who holds property of the shield, rather than admitting it was steve himself that he emotionally and physically missed. but again, they couldn’t really do that, could they? they didn’t know if steve was alive or if bucky knew of his whereabouts. 

i’ll admit i did enjoy the peripheral concept of bucky helping steve pass along the shield, like he was its watcher, making sure steve’s legacy fell in good hands, and was there to basically coach sam along the way. in THAT regard alone, it did feel like he and steve were still a team post-endgame. that, on top of saying that he and steve discussed the future of the shield together was a sweet touch. loved that, but it was executed poorly like everything else.

& his winter soldier arc... lordy, was that handled horribly. bucky is a charming, gentle, burdened, lover-not-a-fighter (since the 40s) victim and they turned him macho, carrying the burden of his abusers and guilted into making amends? and that his problems were his fault because he couldn’t trust people? say what now? bucky is a pissed off, good-hearted war vet with a LOT of baggage- he’s not just some dude. the effort to butch up and patch up bucky in a quick fix was apparent, from the short hair, to the list of names, to the “man up” approach everybody came at him with, to the really out of place heterosexual flirting. i mean honest to god who the has time to flirt? apparently bucky! none of the other characters even passed a sideways glance to another during the entire series aside from the one character who audiences have been vocal about being queer for 10 years. hmmm.... (and then the writers actually CAME OUT & MADE A POINT TO SAY that they did not intend for his bisexuality lmfao i mean please dear god put us out of this misery. that writer/director need to stop talking because nobody cares about their personal opinions or headcanons. media is for the viewer to interpret so please shut up.)

overall the actors did what they could w that script, that much was obvious- and they certainly tried to stay as true to their visions/versions of the characters as they could but it just didn’t end up matching up.

but yeah, on a lighter note, i sincerely don’t think they’ll continue bucky in sam’s sphere. i think that was a one off. i don’t think they actually wanted to sell them as a “new partnership” but they just didn’t know how to write the dynamic properly. i think tf.atws was just a sad, sad attempt to place them somewhere post-endgame so they can continue on in bigger marvel films. sam’s got his cap4 and his new team (torres, sharon, walker), and i think i read he’s gonna make an appearance in black panther? which will be sooooo awesome!! 

and bucky? his ending was very open, what with him miraculously “feeling better” yet not quite the white wolf, and not permanent in any place. and on top of that, he was instructed to stay away from wakanda so he can’t make future appearances there, so methinks he and steve will cross paths again as nomad and white wolf for sure (once it’s revealed what steve’s been doing, etc). maybe in space?

the power that holds anon.... i get so excited even thinking about it.

[gunnerpalace]

Hi! Same anon as the previous one. Tbh, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Y'see I do ask rhetorically,too but i could really accept and understand how and why ppl can be oblivious to IchiRuki, and somehow felt that the 'canon' should suffice, even the most excruciating of all is the fact a number found the ending even acceptable (ships aside, too). Again, I could respect that. But it's my greatest bane when ppl ask 'why' and not be clear they are asking rhetorically because I literally will

provide you an actual answer. And I get it, it’s the reason why ppl find shipping wars toxic and silly. But then again, as human, conflicts are always part of us (partly because as social psych explains so, we are gravitated to the negative for that allows us to change and survive), and the reason why “logical fallacies” are coined in the first place. Human will always debate, and argue about something; the only thing we could change is how we approach the opposing views.

Again, I dont condone any way, shape or form of abuse and harm. In some certain extent, I could perhaps understand it’s much harder for some IH to approach the actual argument being there’s either too much noise, and trapped in their own island between sea of salt. Thus becoming too acquianted w/ few IH who shared the same thought until it became their views as the only truth (see, that’s why its important to have debates! it is what keep us grounded and fair! Just like you said)

Who am I to speak though? I never ever challenged anyone anyways. And as you said, you just have to understand things in every way you could possibly think of–endless ‘whys’. Which is where I agree in your reply the most–this silly fandom wars is just the black mirror to every truth that lies beneath human psyche–the dark and the grimy. Heck, being a psych major is like staring at dark hole–at times, good, but most just plain confusing, revolting even or just heartbreaking.

Sorry it’s been long, but for the final of this ask: let me tell how glad I was with IchiRuki fandom I found in tumblr. It was the saltiest I’ve ever been (im not generally a fandom person anyways) but it’s the himalayan salt–expensive and actually nutritive it really deepened my desire to become wiser in general. And you for your wonderful essays, critiques and whatnot. I definitively would love to talk with you more not only about IchiRuki but the wonders and nightmare that us humans! Kudos!

I have sitting in my drafts a post spelling out my thoughts on “canon” (and thus, the people who cling to it) in that as a concept it privileges:

officiality over quality when it comes to validity (thus violating Sturgeon’s law)

corporations (intellectual property rights holders) over fans, and thus capitalists over proletarians

hierarchical dominance over mutualist networking within fandom

curative fandom over transformative fandom

genre over literary content

plot over characters

events over emotions

It is notable that (1) generally degrades art as a whole, (2) generally advances the capitalist agenda, and (3–7) generally advances the dominance of men over women (as the genders tend to be instructed by society to view these as A. dichotomies rather than spectrums, and B. to ascribe gender to them and make them polarities). These form the sides of a mutually reinforcing power structure (in the typical “Iron Triangle” fashion) designed to preserve and maintain the status quo.

Who really benefits from say, the policing of what is or is not “canon” in Star Wars? Disney, first and foremost. And then whomever (almost certainly male) decides to dedicate their time to memorizing the minutiae of whatever that corporation has decided is “legitimate.”

One can imagine a universe in which fan fic is recognized by companies for what it is: free advertising. (Much like fan art already is.) Instead, it is specifically targeted by demonetization efforts in a way that fan art isn’t. Why? Because it demonstrates that corporate control and “official” sanction has no bearing on quality, and it is thus viewed as undermining the official products.

In the same way, by demonstrating that most “canonical” works are frankly shit, it undermines the investiture of fans in focusing on details that are ultimately errata (the events, the plot, the genre), which is the core function of curative fandom and the reason for its hierarchical structure. The people who “know the most” are at the top, but what they “know” is basically useless garbage. And those people so-engaged are, of course, usually male.

To “destroy” the basis of their credibility, and indeed the very purpose of their community, is naturally viewed by them as an attack.

(This is not to say that efforts to tear down internal consistency within established cultural properties are good unto themselves, or even desirable. For example, efforts to redefine properties such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Ghostbusters, for the sake of a identity-politics agenda have largely A. failed as art, B. failed as entertainment, C. failed to attract the supposedly intended audience, and D. failed to advance the agenda in question. Trying to repurpose extant media in the name of culture wars is essentially always doomed to failure unless it is done deftly and gradually.)

(At the same time, this also shows what I was talking about last time, with regard to people seeing whatever they want to see. You will see people complain that Star Trek and Doctor Who didn’t “used to be so political,” which is obviously nonsense. These shows were always political. What changed was how their politics were presented. For example, Star Trek has, since TNG, always shown a nominally socialist or outright communist future, but was beloved by plenty of conservatives because they could [somehow] ignore that aspect of it.)

Of course, almost no one is seriously suggesting that one side of the spectrums outlined above be destroyed, rather merely that a new balance be struck upon the spectrum. But, as we have seen time and again in society, any threat to the status quo, whether that be 20% of Hugo Awards going to non-white male authors or the top income tax rate in America being increased by a measly 5.3% (from 28.7% to 34%… when the all-time high was 94% and for over 50 years it was above 50%) is a threat. This is why, for example, Republicans are out there branding AOC as a “socialist” when her policies are really no different at all from a 1960 Democrat who believed in FDR’s New Deal. (Which they, of course, have also demonized as “socialism.”)

(As an aside, all this ignores the fact that most of the “literary canon” of Western civilization, or at least English literature… is Biblical or historical fan fic.)

And this is when I finally get to my point.

Those people out there who denigrate and mock shippers and shipping, the people who hurl “it reads like fan fiction” as an insult, and so on, are the people who benefit from and enjoy the extant power structure. You will see the same thing with self-identified “gamers” complaining about “fake girl gamers.” Admitting that the hobby has a lot of women in it, and a lot of “casuals,” and is indeed increasingly dominated by “non-traditional demographics” is an affront to the constructed identity of being a “gamer.” They are “losing control.” And they don’t like it.

This exact same sort of population is what the “fanbase” of Bleach has been largely reduced down to through a slow boiling off of any actual quality. Of course they’re dismissive of people who are looking for anything of substance: their identity, their “personal relationship” with the franchise, is founded on a superficial appreciation of it: things happening, flashy attacks, eye-catching character designs, fights, etc.

(What this really boils down to, at heart, is that society at large has generally told men that emotions are bad, romance and relationships of all kinds are gross, and that thinking and reflecting on things is stupid. So of course they not only don’t care about such things, but actively sneer at them as “girly” or “feminine,” which is again defined by society at large as strictly inferior. And this gender divide and misogyny is of course promulgated and reinforced by the powers that be, the capitalists, to facilitate class divisions just like say racism generally is.)

(The latest trick of these corporate overlords has been the weaponization of “woke” culture to continue to play the people off one another all the time. “If you don’t like this [poorly written, dimensionless Mary Sue] Strong Female Character, then you are a racist misogynist!” They are always only ever playing both sides for profit, not advancing an actual ideological position. It is worth noting that there was a push by IH some years ago to define IR as “anti-feminist” for critiquing Orihime for essentially the exact same reasons [admittedly, not for profit, but still as critical cover].)

Which makes it very curious, therefore, that the most ardent IH supporters tend to be women. (Though there are more than a few men, they seem to tend to support it because it is “canon” and to attack it is to attack “canon” and thus trigger all of the above, rather than out of any real investment.) I think there are a number of reasons for this (which I have detailed before) and at any rate it is not particularly surprising; 53% of white women voted for Trump, after all.

What we are really seeing in fandom, are again the exact same dynamics that we see at larger and larger scales, for the exact same reasons. The stakes are smaller, but the perception of the power struggle is exactly the same.

Of course, the people who are involved in these things rarely think to interrogate themselves as to the true dimensions and root causes of their motivations. People rarely do that in general.

Putting all that aside, I’m glad that you have found a place you enjoy and feel comfortable, and thank you for the kind words, although I am not of the opinion that there is anything poignant about the non-fiction I write. It is, as I keep trying to emphasize, all there to be seen. One just has to open their eyes. So, it’s hard for me to accept appreciation of it.

Anyway, don’t feel shy about coming off of anon rather than continuing to send asks. We don’t really bite.

[jewpacabruhs]

bruv im still jus. wow. theres so much to say but. do u kno how good it feels... to be jewish, to accidentally fixate on one eric cartman & love him more than any other fictional character for almost seven years now, and then to see him in a little yarmulke, standing at kyle's side while he recites from the torah? do you know how validating that is?

i gotta get personal for a second here. idk how, but in the last few yrs my relationship with my own jewishness has been deeply influenced and intertwined with south park, as ironic and ridiculous as that sounds. i grew up secular, completely nonpracticing; as a child, i was only ethnically jewish, and saw jews as strictly an ethnicity, and a popularly hated one to boot. and it scared me. ive talked about it before, but as a child hearing about the shoah and about antisemitism, i couldn't understand. i thought it was looks for a while, which confused me, because ive got blonde hair and blue eyes and all my family that got caught up in nazi europe did/do too. i remember thinking as a second grader that i would've been spared for that reason; why didn't a good chunk of my family? but i grew up in a mormon neighborhood, with plenty of other blonde kids, and they stayed away from me like i had a disease. this was before puberty, before my hair got a little frizzier and my nose got a little bigger, when i looked just like any of them. but already, at age 8, i was an outsider. i wasn't one of them and i never would be, and they wanted me to know that.

and then i started to get it. it clicked even more once i got to high school and got called a kike every other day - but prior to high school, you know what i found, and you know what really pushed me towards understanding what being a secular jew in america meant? south park. and as a dumb little sixth grader with no critical thinking skills, you know what shaped my opinions on my own people? south park.

and that's good and bad. good because i do sincerely think kyle broflovski is excellent fictional representation for jewish people, maybe one of the top few ever shown on television. he gets on my nerves at times, but he's good through and through, he's well written and multi-dimensional, he's not a walking stereotype but he still has prominent jewish features that jewish viewers can look at and see in themselves, his morals and viewpoints and beliefs are obviously deeply influenced by judaism, hes deeply proud of his heritage and culture... and that all means a lot to me. and by the amount of jewish sp fans that adore kyle, it means a lot to them too.

the bad thing is, yeah, i can't deny it, during older seasons, cartman's treatment of kyle probably taught a lot of young and dumb viewers how to view jews in real life. have i, as a kyman shipper and cartman stan, justified that within a fictional and narrative context? yes. but it doesn't change the real-world effect; south park, but specifically cartman, since he's the mouthpiece, likely did cause some easily-influenced people to pick up antisemitic beliefs. did this contribute to the rise of the alt-right? debatable, but to some extent, possibly. was that m&t's intention and should south park be canceled and denounced? fuck no, i'll always love it lol, and fuck censorship. but it is something that should be taken into account.

matt and trey clearly regret that, and understand that it's no longer acceptable or fitting or needed in today's sociopolitical climate - or, okay, maybe they don't even regret it; they just understand that when fiction becomes reality, the fictional jackass isn't necessary when there's one right there in real life, sitting in the oval office, yeah? old cartman doesn't deserve or need a voice, not when real, awful people actually have one right now. and m&t are actively trying to change cartman for the better and really, really backpedal on his bigotry, while still doing it in a way that makes sense from a story-telling perspective. it's not a complete uncharacteristic change of character; it's shifting with the times and writing it into the character's arc so that it's a logical and plausible development in cartman's story.

cartman's behavior in the last few seasons is consistent character development. m&t themselves are pushing it, and clearly it's sincere; cartman's not faking. unless they're building up a surprise twist over the last, what, three to four seasons, that he was faking the whole time! woah! if so it better be a damn good pay off, because that's a lot of time invested. though that seems more forward-thinking than sp tends to be. they're intentionally stuck in the short-term, aren't they? plot-wise. but their character development is pretty long-term, and right now, cartman is consistently decent, and if it comes across as faking, it's because cartman's over-dramatic in how he speaks, and trey does that intentionally.

that's a tonal thing, and it's hard to say in a fictional character, but as someone who struggles with empathy myself, empathy and sincerity don't go hand in hand. you can lack empathy while still caring enough to sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize for something and mean that apology. not feeling remorse doesn't mean you can't apologize genuinely; the two don't go hand in hand. you can be mentally ill in any capacity, even a psychopath, and still deeply care about things or people, just not in the way someone else might. so you can headcanon that cartman's still a psycho/sociopath, though right now that's actually kinda going against canon, but don't rain on other's parades if they're happy he's exhibiting healthy growth. besides, and i repeat: what could cartman exploit out of faking sincerity for several seasons? nothing, so why bother? he wouldn't, unless it's literal in-show subconscious growth.

does that mean he's magically developed empathy? no. is it becoming less probable he's a legitimate sociopath/psychopath (while still possibly having better-disguised antisocial tendencies)? yes. does he seem to have better coping or anger management skills? somehow, yes! he seems to be legitimately healthier. does this mean he's no longer accountable for his past misdeeds, and even his present, less-severe ones? of course not! and you can still hate him all you want, but modern cartman is not the same as older cartman, and shouldn't be treated as such. because is this growth? absolutely.

he's clearly healthier, even happier. he's less angry, he's still a little shit but he no longer relies on bigotry or cruelty or anger to get the negative attention he thrives off, rather he gravitates towards being simply annoying. you know why he called ice? pettiness, immaturity, a little bit of spite, and a need for silly revenge. he's being intentionally petty, but going about it in a sly but no longer psychopathic way. less hannibal lector and more, idk, regina george, lol. extremely different on the antagonist scale. and cartman's been both.

and maybe it's personal bias on what type of human is worse within fiction, someone unstable and bizarre with violent tendencies (which is how he's come to be viewed in pop culture & some of the fandom, as a result of eps like scott tenorman must die), versus someone inclined towards pettiness and more silent and, i dunno, social-status-and-pride-driven types of revenge (cartman in general when he's not being particularly awful, tbh)... but i think it'd be pretty universally agreed that the latter is at the very least more tolerable, manageable, and even likeable - and certainly more redeemable. let's put it this way; if cartman continued on the path he was on, he'd be one of those tiki holding fucks, wearing a confederate flag hat, and he'd treat kyle soooo much worse. instead, m&t have turned him into a hypocritical false-woke ignorant dumbass - but that's strongly less problematique than it's counterpart, and it works.

because cartman simply serves a different narrative purpose now. and that's not sloppy writing; it's well-timed evolution of a character that stepped into a pre-9/11, pre-trump, pre-social media world! so much has changed, and south park is reflecting that in its characters, most notably in a character who was stuck in the, what, 1960s with his beliefs? that was fine way back when, but matt&trey are smart dudes - they understand that sometimes things have to change. besides, they love cartman, too. he's their favorite. but they understand that when real people act like him, it's not so comedic or satirical or funny, & they don't want to look at cartman, at their creation who they've invested twenty-two years in, and see the all-too-real hate of modern radical white america.

i think we know enough about matt&trey's social stances these days, and the empathy they've seemed to develop after having kids, to understand that they're no longer in their "apathy is best, everyone is stupid" phase. current south park is left-leaning and admittedly preachy at times, but i wouldn't want it any other way. g-d knows it's better this way than if they'd embraced and decided to appeal to their right-libertarian following instead. cartman's evolved in a progressive and positive way, and it's fucking dope, especially to us cartman stans who so badly want him to be good. and he is good right! he's doing so good!

and i know im up my own ass rn but yall know how much i myself have campaigned for jewish kyman/cartman and how much i just deeply and truly adore it, and to see it actualized in a canon episode to some extent? that meant the world to me. i couldn't believe my eyes. i was tellin lai - that's the most genuine, pure, almost violent happiness ive felt in my soul in years. that was like a straight shot of serotonin to the heart. that simple little scene made me so fucken happy yall dont even know. & theres a lot to be said about the political commentary and plenty of other people are analyzing that, but im a simple jewish kyman & cartman stan and boy ive been fed good fjskfkdkdkfk!!!